Web3 Social Project CyberConnect Launches First Social-focused L2

The pitfalls of traditional social media platforms like Meta and X have given rise to a new crop of Web3-powered challengers — and now one of the leaders is doubling down.

Web3 social giant CyberConnect launched its much anticipated layer-2 solution to power new use cases, and rebranded to Cyber as it looks to unite the various technologies it has developed to continue growing an increasingly interoperable ecosystem. 

Cyber’s co-founder Ryan Li joined Coinage for an exclusive interview on the latest in Web3 social as the project works alongside industry players Lens, Farcaster, and Phaver among other players to demonstrate what makes Web3 social better than the status quo.

“We built out an entire set of smart contracts that facilitate users owning their profile, their content, and then for developers to build innovative apps on top,” Li said of CyberConnect’s original goals. “One of the biggest challenges at the time we saw was it's extremely hard to actually build a consumer product onchain just because the gas fees are so expensive.”

Cyber’s new layer-2 joins Base in building on the OP stack in an effort to drop fees for users. As Li explained, its Cyber wallet also seeks to abstract away painful onboarding issues by allowing projects to sponsor entirely gasless transactions. Now, things are set to get interesting for Cyber with its own mainnet launch.

Built in collaboration with industry leaders AltLayer, Optimism, and EigenLayer, Li said Cyber's layer-2 will leverage modular solutions to deliver scalability, security, and user accessibility. The project also previously rolled out staking for holders of its Cyber token, which has mostly traded flat in 2024. U.S. users have been blocked from participating to earn tokens via staking, but Li emphasized the importance of Cyber’s other incentive programs like the $2 million it has allocated for grant funding. 

“As an L2, we want to be a global platform for developers to build innovative apps,” he said. “Rather than us trying to get to the finish line with the users, with the community, with launching a token or whatever that we've done, we want to see that success being played out by every team that's built on the CyberConnect ecosystem.” 

For a long time, that had mostly been visible in activity on Link3, the LinkedIn-like publishing platform that was the first major product to leverage the CyberConnect social graph. Monthly active users at fellow Web3 social startup Farcaster have exploded to start the year, according to Dune data. Data for CyberConnect MAUs doesn't exactly match up.

But rather than continuing to focus on building the apps themselves, Li explained that Cyber is now looking to shift into support for the developers looking to leverage the components they’ve already been able to build. 

“As a developer, if you go into any [blockchain] ecosystem they really, really focus on getting [total value locked] and trying to somehow get market momentum on their token,” he said. “And that's not really tied to enabling developers to build a great social experience.”

Coinage members can watch our full interview with Ryan Li above. To support our community-owned outlet, own it with us, and unlock other exclusive benefits, mint one of our Membership Passes today! Chat with Coinage in our Discord.