Network School, the organization founded by entrepreneur Balaji Srinivasan, has acquired decentralized social network Farcaster from Neynar, placing the protocol and its main app under new leadership for the second time in 2026. The deal introduces a far more restrictive vision for the platform, with users being asked to accept a new onchain conduct agreement or lose full access to the main Farcaster application.
Financial terms were not disclosed. Neynar had taken control of Farcaster only months earlier, acquiring it in January from Merkle Manufactory, the company that originally developed the protocol.
Neynar co-founder Rish said the handover includes the Farcaster app, protocol repositories and related products. Rish and fellow co-founder Manan are departing, while other Neynar employees will move to Network School to continue working on the product.
The transaction gives Srinivasan’s Network School control over a social protocol that was built around portable identities, user-owned social graphs and competing client applications. The early product pitch centered on allowing users to move between apps without losing their followers or posting history. The planned changes suggest that the flagship client will now place participation behind explicit community rules and identity checks.
Farcaster app shifts toward “Network State Protocol”
A notice shown to users inside Farcaster describes the app’s new direction as the “Network State Protocol.” Its stated goal is to help opt-in online groups develop into physical communities, reflecting Srinivasan’s long-standing argument that internet-native communities can eventually coordinate services, territory and institutions outside conventional nation-state structures.
Participation in the new version of the app requires users to accept a “social smart contract,” an agreement that sets posting and conduct rules. Users who accept receive an access NFT, or non-fungible token, that records their consent onchain.
The proposed rules list several categories of behavior that can result in removal from the community. They include hate speech, death threats, scams, repeated attempts to provoke fights, stalking, and presenting AI-generated work as original content.
Users who reject the agreement are expected to retain read-only access to the main application. Their keys, funds, followers and post history are slated to move to a separate client, according to the in-app notice. That approach preserves a degree of portability for users who do not wish to join the new system, while concentrating full participation in a client governed by Network School’s rules.
The app also plans to introduce human-verification requirements gradually. The measure is intended to curb automated accounts, though the details of the verification method and its eventual coverage have not been outlined in the material provided.
Moderation reports raise questions over enforcement
The new rules have drawn immediate scrutiny because users on X reported account bans connected to older posts about Elon Musk, Flock cameras and “gay appreciation.” Some said the posts cited in enforcement actions were at least three months old.
Those account reports and the alleged enforcement actions have not been independently verified. Their circulation nevertheless illustrates the practical challenge Network School faces: turning a social platform with open-protocol roots into a membership-based community without creating uncertainty over who controls the rules, how they are applied, and whether users can appeal decisions.
A smart contract can record a user’s agreement permanently, but it does not resolve the subjective questions involved in moderating speech. Categories such as scams and death threats are relatively clear, while rules against repeatedly starting fights or passing off AI-created material may require more discretionary judgment from moderators.
That distinction could shape the response from Farcaster’s existing users. Onchain identity and content portability may let people leave the main client, but the value of any social application depends heavily on where the active conversations, creators and developers remain.
Ownership changes arrive after Farcaster’s growth cycle
Farcaster became one of the most closely watched decentralized social projects during 2024, helped by the popularity of Frames, an interactive posting format that allowed users to mint tokens, play games, make payments and perform other actions directly from their feeds.
The supplied material says Farcaster reached a peak of 100,000 daily active users around the middle of 2024. It also cites internal app data showing that 4,360 accounts currently hold a “power badge,” a designation associated with established accounts on the network.
Those figures measure different things and should not be treated as a direct before-and-after comparison. Daily activity counts capture usage over a period, while a badge represents a narrower category of account status. They do, though, point to a platform whose highly engaged core may be much smaller than the audience reached during its most visible growth phase.
Neynar’s January acquisition was intended to bring Farcaster’s infrastructure and application development under one company. The latest deal moves that effort into an organization built around a more ideological project: Srinivasan’s concept of network states and digitally coordinated communities.
Clanker’s status remains unclear
Neynar’s purchase of Farcaster from Merkle Manufactory also included Clanker, a token-launching tool that became a major source of activity on the Farcaster ecosystem. Rish’s statement on the Network School transaction did not specify whether Clanker is included in the transfer, will remain with Neynar, or will operate under another arrangement.
The supplied material says Clanker generated more than $50 million in cumulative fees over two years and processed $7.62 billion in total trading volume. Without further detail on the calculation periods, fee recipients or treatment of automated activity, those figures offer only a broad indication of the tool’s past scale. They also show why clarity over Clanker matters: token creation and trading had become a substantial part of Farcaster’s commercial and social activity.
The Network School takeover therefore extends beyond a routine change in ownership. It places Farcaster’s best-known client, its protocol development and its community rules within a model that ties access to verified human participation and recorded acceptance of behavioral standards. Whether users embrace that structure, move to alternative clients, or remain read-only will determine whether Farcaster’s open network continues to support a diverse app ecosystem or becomes centered on a more tightly governed Network School community.
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