Balaji Srinivasan buys Farcaster, renames it the Network State Protocol and starts banning users for months-old posts

Farcaster has a new owner for the second time this year, and a new rulebook. Network School, founded by Balaji Srinivasan, announced on Thursday that it had bought the Farcaster app, protocol repositories and related products from Neynar, The Block reported. Neynar had taken over the decentralised social network from its original developer, Merkle Manufactory, in January 2026, and held it for less than nine months. Financial terms were not released. Neynar's co-founders, Rish and Manan, are leaving; other staff will join Network School to keep building.

The product is being rebranded as the Network State Protocol, in line with Srinivasan's long-running idea of opt-in digital societies. Users are asked to accept a "social smart contract" that commits them to the app's rules, with the choice recorded as an on-chain access NFT. The accompanying Network Code sorts violations into felonies, misdemeanours and infractions, from hate speech and scams to passing off AI-generated content as one's own, with penalties from warnings to bans. The rules apply to past posts, enforcement leans on an open-weight AI model with human review, and the app plans to require proof of humanity. Anyone who declines keeps read-only access and can take their keys, funds, followers and history to a rival client.

The bans came first. Several users said their accounts were limited to read-only over posts at least three months old, Cointelegraph reported, reportedly among them a former Farcaster engineer. Srinivasan said the aim was "the Singapore of social media" and that an appeals process exists. Co-founder Dan Romero had put Farcaster at 250,000 monthly active users in December 2025. The question now is how many stay to sign.