At KryptoSeoul’s Buidl Asia event in South Korea, decentralized social media was a central topic. Cointelegraph spoke with Makoto Inoue, the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) developer, to learn more about Web3 social media, its potential to replace Web2, and the roles of ENS and the metaverse in this new social paradigm.
Inoue claims that Web3 is “inherently social and distributed.” He emphasized that everything is transparent because it’s built on top of the blockchain, making the blockchain a “social graph.”
“It’s already inherently permissionless and social. That’s where ENS fits in; it’s transparent, but the addresses are human-readable. And by having the ENS name associated, it suddenly becomes a social graph,” he said.
Inoue said that when there’s a need to simplify things, ENS comes in. This leads to the creation of what Inoue describes as an “identity trail.” He said:
“Wherever people start using blockchain and if you have to use your wallet address, especially in signing, it’s your kind of identity. It’s your identity trail. And we are making this history of identity more visible.”
According to Inoue, entities can’t interfere with Web3-based social media users. Compared to traditional social media, no entity has the right to stop anyone on its platform. Inoue explained, “When Twitter first came out, there’s a vibrant ecosystem of developers building whatever they want. But once they figure out that’s actually taking the revenue of Twitter, they have the right to stop it.”
Regarding the potential of Web3-based social media to replace old Web2 social platforms, Inoue shared his belief that Web3 offers a way to enhance and improve existing platforms rather than fully replacing the old systems.
When asked about the role of the metaverse in decentralized social media, the developer said the artificial intelligence hype has already taken over. Inoue explained, “Before the metaverse went mainstream, AI took over. I don’t know if we’re ever going to have the same narrative as we had a couple of years ago when Facebook was rebranded to Meta.”
Inoue argued that Web3 socials are not limited to online platforms. The developer shared his identification card, which can be used to link to others with the same card. According to the developer, this can be widely used in events where you can tap each other’s cards to have a record of the meeting saved on the blockchain.
