What is a Lens?

Lens Protocol is a social media infrastructure built on the Polygon blockchain, developed by Stani Kulechov, the founder of the renowned lending company AAVE. Its primary aim is to create a flexible, composable, and decentralized social media foundation for users, offering a social network in the Web 3 world.

The social media platforms we commonly use, such as Twitter, Weibo, and Facebook, are part of the Web 2 era. These platforms have separate databases and servers, meaning user information and data cannot be transferred across multiple platforms. The user data on these social media platforms are considered commercial data owned by the platforms. However, when using Lens Protocol, users have control over their data, rather than the platforms controlling it.

What is Phaver?

Phaver is a decentralized social application based on Lens Protocol, categorized as a Social-Fi. It supports decentralized social graphs and is available for both iOS and Android systems, allowing users to create free accounts using email addresses or through familiar third-party applications like Google, Facebook, Apple, etc. It supports Lens Protocol backed by Aave, CyberConnect, and various other assets across multiple blockchains.

Traditional social platforms generate substantial profits from their users but do not give users control over their accounts, which can be banned or restricted at any time. Phaver addresses this issue by giving users control over their content, a core mechanism of the platform. Every day, users can choose at least five posts they like on Phaver. If they select genuinely popular, high-quality content, they are rewarded for identifying this quality content.

Similar to traditional airlines and hotels, Phaver has different membership levels. There are four membership levels in Phaver, each offering varying rewards and benefits. These levels are determined by the Phaver Cred score, which operates on a 30-day cycle. Additionally, Phaver introduces a unique Share-To-Earn model that provides a profit model for personal data in the Web3 era.

Source: phaver.com

Background of the Phaver Project

Phaver was established in 2019 with a team of 26 members. The founding team consists of individuals from top-tier companies such as Google, Goldman Sachs, and Alibaba. Key members include CEO and co-founder Joonatan, a former Google employee and the 7th employee at Smartly.io (GlobalSalesLead). Tomi, serving as the co-founder and CFO, has experience at Alibaba’s venture capital, Goldman Sachs, and BCG, and has been an advisor for multiple Finnish crypto projects. Tom, the CIO, is also the founder of Coinmotion, Finland’s largest Web3 payment service provider.

In October 2023, Phaver completed a $7 million seed round funding, with investments from top institutions like Polygon Ventures, Nomad Capital, Symbolic Capital Partners, Foresight Ventures, dao5, f.actor, Superhero Capital, Alphanonce, and others. The current valuation is approximately $80 million. The funds raised are intended for expanding the team and for product development, as well as fostering other partnership relationships.

Source: Phaver Website

The Relationship Between Phaver and Lens Protocol

Phaver is the first and largest ecological application of the Lens Protocol. The Phaver app has exceeded 250,000 downloads, with over 70% of the content on the Lens ecosystem being published through Phaver. As an early project in Web3 social networking, Phaver aims to bridge the gap between Web2 and Web3. It rewards users with off-chain points for their constructive contributions to the platform. These points can later be exchanged for tokens.

According to data from the Dune dashboard, the total number of posts, follows, favorites, and comments made by Phaver users accounts for approximately 30%, 14%, 5%, and 9% of Lens Protocol’s total, respectively. Moreover, Phaver’s monthly active users constitute over 40% of the total active users in the Lens ecosystem, securing a dominant position.

Source: Dune Dashboard

Key Features of Phaver

Integration with the Lens Protocol

Phaver is the largest ecological application of the Lens Protocol, fully utilizing the features and security of the Lens Protocol. It allows users to create on-chain backups of social media profiles and supports interoperability across different platforms. Joonatan, the founder of Phaver, has expressed plans to integrate more protocols, actively developing a multi-protocol coexistence ecosystem. This means that regardless of how impressive the Lens is, Phaver will support a variety of protocols in the future.

For users, this translates to an enhanced experience. People use different platforms like Twitter and Facebook to post content, usually needing to switch between multiple apps to access content across these platforms. Phaver addresses this challenge by offering an application that allows users to easily and conveniently access all content posted by their friends across various protocols and platforms, even without having specific protocol whitelisted.

Content Sharing

Users on Phaver can share a variety of content types, including text, images, links (such as Twitter posts or blogs), and products. The unique share-to-earn model provides a profit model for users, allowing them to directly post their content on Lens via Phaver and earn tokens as rewards for sharing quality content.

To promote high-quality content production, Phaver will feature select advanced topics. Posting in these advanced topics requires payment in points, but users can also earn multiplier rewards when others stake in their content. In the future, users will be able to stake their tokens on their posts to increase visibility. One of Phaver’s core functions is the content staking filtering mechanism. Faced with the challenge of filtering a large amount of content, users have control over content through a voting system to filter out high-quality content. This is combined with algorithmic recommendations to optimize the reading experience. For example, after Phaver verifies a user as genuine and active, if they initiate a request to block a post, Phaver will randomly select several users who can decide whether to support the blockage by paying 1 point or any amount. If a certain number of voters agree to the block, the post will be automatically hidden, and all participating voters will receive rewards, while the initiator will face penalties.

User Token Economy

Phaver offers more than just point incentives. It also supports integration with other Web3 social identities (such as NFT’s Ape community, Clique, and soul-bound tokens launched by Phaver), adopting a new “credit” and “point” scoring system. This system allows users to earn rewards and privileges by upgrading their status on the platform. The higher a user’s reputation, the more points they earn from their posts.

Phaver Tokenomics

As of now, Phaver has not yet issued its tokens, but its latest white paper mentions a token economy model, point system, and airdrop information. Users can earn Phaver points within the app, which will be exchangeable for tokens in the future.

Phaver has explicitly stated that it will allocate 28% of its tokens for user rewards. The total token supply is 10 billion, and a quarterly token-burning mechanism will be initiated in the future based on revenue generated from native tokens or other liquid tokens/fiat currencies.

Allocation proportions:

• 28.0% for community user rewards
• 27.7% for community and ecosystem treasury
• 18.3% for private placement (one-year lock-up period, linear unlocking over three years)
• 18.0% for team allocation (one-year lock-up period, linear unlocking over four years)
• 3.0% for rewarding early users (one-year lock-up period, linear unlocking over three years)
• 3.0% for user airdrops
• 2.0% for partners (one-year lock-up period, linear unlocking over three years)

Source: Phaver White Paper

How to Obtain Phaver Tokens

Currently, Phaver tokens cannot be directly purchased. Users of Phaver at level 2 and above can complete official Phaver tasks and post high-quality content to earn Phaver points, which can be converted into $GOV tokens according to specific rules after the official token issuance.

Ways to earn points:

• By staking on other users’ posts
• By inviting others to register for the App (using one’s username as the invitation code)
• Through other users staking on one’s high-quality content

Content staking is simply using points to “vote” for posts of interest. Each user has 5 points per day to participate in staking. As the posts you stake on become popular, you also receive token rewards. Currently, staking on posts is free, but in the future, it will cost a small amount of Phaver tokens. For advanced topics, users need to spend 50 points to post premium content. For each stake received on such a post, 10 points are earned. If your content is of low quality and no one stakes on your post, you lose these 50 points without any reward.

Phaver Tutorial

Go to the official website and download the Phaver APP. After successful registration, use it like Twitter, with daily interactions including posting, liking, retweeting, following, etc. You have 5 tokens daily to stake on articles you find good, with rewards based on the popularity of the staked post and the timing of your stake.

Source: clarkwang-guidebook.gitbook.io/phavercn

Phaver’s Future Prospects and Roadmap

After its launch in 2022, Phaver has continually expanded its partnerships and enhanced its features and playability. In 2023, Phaver integrated over 150 project partners, completing on-chain backups and storage support for Lens and Cyber​​Connect, and supported Version 2 of the Lens protocol.

According to the official roadmap for 2024, in the first quarter, Phaver will support Binance Smart Chain assets, such as W3STs and SpaceID. Both community management and activities will undergo an upgrade to Version 2.0. In the second quarter, the Phaver Perks portal application plans to unlock whitelist access, airdrops, and other benefits for premium users and certain NFT holders. Additionally, Phaver will launch its first self-serve advertising feature.

Source: Phaver Roadmap

Conclusion

As the trend of integrating cryptocurrencies with the social domain continues to strengthen, social media might become the next sector to experience a significant surge, akin to a flywheel effect. The number of users on global social software platforms is constantly increasing, and the growth of Web3 projects is inseparable from this user expansion. The inherent appeal of social products can significantly attract users.

Following the explosive growth in DeFi, NFTs, blockchain gaming, and inscriptions, there is a reasonable expectation that social media will be the next thriving domain. After integrating with the Lens Protocol and CyberConnect, Phaver has attracted increasing users to build its ecosystem. Looking forward, Phaver is expected to transform into a multi-protocol era, continuously expanding its protocol cooperation scope, and paving the way for even more promising development prospects.