Neynar has transferred the Farcaster app, the protocol’s code repositories and related products to Balaji Srinivasan’s Network School, giving the “network state” project control of the main gateway to Farcaster’s social network after the protocol changed hands twice earlier this year.
The transaction, announced on Oct. 15, places Farcaster’s core user experience under new management less than nine months after Neynar acquired it from Merkle Manufactory. Neynar co-founder Rish said that most of the company’s staff would join the acquiring organization, while he and fellow co-founder Manan would leave.
The transfer underscores a tension that has followed Farcaster since its rapid expansion in 2024: its infrastructure is designed to support independent clients, but usage has remained concentrated around the official app. That concentration has made control of the default interface more consequential than the protocol’s decentralized architecture might imply.
Neynar’s announcement did not specify the destination of Clanker, the AI-assisted token issuance platform included in its January acquisition from Merkle Manufactory. On Aug. 17, Rish said Neynar was seeking a buyer for Farcaster, Clanker and its developer platform.
Network School takes control of the main Farcaster app
Network School is the latest project associated with Srinivasan, the former Coinbase chief technology officer whose “network state” concept proposes internet-native communities that can build institutions, economies and, eventually, territorial presence.
The organization has moved quickly to establish physical operations alongside its online community. It began in Singapore and later pursued expansion in Malaysia. In July, it signed a memorandum with Kazakhstan’s Ministry of AI and Digital Development, then moved its headquarters to Astana. More than 200 people shifted to the alem.ai international AI center, according to Network School.
On Oct. 9, Network School announced a funding round at Network State Conference 2026 that valued the group at $2 billion. Polychain Capital led the round, with a16z and Coinbase participating.
Farcaster gives Network School a ready-made social layer, including an established identity system, social graph and developer ecosystem. The protocol’s Snapchain infrastructure has been promoted as capable of processing more than 10,000 transactions per second with confirmation latency of 780 milliseconds. Those technical capabilities would give the new owner a foundation for building applications beyond a conventional social feed.
The commercial challenge is more immediate. Farcaster’s activity and protocol revenue fell sharply after its 2024 peak, leaving Network School with a product that retains recognizable technology and developer tooling but has lost much of the momentum that followed the launch of Frames.
Revenue collapsed after the 2024 surge
Farcaster raised $150 million in a Series A financing round in 2024 led by Paradigm and a16z crypto, reaching a $1 billion valuation. The introduction of Frames, which allowed interactive applications to run inside social posts, briefly transformed the app into one of crypto’s most active social venues.
Daily active users rose 400% in one week after Frames launched and reached nearly 100,000, according to figures cited by Farcaster supporters at the time. The spike proved difficult to sustain. By 2025, daily active users had fallen 40% from that peak, while new registrations dropped 95%, from roughly 15,000 each day to fewer than 650.
Revenue weakened alongside user activity. Monthly revenue fell from several hundred thousand dollars to about $10,000, according to the figures provided. In May, the official client Warpcast was rebranded as Farcaster, a move that further centered the network’s public identity around the primary app as third-party clients received less visibility.
DefiLlama data tracking protocol income, including revenue associated with Clanker, shows an even steeper decline in 2026. Revenue fell from about $27.88 million in the first quarter to $3.88 million in the second quarter, then dropped to about $246,000 in the third quarter. That represents a decline of roughly 99% from the first-quarter level.
Those numbers give Network School a difficult starting point. The group is not acquiring a social network in a growth phase; it is acquiring the interface and infrastructure of a protocol whose earlier consumer boom has faded. Its ability to retain existing users while changing governance and moderation standards will likely determine whether Farcaster becomes a useful communications layer for the Network School community or loses further relevance.
New membership and moderation rules could reshape participation
Network School has proposed changes that would require users to accept or reject a “social smart contract.” Users who accept would mint an on-chain NFT credential. Those who reject would retain read-only access, while their keys, funds, follow lists and posting history would be moved to other clients.
The design introduces a clearer distinction between reading the network and participating in it. It could give Network School a stronger basis for enforcing community rules, although it also creates friction for users accustomed to Farcaster’s more open social environment.
The proposed content standards draw on Singapore’s public-conduct guidelines and cover hate speech, death threats, fraud, repeated provocation, stalking, harassment and presenting AI-generated content as if it were created by a human. Network School also plans AI-assisted moderation and phased “proof of human” checks intended to limit bot activity.
Such measures may address one of the recurring problems facing crypto-native social networks, where automated accounts, promotional posts and token-related spam can overwhelm ordinary discussion. They also place the app’s moderation decisions more squarely in the hands of its new operator, despite the availability of alternative Farcaster clients.
A decentralized protocol with a centralized entry point
The January sale from Merkle Manufactory to Neynar followed the decision by Farcaster co-founders Dan Romero and Varun Srinivasan to step back from daily operations and focus on a wallet app built on the network. Merkle Manufactory transferred the protocol contracts, repositories, core app and Clanker to Neynar, while saying it would return $180 million in funding in full.
That handover was presented as a way to preserve Farcaster’s technical base while allowing its original team to pursue a different product. The Network School acquisition now shifts the core app again, with most Neynar employees expected to follow the product into the new organization.
Farcaster’s open infrastructure means developers can continue building separate clients and services, and users can in principle move their social data elsewhere. Yet the ownership changes show how much practical influence rests with whoever controls the app where most users read, post and discover content.
Network School now inherits that influence alongside a shrinking revenue base and a community likely to scrutinize its proposed rules. Whether users accept the new social contract, migrate to other clients or disengage altogether will offer an early test of how portable Farcaster’s decentralized social graph is in practice.
Curious how on-chain infrastructure and trading intersect with Farcaster’s evolution? Explore blockchain and Web3 dynamics here for deeper context.
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