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Avara , the ship’s company behindAave , Lens , andFamily , is announcing a $ 31 million backing rhythm conduct byLightspeed Faction . With Lens , Avara is building a decentralized L2 internet that could service as the infrastructure for social and consumer apps .
This support announcement comes a few weeks after Lensunveileda completely modernise version of its protocol , Lens v3 . primitively built on the Polygon blockchain , consumer apps that are using Lens v2 include NFT creation and sharing appZora , Twitter - like platformsHeyandKaira , and subcommunity - focussed appOrb .
Why are crypto developer still adjudicate to create the next big social web ? It come down to decentralization and focalise on users .
Users interacting with a Lens - power app own their identicalness and content . Apps built on top of the Lens web are user interface to interact with the blockchain . The Lens squad even scream these appsclients . If user want to migrate to a new social weapons platform because they ’re infelicitous with some changes , they can just sign in to another Lens - powered app .
Similarly , while consumer societal apps incentivize creators with rewards computer program and subscription systems , the companies behind those societal mesh dictate the rules .
“ I retrieve societal networks are very fiscal as of today , but most of that financial value run short from advertiser to the political platform and very footling for the user , ” Avara beginner Stani Kulechov ( pictured above ) told TechCrunch . In plus to that , he feels like users are “ locked into a specific database . ”
With a decentralised societal app , “ that basically bend the exemplar upside down where the users are more significant , and they have more king than the platform itself , ” Kulechov added . It could potentially lead to more vapourous revenue - sharing contracts with better reward for creators .
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Social primitives
With Lens v3 , the company is take on one of the biggest issuance with web3 social experimentation — the cost of transactions . Writing a post on a web3 platform means signing a transaction on an underlying blockchain . While layer-2 web have contributed to repulse transaction costs down over the past few years , it remain a roadblock to entry for large - scale consumer apps .
“ We launched it on Polygon , but the connection does n’t descale to mainstream usage … where one dealings might cost a fraction of a penny . And that ’s basically why we select a stack where we require to have the benefit of Ethereum . All these transactions that happen on Lens internet , we take them , we package them with ZK proofs and then put these transition into Ethereum , ” Kulechov said .
The Lens connection is now usingZKsyncas the base engineering along with validiums . Unlike Base or Arbitrum , validiums are anoff - chaintransaction proficiency — they make transactions much cheaper .
“ So this allows us to create transactions that are much more affordable than existing rollups . And that creates a fresh intent distance for more consumer applications , ” Kulechov said .
The idea is that interaction with the Lens internet should cost more or less as much as cloud host costs . Developers should be able to absorb those costs for their drug user . “ Our aim here is to say that blockchains should be free to use for users , the same agency as the cyberspace is , ” Kulechov said .
Lens is delimitate a smattering of “ societal primitive ” as the core characteristics of the protocol , namely account , usernames , graphs , feeds , and group . Each exploiter account statement can make multiple usernames ( across multiple apps ) and start following other users to construct multiple graphs . They can also link groups .
The most interesting feature is that developers can create a set of rule to take into account or restrict entree to feed ( and individual posts within feeds ) . For instance , you could orchestrate an consequence and give an NFT to every event - departer . An on-line community could be restricted to people who hold this NFT .
As for message moderation , Kulechov conceive “ a communications protocol should be as unopinionated as potential . And then , at the program grade , the program should manage the moderation . ”
Lens plans to launch the mainnet of Lens v3 at some full stop during the first fourth of 2025 . It ’s going to be interesting to see if this protocol upgrade execute the needle when it comes to decentralised societal net — the existing one remain niche networks for now .
In addition to Lightspeed Faction , participant in the round of drinks include Alchemy , Avail , Circle , Consensys , DFG , Fabric Ventures , Foresight Ventures , Stellarcore , Superscript , Re7 , and Wintermute Ventures , as well as angel investors Anurag Arjun , Anton Bukov , Rune Christensen , Alex Gluchowski , Aleksander Leonard Larsen , Loi Luu , Spencer Noon , and Duncan Robinson .
