Farcaster is getting in-app USDC payments

Dan Romero, co-founder of the popular decentralized social media protocol Farcaster, unveiled Friday a new in-app payments feature . The new tool, built for the Farcaster client Warpcast, uses the USDC +0.0025% stablecoin for 1-tap payments from a user’s profile or the app’s messaging platform.

The feature solves one of the persistent issues of paying people in crypto — namely, looking up someone’s alphanumeric wallet address. Because Farcaster identities are human-readable, it makes that process easier.

“Our goal is to make it easy to pay people with crypto in an app you use every day on your phone. No need to look up an address or remember how to spell someone's ENS,” Romero told The Block in a direct message.

Romero also confirmed to The Block that, at launch, the application will only use USDC on the Coinbase-built Base Ethereum scaling layer, which reduces fees and confirmation times. Because Farcaster is an open protocol, however, "we allow other apps in the ecosystem to power other currencies and chains," he said.

Launched in 2020, Farcaster has been steadily gaining traction in the crypto world. The early 2024 launch of “Frames,” which enabled people to launch applications like web3 games or interactive NFTs directly into peoples’ newsfeeds so they wouldn’t have to leave the app, spurred adoption .

“It's really hard for a new player to unseat a powerful network effect [like Twitter]. So [Romero] knows, in order for Farcaster the protocol to be successful, Warpcast, the specific app, needs to be killer. They've been primarily focused on building features that make Warpcast the client good,” Haun Ventures partner Breck Stodghill told The Block in a recent interview.

In May, Paradigm led a $150 million funding round in Farcaster with participation from heavyweight VCs such as a16z, Haun Ventures, USV, Variant and Standard Crypto.