What's the real story behind Elon Musk's Twitter takeover?
Is it good for crypto and good for free speech?
Or is there something here that we're missing?
And do we actually like Elon Musk now?
Just last year,
he dumped the price of Bitcoin with some environmental FUD,
saying Tesla would no longer accept Bitcoin because of the repercussions on climate change.
But I guess all can be forgiven with Elon Musk
as it seems like what he's doing for Twitter is actually pretty good.
He hates censorship as much as a lot of us do.
And censorship, well, that's why we have Bitcoin.
It's censorship-resistant money,
real financial freedom through an asset that we actually own.
And it doesn't stop there.
We're web savvy enough now to where we can own all of our data social interactions.
And we know that an Elon running Twitter alone,
well, that's not going to be enough to get us over the finish line.
He has a big voice on Twitter.
He's got 125 million followers.
But we all know the future of social media is decentralized, right?
That's why today we're going to be learning more about DeSosh, or DeSoc--
decentralized social media, for God's sake!
It's an emerging investment category.
And who knows?
Decentralized social media might even unthrone some of the big players in Web2
including Facebook.
That Meta name change didn't fool anybody.
I still see you, Zuck.
So go ahead and check out today's video.
We're going to be learning about decentralized social media,
specifically on blockchain.
Let's get it!
Welcome to BitBoy Crypto!
My name is Ben.
Today, we're going to be talking about DeSo.
That's right.
Decentralized social media.
If that sounds good, make sure you hit that like button,
No. 1 thing you can do to help support crypto adoption.
If you like decentralized social media, also, don't forget to subscribe to this channel.
It's something that we talk about all the time.
Today, we're going to be talking about Lens Protocol
and how it's building the foundation for decentralized versions of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
Now, the Twitter takeover by Elon Musk has given us a glimpse into
what free speech on social media actually looks like.
Now, of course, Twitter is not completely censorship-resistant.
Some people still have lost their accounts.
But it feels pretty close to free speech.
And we want more of it.
So let's take a look at what Elon has done since he took over.
As soon as he bought Twitter,
he fired 120 employees that are on the trust and safety team
who are in charge of securing the safety and security of users.
Of course, they had safety restrictions
like profile bans and restrictions on certain topics.
Well, we were certainly sad to see the members of the Twitter Safety Patrol depart.
Now, Yoel Roth was brought in by Elon Musk
specifically to replace someone he called the chief censor.
Now, Roth quit,
but he did go to the New York Times in an op-ed piece and say,
"In regards to content moderation, I know it when I see it.
Elon Musk was definitely making these decisions based on his personal values."
And let's face it.
Web2 social media is dying.
They're ripe for a takeover.
But is Elon Musk's version of Twitter the future when it comes to social media?
Or is it just another remedy, a quick fix?
Elon Musk wants censorship to basically mimic the laws.
If it's illegal, you can't say it.
If it's legal, then that's your right to say it.
But, so far, the way he's integrated it has been impulsive and unscientific, to put it mildly.
Like when he asked Twitter on a poll whether he should remain CEO or not.
That was a ticking time bomb.
It's very obvious that there were going to be a ton of bots coming in on those polls.
And that's exactly what happened.
As long as Elon Musk is in charge of Twitter,
well, it's still super centralized,
regardless of his intent to represent as many people on the platform as he can.
The innovation void is why decentralized social media, or DeSo,
has potential as an emerging investment category for the next bull run.
And I'm not sure if you guys have checked out Messari cryptos report written by Ryan Selkis
that forecast everything he thinks is going to happen in 2023.
It's a projection of what's bullish next year
combined with the returning to the idea that there's a reason we're all in crypto.
It's not just the price go up or price go down.
Oh, yeah. Don't forget to smash that like button if you're in crypto
for more than just watching the price.
So one of the projects that Ryan Selkis mentions is Lens Protocol.
Lens Protocol is a social graph layer that allows a network of people to connect,
kind of like with centralized social media platforms.
And it's not a user interface.
It's a backend.
It puts out the welcome mat
for developers to come in and build great apps that people want to use.
Now, some of this is already happening right now.
Social media dApps are building as we speak.
There's one called Lenster,
which is basically a permissionless version of Twitter.
Now, there are three layers of decentralized social media.
And Lens Protocol has them all.
The user interface,
the social graph that connects everyone
and content storage
because everybody wants to keep my tweets forever
and, of course, also my photos.
Outfit of the day, anybody?
But this means instead of being slaves to algorithms in Web2,
now, the community has to agree on new features.
There's not one person that's got full control.
Now, Lens is built on Polygon and from the same team that brought us Aave.
The Messari report identified a few things.
First, it has the social graph and content layers as the most valuable platform
because once someone's content is stored on the social graph,
it can be used with any frontend program built on Lens.
They're not locked in.
An identity on Lens, well, anchored by NFTs.
Users mint an NFT that matches their identity.
It's all encompassing.
And followers receive Follow NFTs to signify that they're following someone.
And those can actually be encoded with additional values.
Meaning profiles can be easily monetized.
And also the DAOs will probably be created for group decisions.
Imagine a Mr. Beast DAO or a BitSquad DAO.
We can do things together.
And it would be a group decision.
So these NFTs are the central pillar
for how DeSo is going to interact with DeFi and identity.
Decentralized identity is coming.
And it's a great use case for NFTs.
Now, Lens has .lens addresses similar to .eth addresses.
This gives your address a readable name that's easy to remember.
When tokens are sent and received from this address,
well, that means it's a human doing it.
So, now, the wallet is your proof of identity and humanity.
Now, there are other projects that are adding more identity features,
specifically around privacy.
So, this way, you can reveal certain versions of yourself to who you want to online
and keep certain parts to yourself or to a small group.
For example, New Year's Eve party pictures, like, it's okay to put those on Instagram,
but do you really want to put those on LinkedIn?
One of these projects is called Urbit.
It's a WeChat-like interface
where users have data autonomy and communicate through encrypted messages.
So, look, we're getting back to our roots in crypto.
Why was all this created in the first place?
And one lesson we've all learned this year is how important it is to self-custody
and own your own assets.
Blockchain started as a way that we can have our own funds
without relying on the government.
What we want to avoid with crypto is censorship coming down from Big Brother.
And this is why blockchain is useful for interacting and engaging with our identities online.
If you need a reminder of who we are in crypto and why we're here,
check out this Ryan Selkis tweet.
He says,
"I'm sick of feeling like we have to apologize for our early stage
and walk on eggshells around politicians and regulators.
This is a $2 trillion financial market built from scratch.
And a lot of the "bad things" that happened in crypto already happened in banks."
To regulators, he says,
"Don't pretend you're here to save people from us.
We started this movement to save people from you."
And that's the truth.
In crypto, we do things our way.
And with all the issues surrounding centralization, social media, censorship,
it's time to do that our way too,
which means we're taking back our digital identities.
Blockchain and Web3 have such a great opportunity to move away from censorship.
And also this could be a hot new niche heading into the next bull run.
Not financial advice.
But, at minimum, the blockchain innovation of DeSo,
it's going to change everything.
That's all I got.
Be blessed.
BitBoy out.