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Farcaster acquisition by Neynar sparks heated discussion: founding team exits, supporters optimistic about the handover, critics question "high-valuation cash-out"BlockBeats News, January 22, the decentralized social protocol Farcaster has been acquired by its core infrastructure service provider Neynar, sparking widespread discussion in the crypto community. Farcaster co-founder Dan Romero confirmed that in the coming weeks, the protocol contracts, code repositories, official applications, and the Clanker project will all be handed over to Neynar for operation and maintenance. He himself and some members of the Merkle team will withdraw from daily management to start new projects. Supporters believe that this acquisition is a "handover within the ecosystem." Several developers pointed out that Neynar has long served as Farcaster's de facto backend, supporting a large number of clients and developer tools, with a deep understanding of ecosystem needs. Neynar is seen as the most suitable successor and is expected to bring "new oxygen" and a clearer development direction to Farcaster. However, there are also strong opposing voices. Some comments directly pointed out that Farcaster, with the backing of Paradigm and a16z, raised over $150 million at a $1 billion valuation, but has never validated its PMF or revenue model. Now being acquired by a much smaller company is essentially a "high-valuation exit" for the founding team, raising doubts about the gap between its decentralization narrative and capital operations. Overall, the change of ownership of Farcaster is seen on one hand as an important turning point for decentralized social infrastructure towards a "pragmatic execution" approach, and on the other hand, it has once again ignited the long-standing debate in the market over VC pricing, founder responsibility, and the authenticity of decentralized governance.