Less than nine months after Neynar took over, Farcaster has a new owner.
Farcaster has changed hands again, this time landing with Balaji Srinivasan’s Network School less than nine months after Neynar took over the decentralized social protocol from its original team.
What’s the Scoop?
The deal: Neynar co-founder Rish said the Farcaster app, protocol repos, and related products are heading to Network School, with a chunk of Neynar’s staff going along. Rish and fellow co-founder Manan are stepping away.
New house rules: Per The Block, the app is being renamed the “Network State Protocol” and is asking users to sign an onchain “social smart contract.” Signers get an access NFT, while holdouts drop to read-only, with their accounts slated to move to a different client.
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The vision: Balaji pitched the overhaul as a bid to build “the Singapore of social media,” pairing tougher moderation with an appeals process. Some users have already faced bans over older posts.
Loose ends: Clanker, the token launchpad that came with Neynar’s January deal, went unmentioned in the handoff.
The big picture: Farcaster is now on its third steward in 2026. Balaji says the underlying protocol stays open to all builders, but its flagship app will be far more opinionated.
William M. Peaster
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William M. Peaster, Senior Writer, has been with Bankless since January 2021. Immersed in Ethereum since 2017, he covers the onchain frontier with a particular interest in art, games, and other culture apps. He has a background in creative writing and writes fiction in his free time.