Lens Protocol is a decentralized social network ecosystem with a web3 vision. Recently on July 17, 2023, Lens Protocol officially announced the launch of version V2 with some notable updates. In this article, let’s learn about Lens Protocol V2 with Weakhand to see if there’s anything special about it.
Before jumping into the article, everyone can refer to some of the following articles to better understand
- What is Lens Protocol? Lens Protocol cryptocurrency overview
- What do you see when Binance goes all in on SocialFi?
- Lens Protocol changes to lead the DeSocial trend in the future
- What is SocialFi? TOP 5 Most Outstanding SocialFi Projects Currently
- What is DeSocial? Growth Potential of Decentralized Social Networks
What is Lens Protocol?
Overview of Lens Protocol
Lens Protocol is a decentralized social network ecosystem with a web3 vision built on the Polygon Blockchain. Lens Protocol is designed to empower creators to own the links between themselves and their communities, creating an entirely new user-owned composable Social graph. The protocol is built from the ground up with modularity in mind, allowing new features to be added while ensuring unchanged user-owned content and social relationships.
Because users own their data, they can bring it into any application built on the Lens Protocol ecosystem. In addition, each dApps using Lens Protocol brings benefits to the entire ecosystem, thereby creating a harmonious relationship between dApps to develop together.
Main functions of Lens Protocol
- NFT profiles: This is an NFT representing a user in the Lens Protocol. It contains a history of all posts, comments, and content that users create. A wallet address can own multiple NFT Profiles, and an NFT Profile is even owned and operated by a DAO through Multisig wallet.
- Follow NFT: When a user follows someone, Lens Protocol will mint the user a Follow NFT. Each of these Follow NFTs has a unique ID that comes with different rarity and utility. These unique characteristics can be used to limit voting to loyal fans, plus they can be traded on the open market.
- Publication: Photos, music, videos, a work of art,… anything users want to create and share can be done with Publication.
- Collect: This is a feature that allows users to collect favorite Publications from people you follow.
- Mirror: Post sharing feature, Post owners can also make money from anyone who collects original content through sharing.
What’s special about Lens Protocol V2?
What is Lens Protocol V2
As revealed by the development team, Lens Protocol V2 offers even greater control for builders and explorers to experience dApps on the Lens ecosystem. The entire codebase in Lens Protocol V2 has been rewritten, refactored, and optimized for readability, open source contribution, and developer experience. Here are some main updates in this version of Lens Protocol V2.
Open Actions – Composable social network
Open Actions feature in Lens Protocol V2 version
Lens Protocol v2 retains its signature open design space, giving developers and integrators the choice to use Lens Protocol however they want.
About Open Actions: Users and developers “bring your own Smart Contract” to trigger any external actions, not part of the Lens Protocol ecosystem.
For example: Through OpenSea “mint” Open Actions, users can simply tap “mint” on a Post on Lens and it will mint an NFT through the OpenSea contract directly on Lens. Apps can integrate with multiple third-party marketplaces and protocols to be executed as Open Actions in posts that users create.
By connecting to any web3 social application and supporting two-way integration, Lens Open Actions extends the composability and modularity of Lens itself. As a result, many types of innovative projects and monetization models can be developed as social networks collaborate, increase the total value of their audiences and content, and reward each other.
Lens Protocol also encourages user innovation by creating an Open Actions that can be used across the entire Lens network. Open Actions can be proposed as LIPs and built together. Below are some Open Actions suggested by the development team:
- Create external NFTs directly on Lens Protocol
- Buy and sell ERC 20 or NFT
- Join DAO
- Donate with Gitcoin
- Buy NFT land from Metaverse platforms such as: The Sandbox or Decentraland.
- Join whitelist
- Providing liquidity for Defi protocols.
Share collective values
Collective Value Share
Sharing collective values allows for a growing network effect. Rewards will be shared among people and applications for their positive contributions.
For example: In the Buttrfly app, there is an algorithm that shows content to creators that helps them attract more audiences. In this case, creators may want to share a portion of the revenue earned to reward users, applications, and algorithms that contribute to their development.
Profiles V2
Profiles V2 on Lens Protocol
Lens Protocol V2 applies the ERC 6551 standard for Profile NFT. This makes it possible for the value from “mints” and “collects” to be added to the NFT Profile instead of the owner’s address. Here are some innovations of Profile V2:
The profile is the core identity for all actions: The “tracking” relationship changed in V2 from a relationship between Profiles and wallets to a relationship between Profiles. This change means all social actions happen between Profiles. This improves the developer experience for Lens Protocol actions by excluding wallet-based actions.
New “Tracking” Architecture: With V2, all ‘follow’ relationships are attached to a Profile and not to a Follower. If a user moves their NFT Profile from one address to another, the user’s social networks will move with their Profile.
Expand user namespace: With Lens Protocol V2, Profile is different from handle (username) and users can switch their username without transferring Profile NFT.
Profile Manager
Profile Manager on Lens Protocol
Profile Manager allows Lens Profiles to delegate social actions to another wallet address. This improves the security of the Lens Profile and allows users to store their Profile NFTs directly on the cold wallet and use them with any other wallet.
Reliable & safe features
On-chain blocking: Lens Protocol V2 allows Lens Profiles to block the actions of other Lens Profiles. This means that the blocked Profile cannot follow, comment, mirror, quote, collect or perform any Open Action on your content.
Profile security improvements: LIP-4 introduced Profile Guardian helps improve Profile safety and minimize the appearance of fraudulent Profiles. Using the Profile Manager feature with Profile Guardian, users can store their Lens Profile on cold wallets and avoid fake accounts across the Lens Protocol ecosystem.
Lens Protocol V2 Review
Lens Protocol V2 brings exciting updates and improvements. What I’m most impressed with is probably that Open Action and Profiles V2 apply the ERC 6551 standard. Applying Open Action helps users perform all actions on Lens Posts while still ensuring safety when activated. moderated through Lens Improvement Proposals (LIPs). This is the biggest difference that Lens Protocol V2 brings compared to traditional social networks in web2. In addition, the implementation of Profiles V2 applying the ERC 6551 standard helps reduce the cumbersomeness in operations such as: Follow, Collect, etc. that the Lens Protocol v1 version encounters.
summary
Overall, Lens Protocol V2 version brings interesting improvements and features for users. Above all, Lens Protocol V2 wants to make a difference in order to attract a large number of users not only in the Crypto market but also from social network users in the Web2 world. Above are the updates about the Lens Protocol V2 version, hopefully everyone has received interesting knowledge.
