Social Graphs

A social graph is the map of who follows whom — the asset platforms fight to keep proprietary. Open graphs let new clients bootstrap discovery from existing relationships instead of forcing everyone to rebuild networks from scratch. Closed graphs trap attention inside one app's notification funnel.

Farcaster replicates follow relationships across hubs; Lens stores follows as on-chain events. Both enable third-party clients to show your existing network on day one — a massive cold-start advantage compared to launching a standalone app with zero graph.

Graph data also powers recommendations, spam detection, and social proof. Builders can rank feeds by closeness, token holdings, or mutual follows rather than a single global algorithm. The challenge is privacy: public graphs reveal political and financial affiliations; future designs may mix public follows with encrypted or selective disclosure for sensitive connections.