Editor's note: Phat Contract, Phat Contract, a blockbuster product of Phala Netork, has attracted the attention of many Web3 communities since its launch. As the leading protocol for Web3 social networking, Lens Protocol, the new LensAPI oracle machine based on Phat Contract has also been launched. The following is about The specific description of the product is for the community and developers to understand. (This article comes from the official Medium, the original title is "LensAPI oracle, enhance your Web3 social application": https://medium.com/phala-network/lensapi-oracle-supercharge-your-web3-social-app- a413c936df2b)
As of 2023, 4.9 billion people worldwide are using social apps. That's about 60% of the world's total population, each using at least 6 social apps.
Let's take a moment to think about these numbers and what they reflect about the amount of time people spend on smartphones and social apps every day.
The Rise of Web3 Social Apps
SocialFi, also known as Web3 Social, integrates social media and decentralized finance. Web3 social has become one of the most prosperous areas in the entire Web3 field. According to Dune's SocialFi Dashboard statistics, the Web3 social space already has a staggering 4 million users, using more than 20 unique Web3 social protocols.
The vision of Web3 Social is to empower users with data ownership, allowing them to regain control over their content and data. This can be achieved by extracting this information from centralized platforms such as Twitter or TikTok and migrating it to public interest blockchains.
Web3 social applications mainly utilize on-chain technology as their main protocol to ensure that social interactions can be recorded and securely stored on the blockchain indefinitely with the help of smart contracts.
Lens Protocol: The Future of Web3 Social
Lens Protocol is a modular Web3 social graph on Polygon, giving creators ownership over their community links and user-generated content while maintaining immutability. It provides a solution to the problems of centralized and non-portable content on existing social media platforms by being an open social graph owned by users and available to any application. This enables users to self-own and migrate their data to other platforms without being tied to a specific network.
Lens Protocol brings new rules of the game to social infrastructure, revolutionizing the social experience by changing games from zero-sum games to collaborative games, benefiting the entire ecosystem, and enabling meaningful social experiences to happen without Rely on attention-grabbing feedback mechanisms and empower developers with maximum creativity and flexibility.
Why SocialFi Needs Web3 Oracles
Applications in SocialFi need to read data from an API. Currently only centralized or self-developed solutions are available. We have identified a broad need for infrastructure tools, including verifiable computing and developer-owned Web3 oracles.
In the rapidly expanding Lens ecosystem, three major needs have emerged:
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The SocialFi app has seen massive user adoption, and there is high demand for decentralized off-chain services. These applications usually rely on data obtained from traditional Web2 APIs for program logic calculations. Examples in the Lens ecosystem include monetization apps like Wav3s, Guild, Dispatch, and Lens Garden.
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Large amounts of data are stored in smart contracts in a trustless manner, fostering innovation and expanding the range of Web3 social use cases.
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In addition to integrating Web2 APIs, seamless integration with Web3 services is also required. Therefore, developers need tools to make their smart contracts smarter to overcome on-chain limitations.
All of the above points represent the core principles of Web3, which provide users with the control behind the ownership of NFT-based personal data and private keys.
The rise of innovative ideas shows that more and more use cases require the seamless flow of data information from Web2 to Web3. We dug deep and formulated real-world use cases to enhance the developer and user experience in the Lens ecosystem.
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Lens Social Sync Robot: Connect Lens with Web2 social platforms such as Twitter and Facebook to automatically publish content across platforms.
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Recommender system: Enables on-chain monetization of viral marketing based on social graphs, requires off-chain calculations due to complex calculations and multiple data sources involved.
Web3 oracles are ideal to support such use cases, opening up new opportunities for developers to build efficient, decentralized SocialFi applications.
LensAPI oracle: providing powerful developer tools
To meet the growing needs of the Lens ecosystem, we launched LensAPI oracles - an innovative solution powered by Phala Network. This programmable Web3 oracle enables developers to deploy custom no-code oracles in as little as five minutes! Here's what developers can get:
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Unparalleled Accuracy: The data source is the Lens API and can be verified by Phala's infrastructure.
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Rich functions: If necessary, the Lens data can be customized through the JavaScript engine and embedded into the Web3 oracle.
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Faster delivery: Developers can enjoy a no-code setup experience.
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Low cost: The Web3 oracle machine can be deployed on the underlying Phala Network for free, and then the original Phala token needs to be pledged to access the service.
The underlying technology that hosts this Lens protocol oracle is Phat Contract of Phala Network. Through this programming model, developers can connect their dApps to the Lensverse with one click.
So, what does this mean for the Web3 social space? The LensAPI oracle launched by Phala Network overcomes the limitations of dApp builders to easily push Web2 and Web3 data into smart contracts. This is addressed through an automated process based on programmable Web3 oracles. The benefit of verifiable computing and full-chain smart contract communication is that they all run in the background.
Just three simple steps to start using the LensAPI oracle
To deploy the Lens protocol oracle to Polygon within 5 minutes, the development work can be summarized in the following three steps:
1. Data from on-chain index APIs (such as Lens API) needs to be defined. Additional data fields required can be simply selected, and users can also add custom expressions if required.
2. Developers deploy Lens protocol oracles at low cost. The LensAPI oracle machine adopts a stake-to-compute model, in which Phala's native PHA token is required to deploy the Web3 oracle machine in Phala Network's Phat Contract. Stay tuned for an upcoming free staking event for Lens and Polygon users!
3. In the final step, developers can wire up their smart contracts on Polygon to request the oracle they just deployed with a few lines of code.
How does it work?
In short, Phala Network simplifies the development process, making it easier than ever to deploy programmable Web3 oracles and unlock the full potential of Web3 social applications.
Phat Contract, Phala Network's off-chain programming model, helps builders convert any API data into a decentralized Polygon oracle. Such an oracle can be created by the Lens builder itself, with any additional customizations included.
This means users can easily set up monetized and incentive-based posts and campaigns on the Lens Protocol through Phala Network's backend services.
It reduces the barriers for dApp builders to convert data into smart contracts on Polygon or even Momoka, the latest solution on Lens to scale decentralized social for mass consumer adoption.
Tired of taking care of LensAPI oracles? Let us plant one for you!
The Phala and Lens teams are committed to providing the best possible developer experience for all Lens dApp builders.
Don't miss this exciting opportunity - visit https://bricks.phala.network/ today, deploy your first decentralized oracle and revolutionize the way you build and interact with Web3 social applications.
If you already have a use case and are looking for funding or engineering-focused guidance, you can check out the Phala Builders program and apply for up to $50,000 in funding!
About Phala
Phala Network is a decentralized off-chain computing infrastructure. Phat Contract is an innovative off-chain programming model running on the Phala network, helping developers build dApps with full blockchain compatibility, Internet connectivity (HTTP Request) and verifiable computing functions.
The above features of Phat Contract can greatly expand the boundaries of smart contract capabilities, and by providing predefined program modules, code-free development can be realized, providing users with different development experience with a convenient and efficient integrated development experience.