Wield is the first and largest Farcaster Layer 2 that allows users, including agentic AIs, to submit Farcaster messages directly to an open-source superhub - bypassing onchain storage fees or Farcaster ID fee requirements. Wield has already done millions of messages external to the Farcaster network. Wield APIs also supports directly submitting messages to Farcaster through a hosted hub if a user so chooses, making our APIs L1 + L2 agnostic. Farcaster IDs also function directly on Wield, a perfect usecase for users with expired storage, who want to reach a different audience, or during widescale Farcaster network outages.

Wield allows the opportunity for more protocol exploration, as anyone can fork an open-source repo and add new MessageTypes or other open-ended experimentation (e.g. gaming on Farcaster). Wield can also function independently during Farcaster network outages (e.g. during February 2024).

Social protocol L2s are an unexplored territory, so the evolution of Wield will be necessary - we will explore ways to checkpoint or transmit Wield L2 activity onto the Farcaster L1. The Farcaster L1 already deletes data through storage constraints and expiry, making proving data from the correct wallet and signer a more important constaint.

We hope Wield encourages many more experiments on the Farcaster ecosystem. Given varying degrees of disposable income globally, a major goal of far.quest was getting both international and curious users to try Farcaster without spending a large upfront fee on something they might immediately churn on. We believe for social networks, frictionless growth should be prioritized, and we want to help many users to transition to the Farcaster L1. A Farcaster L2 like Wield will help proliferate Farcaster.

Get started today by building with our free, open-source Farcaster L1 + L2 APIs!

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Cast Handles

The Wield superhub uses Farcaster IDs and .cast Handle NFTs from far.quest and FarHero on Optimism, Base and Ethereum. We wanted a way to filter out bad actors and network spam, asking our users to pay at least 39 cents a year on Optimism/Base, or gas fees on Ethereum, while also allowing them to set it as their username. As a growth experiment we also allow new wallets to directly post from our Farcaster wallet through iOS & Android, bypassing the Cast Handle requirement.

Farcaster IDs also function directly on the Wield, a perfect usecase for users that have expired storage, want to reach different audiences, or during widescale Farcaster network outages.

Do note that Cast Handles are meant to prevent spam - we could also prevent spam by requiring short ENS domains, NFTs like CryptoPunks, or other mechanisms. The goal is to prevent bad actors - however those alternative options cost more which we figured cheap handles are better.