Technical Breakthroughs of the Lens Chain Mainnet Launch
Recently, the SocialFi-specific Layer2 network Lens Chain—led by Aave founder Stani Kulechov—was officially launched, marking a new scalable phase for Web3 social. The network is built on the ZK Stack technology from ZKsync combined with Avail DA for data availability, achieving thousands of transactions per second while reducing GAS fees to 10% of Ethereum’s. Its core innovations include:
GHO Stablecoin for GAS Payments:
Users pay transaction fees using GHO stablecoins from the Aave ecosystem, avoiding the volatility of native tokens and lowering the entry barrier.
Modular Social Protocol (Lens V3):
Provides “social primitives” such as account systems, group management, and content distribution. Developers can flexibly integrate these modules to quickly build DApps.
Grove Storage System:
Users can choose to store content on-chain or via IPFS, and monetize content through NFT conversion (e.g., paid subscriptions, reward sharing).
This technical architecture addresses the centralized data monopoly of traditional social media platforms, ensuring that social graphs and user behavior data truly belong to the individual.
New Opportunities and Participation Paths in the SocialFi Ecosystem
The launch of Lens Chain has attracted major applications like Orb (the Web3 version of Twitter) and Soclly (an on-chain LinkedIn), and a US$2.5 million grant program has been introduced to attract developers. Its ecosystem value is reflected in three aspects:
Reconstruction of the Creator Economy:
Users earn 10%–30% revenue shares when they mirror or collect content, forming a “social mining” model.
Cross-Chain Collaboration Potential:
Through partnerships with Uniswap, LayerZero, and others, users can directly execute DeFi trades or mint NFTs within social contexts, breaking down application boundaries.
Data Tokenization:
With 28 million social relationships migrated on-chain for proof of ownership, future tracking of social influence value can be done via JuCoin.
For ordinary users, participation paths include:
- Zero-Barrier Experience: Utilize GHO for frictionless social interactions; for example, once a wallet integrates the Lens account system, users can directly manage their on-chain social identity.
- Content Monetization: Creators can convert articles and videos into NFTs via the Grove system and auction or sell them via subscription on the NFT marketplace.
Potential Challenges and Industry Impact
Despite its promising prospects, Lens Chain must contend with three major risks:
Technical Validation Pressure:
Although ZK-Rollup’s 40-second finality is superior to traditional blockchains, it still lags behind Twitter’s throughput of 500,000 tweets per second, which may limit high-frequency social scenarios.
Regulatory Compliance:
The EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) may require on-chain content review, conflicting with decentralization principles, or force ecosystem applications to establish “off-chain blacklists.”
Ecosystem Sustainability:
Similar projects like Farcaster have experienced a 50% drop in daily active users, highlighting the risk that speculative participation might not translate into long-term user retention.
Long-Term Industry Transformation
In the long run, Lens Chain could trigger two major industry shifts:
Modular Blockchain Trend:
Collaboration with projects like Celestia and Avail could drive the decoupling of “execution layer – data layer – settlement layer,” potentially challenging the market share of general-purpose Layer2 solutions like Optimism and ArbitrumTransformation of Traditional Social
Platforms:
With Facebook already testing the migration of personal profile data to Lens Chain, the convergence of Web2 and Web3 social is likely to accelerate.
Future Evolution of Web3 Social
The phased success of Lens Chain has charted three paths for the industry:
Democratized Infrastructure:
Lowering building barriers through developer dashboards and open-source protocols to attract teams without a blockchain background.
Economic Model Innovation:
Exploring mechanisms such as social relationship tokenization and DAO governance incentives (for instance, integrating Lens group governance tools into DAO platforms).
Cross-Chain Identity Interoperability:
Plans to extend to non-EVM chains such as Solana and Aptos, aggregating social graphs across multiple chains to broaden user coverage.
Neason Oliver
