Could Twitter's 'X' Revamp Signal Shift to Rise of Social Dapps?

Social media giant Twitter recently rebranded to X and Dap Radar notes that the rise of Web three tech could signal momentum towards a more decentralized approach to online interactions. Joining us now is the head of research for Dap Radar Pedro Herrero. Welcome to the show, Pedro. Hello, happy to be here. Thanks for inviting. Yeah, we're happy to have you. Now, this new report focuses on the impact of social gaps in web three. The report says that social gaps have seen significant growth and currently captures 13% of the market unpack this for us because I know a lot of people who have tried Web three social das, but I don't know any who have stayed. They're still on the web two social platforms because that's where the audience is. So talk to us about what you found. Yeah, I mean this is a category that we have been monitoring for quite some time actually. Uh Yeah, the chart shows since Q four of last year, we saw significant growth in the on chain activity coming for social das. And what we label as social das is those decentralized applications that their main value proposition. It's creating a social funnel for users to navigate and share maybe insights, share their favorite uh trends and so on. And probably the most significant example is Lens Protocol, which was also founded by uh a uh the founder of a. So um we start to find some similarities uh between certain protocols but always driving towards the same goal which is uh opening the social media to people in a decentralized and transparent fashion. So when we try to compare, yeah, please go. I, you know, I we just showed a chart here that was in percentages but realistically, I like physical numbers, like people downloads, et cetera. What are we looking at here? And how does it, how does it compare to uh web two? I mean, to be honest, like we're at a very, very early stage, what we are looking is around 200,000 daily wallets connecting to social apps. And I mean, if we compare that even just to x um that's even 1% of the entire Twitter or user base. So it's still a very nascent stage but very promising when we look at the potential capabilities that will uh that, that social app will enable. One that I am very intrigued about is the transparency right that we all are aware of the uh Cambridge Analytica fiasco that happened with Facebook a few years ago to remove that uh data barrier with with social gaps. And you also drive towards a more transparent and less biased medium, which is always appreciative. And also one of the biggest advantages is that you can really uh empower creators and reward them instantaneously with a very funneled uh social gap and, and giving also transparency and visibility to different people and creators. What, what, what are the hurdles to joining AAA social if you're downloading and, and, and actually interacting with it? I, I mean, the masses are, are familiar with setting, having an email account, signing up to X or whatever the Y or Z, whatever the letter of the alphabet they're throwing at it and then um you know, they, they, they just know how to do it. It's intuitive at this point. But a social dap or how, what are the hurdles there that you would then have to get my mom who might know how to get on a Facebook might not know how to get on to a social dap. So what, what kind of hurdles are there? And, and what does that mean for the growth of social de das? I mean, uh you know, is uh does it have an upper limit here? I think uh it applies to the, the same principle that it applies to most of the web three projects out there that they are always uh trying to reduce the friction that exists between the technology and the end user. Because let's be honest, like setting up a wallet, uh storing security, your blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, it creates layers of friction that it becomes a bit difficult for, for users to adopt the technology. So I think in the first place, um these social des will drive towards some uh a smoother uh user experience. So that's the first approach. III I mean, it basically are, are we the only people using social apps? Are they mostly crypt crypto bros at this stage, uh I wouldn't label that crypto browse uh necessarily, but I mean, people with uh web three knowledge uh definitely that's for sure. But for example, we take a look at other examples like hook which is a Binance based social gap. They are creating a very uh inclusive environment of learn to learn. So exactly that that 322 a monthly users and they are learning and educating the masses in terms of web three, how, what's a wallet, uh what's ad five protocol and so on. So this type of social interactions will in the end come hand to hand. And then we have the other side type of uh social apps more related towards decentralized social media like lens protocol. And that is also a very nice example of what you can do in in decentralized web three. And, and I would definitely suggest uh all all the listeners to at least take a look, you know, billions of people use Facebook and Met as other products, Instagram, whatsapp, how long before you think billions of people are using these decentralized social apps. Yeah, I mean, uh definitely it's going to take uh a good amount of years. As also the technology progresses, it will will give developers better tools to create smoother interfaces. Um I saw to be honest uh move as a very bold move, especially with the back end plan of becoming sort of a high conglomerate that encompasses a wider of industries, becoming an end to end economic industry, that also pays directly the the creators uh with crypto very probable. So that is definitely going to remain a challenge. But um I think that we will see the 10 million users social gap in the next 2 to 3 years, probably 2026. We'll be talking about uh lens or any other protocol or reaching 10 million daily users. All right, Pedro, we are going to have it, have to leave it there. Thanks so much for joining the show this morning. Thank you. Have a pleasure. That was the head of research for DP Radar Pedro Herrera.