#SeeDAO #Web3 #Cyber Connect

Author：Arnaud

The Causality Debate between Blockchain and DeSoc - A Perspective from Actor-Network Theory

Meta-Question: Is it the development of technology that determines the changes in social forms, or is it the changes in social forms that require the adoption of certain technologies?

The development of DeSoc and blockchain emerged in response to each other.

We have become accustomed to the existence of DAOs and other on-chain communities, which attempt to use blockchain as a medium to establish people's identities, define relationships, record behaviors, and reflect reputations, thereby forming on-chain social networks, or a form of DeSoc.

The concept of DeSoc was discussed in a paper co-authored by Vitalik, "Decentralized Society: Finding Web 3’s Soul". The paper points out that the crypto world has formed a complex and open ecosystem for expressing financial transactions (on-chain CeFi and DeFi).

However, the economic value of financial transactions is generated by humans and their relationships. Due to the lack of primitives representing social identities in Web 3, it fundamentally relies on highly centralized Web 2 structures (such as OpenSea, Twitter, Discord, Coinbase, Binance, and other centralized platforms).

Users, whether individuals or organizations, lack native Web3 identities - sovereign, on-chain identities that are not subject to third-party platform intervention. This is not only due to the migration barriers brought about by the network effects of Web2 itself but also because decentralized solutions have not been user-friendly in the past.

As the tide of DAO and Web3 rises and falls, those who persist in this trend gradually become accustomed to the conventional interaction and improvement between technology and society. Crypto-native people often interpret Web3 applications from financial and technical perspectives, but for Web3 Social applications, these two dimensions are far from sufficient to explain everything.

We will start from a sociological perspective, taking CyberConnect V3 as an example, to explore the myth of on-chain social networking.

There is a causality debate between technology and society.

Technological determinism argues that the birth of blockchain created the possibility of DeSoc, shaping a more just and free organizational form. This seems correct, but it feels like looking for a nail with a hammer in hand. Under this logic, Web3 Social applications almost become redundant social experiments, and participants have no say in them.

Technological reflectionism argues that society has a demand for decentralization, so it chooses blockchain to elaborate. This emphasizes human subjectivity, with technology as a tool, becoming a passive medium for people to convey their intentions. This view is also one-sided, as the technical characteristics of blockchain obviously affect our interpretation of DeSoc. Blockchain brings benefits such as security, immutability, and assetization, but also drawbacks such as redundancy, inefficiency, and excessive financialization. Therefore, believers and builders of DeSoc must interact with these technical characteristics to create more humane social applications based on blockchain.

Considering the one-sidedness of the above two common views, we introduce Actor-Network Theory (ANT) to interpret the relationship between blockchain and DeSoc from a dynamic and interactive perspective. ANT believes that any given social reality is the product of a series of complex relational interactions. In these complex relational networks, there are not only human actors in the traditional sociological sense but also all non-human actors (such as technology, artifacts). When human actors and non-human actors in a network form "associations", a given social field is configured (Latour, 1987).

In the case of blockchain and DeSoc, blockchain as a technology and Web3 Social products as artifacts, together with the participants and builders of social life, jointly form the DeSoc form we see today. In the exploration of these products, we can see the interaction between technology and humanity - it is not about people adapting to technology and prioritizing "decentralization" as an ideological product, nor is it about completely ignoring technological development and the gains that blockchain brings to social networking.

In CyberConnect V3, we see the simultaneous improvement of technology by humanity and the shaping of humanity by technology. Through account abstraction, we achieve a chainless and gasless experience, making blockchain no longer a constraint on user experience but silently guarding and retaining universal identity infrastructure.

Questioning 'Who am I' - Human Nature is the Meta-Question of Social Products

We have become accustomed to the existence of the word "social." But what is social, and how do we define "I"? Is "I" the sum of social relationships, the result of all actions, the symbol of reputation given by society, or the unique code on an ID card?

There are many ways to define humans.

Marx mentioned in Theses on Feuerbach that human nature is not an abstract thing inherent in an individual; in its reality, it is the sum of all social relations. This statement is often simplified into the well-known saying: humans are the sum of all social relations. This passage is actually criticizing Feuerbach's abstract human nature theory, hoping to return to the concreteness of humans, that is, the ensemble of social relations. These "social relations" include interpersonal relationships, relationships between people and objects, relationships between people and religion/ideology/culture, and relationships between people and communities. These relationships are interactive and mutually influential, so the "nature" of humans is the comprehensive formation/generation of social relations.

How to define humans is the meta-question of any social application. Different philosophical definitions will lead to different design ideas in engineering:

Sometimes we define human nature as the content they create. Media like Twitter and TikTok define humans in this way, giving rise to content creators. We call such platforms social media platforms.

Sometimes we define human nature as the interpersonal social relationships they possess. Media like WhatsApp and WeChat define human images in this way, so these applications often emphasize instant messaging and address-book-style friendship lists, known as instant messaging applications.

Sometimes we define human nature as a combination of their objective information, or profile. Media like LinkedIn and Tinder define humans in this way. These applications often have a "resume" nature, appealing to objective information and past experiences. This view materializes humans.

Sometimes we define human nature as the evaluation of society towards them, such as ratemyprofessor. This kind of reputation system often involves ethical issues. Although establishing a similar reputation mechanism is a common approach for Web3 Social, this kind of public rating system for individuals has the potential to be abused, as can be seen from rating apps like TripAdvisor, Google Maps, and Dianping. The capitalization of reputation is risky, meaning that money can exert influence on symbolic capital. We should be vigilant against the Internet and Web3 becoming accomplices of economic capital, making society "capitalized".

Sometimes we define human nature as a collection of their actions. In Web2, this is manifested as algorithmic recommendation mechanisms, dividing user profiles based on user behavior. In the traditional world, this is a classification "imposed" by the materialized object of capital - large Internet platforms - on individuals, rather than the individual's own definition and display. The behavior definition method of Web2 is objectified, treating users as objects that can be summarized and materialized. The creativity of Web3 lies in the subjectification of people defined by behavior through on-chain behavior proof, as an individual's expression of themselves.

Therefore, based on the adaptability of blockchain and behavior proof, the innovation of DeSoc was born. We try to use on-chain behavior to define a person and allow users to control the definition and display of their identity. This field is the difference between Web3's "protocol" and Web2's "platform" - the former provides a venue for subjective development, while the latter treats users as data-bearing objects.

We use blockchain to trace people's interactions with others, content, organizations, activities, and objects, and create an on-chain identity-social-content system. This will also be the foundation of digital applications, including DeFi, GameFi, Metaverse, etc. - a completely on-chain, subjective definition system for humans - where people can define themselves as subjects through on-chain behavior. Based on this decentralized, shared, and self-owned identity and social system, we can create a real cyber world.

Account Abstraction and Web3 Social Promote Mass Adoption - A Perspective on the Interaction between Technology and Society

When we return to the technology itself, we find that the secure but redundant nature of blockchain is hindering the promotion of social infrastructure. In order to prevent Web3 Social from becoming an expensive technological experiment and to allow technology and humanity to achieve mutual success in their exploration, it has become the theme of Web3 Social applications.

Account abstraction, as opposed to account complexity, refers to the simplification of user account management and the way users interact with web3 applications by introducing built-in smart contracts. The complexity implies that users must understand how components work in order to safely and effectively use wallets. The current EOA wallet experience can only serve professional users with a considerable understanding of blockchain, such as:

1. Transaction feasibility: Users need to determine whether a transaction can be completed and how much gas fee is required to ensure completion at a certain speed.

2. Gas fee: Different chains have different native tokens, and users need to transfer native tokens between Layer1 and Layer2 to use them properly.

3. Operational redundancy: Interactions with dApps often involve multiple authorizations and transactions, each requiring signing and publishing.

4. Cross-chain: Users need to manually switch the wallet's network to meet the requirements of dApps on different chains.

5. Key management: Users need to properly save or remember private keys/mnemonic phrases to log in to their wallets, and recovery is impossible if lost.

6. Fraud: Users need to take full responsibility for their actions, and it is easy to send funds to fraudulent or incorrect contract addresses due to negligence.

These problems rarely exist in Web2 applications because the operating logic of Web2 is based on trust in centralized platforms, which set up programs to replace users in considering complex underlying issues, allowing the interface to be independent of its implementation.

Therefore, a simple binary viewpoint seems to be prevalent: Web3 is redundant, niche, and geeky, and decentralization inevitably leads to a sharp increase in user experience difficulty, so it is better to return to Web2 and continue to trust internet giants. This means allowing Web2 giants to control and exploit user data, monetize user data, and continue to close the ecosystem to hinder social application innovation. This view not only denies the significance of Web3 Social but also denies the significance of all dApps and even the significance of blockchain technology. Therefore, it is necessary to discuss it in order to clarify the origin and the first principles of cryptographic technology.

Since the first use case of blockchain: Bitcoin, its essence has been clear: Trustless, more specifically, it is based on the design of blockchain and other cryptographic technologies, allowing users to complete transactions and other interactive actions without relying on trust in the counterparty or any third-party entity. For example, using a bank transfer is essentially based on trust in the bank, but using a Bitcoin transfer does not rely on trust in the counterparty or any entity. In fact, if there is any trust at all, it is trust in blockchain technology. Cryptography helps us cooperate without trust and without giving up our information, which is the fundamental change brought about by blockchain.

But does Trustless mean Redundancy? From the implementation (technology) level, yes, redundancy is an inherent design of the blockchain principle; from the interface (user) level, not necessarily, these redundancies can be solved by adding logic through smart contracts. The fallacy of the binary viewpoint mentioned above lies in this: confusing the implementation and interface dimensions. Perhaps doing so does not conform to the geeky conception of blockchain by the originalists, but bringing a valuable technology to mass adoption is the best way to preserve and develop it.

Account abstraction creates a chainless and gasless user experience, providing user interaction comparable to Web2. On this basis, on-chain social networking will become convenient without sacrificing data sovereignty, and applications based on on-chain social protocols and smart contract wallets - including games, social media, and trading markets - will usher in a new revolution in user experience.

V3 - A Small Step for CyberConnect, A Giant Leap for Web3 Social

The philosophical and sociological discussions have already revealed a clear direction: Web3 Social Mass Adoption is the inevitable interaction between technology and humanity. We will use CyberConnect as an example to introduce how the recent V3 upgrade of this advanced and powerful social protocol is driving the development of Web3.

CyberConnect is a typical DeSoc product development case. Recently, CyberConnect V3 brought an account upgrade compatible with ERC-4337, making the largest and earliest decentralized social protocol widely noticed. CyberConnect is building the largest ERC-4337 smart contract wallet system to bring Web3 to the masses through decentralized social and identity.

Before V3, CyberConnect focused on social profiles and interest graphs. Its core products are CyberProfile and Link3.

CyberProfile is a universal identity infrastructure. It can store basic personal information, anchor users' autonomous digital identities, and link content and social relationships to their identities. So far, a total of 1,258,952 CyberProfiles have been minted.

Link3 is a web3 social network built on CyberConnect for building and discovering new communities. It helps top projects attract new audiences and retain existing ones through web3 native events, posts, and profiles. It can be said that almost all active Web3 users have more or less been exposed to the services provided by Link3. Currently, there are 2,643 verified high-quality organizations in Link3. Projects, VCs, and DAOs are using Link3 Profiles as their official profiles, including BNB Chain, Arbitrum, dYdX, 1inch, Messari, Animoca Brands, TreasureDAO, Zerion, and so on. In less than a year, more than 11,550 events have been held on Link3, including AMAs, roundtables, and panel discussions. More than 11,348,758 W3STs (NFTs as proof of event participation) have been minted on Link3 events, and more than 1 million users have joined FanClubs and minted their FanPasses.

Following the success of CyberProfile and Link3, CyberConnect V3 introduced CyberAccount - an account compatible with ERC-4337, which is a smart contract wallet system that can be used in conjunction with CyberWallet. In the previous section, we discussed the conflict between blockchain technology features and user experience, which has hindered Web3 Social's Mass Adoption. CyberConnect V3 takes advantage of account abstraction opportunities and combines them with ERC-4337 to bring chainless and gasless social accounts and wallet experiences to Web3 users. With the integration of CyberAccount and CyberWallet, CyberConnect also achieves the integration of Social and Payment, allowing DeFi, Social, and other applications that can be integrated into the Web3 ecosystem to be combined based on such product structures, becoming a true "network" - "CyberConnect."

Through the upgrade of CyberAccount and CyberWallet, users can: perform traditional social account, mobile phone, and email login, and social recovery; perform transaction bundling supported by Bundler contracts, eliminating redundant operations; allow CyberConnect to pay gas on behalf of users, which is supported by Paymaster contracts and is one of the important empowerments of $CYBER - as a means of payment for gas on behalf.

Based on the smart contract account system of account abstraction, CyberConnect launched CyberGraph - a smart contract-supported social graph to connect user identities with their content and social relationships and be compatible with EVM chains. By supporting smart contract social graphs, creators can have their own content sovereignty and get paid through content subscriptions; communities and project parties can also use the middleware provided by CyberGraph to build social networks with defined logic, such as allowing only specific NFT holders to mint community content NFTs.

For a long time, some Web3 Social applications have blindly imitated Web2 social applications, and then put unnecessary data on chain, using redundant structures to destroy the essence of users, which is actually getting farther and farther away from the essence of social, and closer to the financial and profit-seeking characteristics, becoming a "capital game in the guise of social applications." CyberConnect V3 undoubtedly explores a path for Web3 social applications' Mass Adoption:

• By being compatible with ERC-4337 account abstraction, CyberConnect creates a chainless, gasless user experience comparable to Web2, making Web3 truly usable and accessible to the masses

1. Seamless network switching operation

2. Allowing social recovery of accounts

3. Unified gas fee settlement

• By supporting smart contract social graphs, a truly sovereign creator economy can be realized

1. Tokenization of content: collection

2. Tokenization of social relationships: subscription

From usable to user-friendly is a significant growth point for technology.

Web3 concept has been around for less than ten years and has gained attention for less than three years. During this time, DeFi Summer has met the financial needs of professional and even non-professional users, and several attempts at GameFi have also made us imagine the widespread adoption of on-chain applications. With the arrival of the bear market, the macro-level liquidity retreat has exposed the previous problems in the Crypto field: excessive financialization, Ponzi models, complexity, and difficulty in use. The market is looking forward to a creative infrastructure and application solution to expand the user base. In the darkness of the bear market, we see the glimmers of hope:

Combining account abstraction with DeSoc protocol to become the gateway to the Web3 world. Through decentralized, trustless, and user-sovereign social and identity systems, we can bring Web3 to the masses.

On top of such social infrastructure, more use cases that meet Mass Adoption requirements will be born. It can be imagined that future DAOs, metaverses, on-chain games, and various Dapps will all flourish on the infrastructure soil built by CyberConnect and other protocols focusing on expanding the scope of Web3 applications.

We can now experience Cyber Account and CyberWallet. CyberConnect is launching a two-month CyberTrek event: through CyberTrek, users can become early adopters of CyberAccount and get early access to CyberConnect's future ERC-4337 compatible wallet: CyberWallet (wallet.cyber.co), take a step ahead to experience the Web3 world of account abstraction, earn CyberPoints rewards, and exchange them for $CYBER. The participation link is as follows:

"A Thorn on Our Side" - Renaming Web3 Social

There is a popular opposing voice to Web3 Social, arguing that Web3 Social is meaningless because Web2 social software can already meet all our needs. The fallacy of this logic is obvious: just because Web2 products meet our needs does not mean we do not need other products - when the first car was invented, there would definitely be newer cars, whether faster or safer.

Web3 Social solves two problems:

1. Platform barriers to social data. Readers who have developed Web2 social products should understand that one of the major barriers to social application innovation in the Web2 world is user data - the Internet treats users and their data as its private property, does not open or restricts the opening of APIs, making user data sovereignty a so-called "moat" for Web2 companies. Data sovereignty has been discussed a lot, but the real significance is not just "everyone has sovereignty over their identity and social data," but "social data can become the infrastructure of the Internet, accessible by any front-end product." The on-chain and protocol-based social data will lower the application development threshold, making Web3 Social a freely developed commons rather than a private estate fenced off by large platforms. Only by understanding this level can we truly understand the meaning of a so-called "decentralized" society.

2. Non-uniformity of identity. Due to the fragmentation between different social products and scenarios, users' identities in different products are fragmented. Social products often cannot communicate data and information with each other, making it impossible for a "complete me" to exist on the Internet. Education, certificates, membership status, content creation, asset status, etc., are verified separately in different applications, but there is no complete, unified identity belonging to the user to represent a digital identity, which not only leads to redundant user operations but also increases the possibility of identity fraud. A simple example can illustrate this point - Discord and Twitter bots and alternate accounts, used for ballot stuffing in community events. This can be solved by using SBT-enforced on-chain accounts.

Therefore, the establishment of Web3 Social will bring development freedom and identity unification to the social Internet field. Through the cycles of time, we are optimistic about Web3 Social products that have solved user experience problems moving towards Mass Adoption and becoming the new generation of Internet infrastructure.

The integration of account abstraction in CyberConnect V3 is the first step in the great journey of Web3 Social. In the interaction between technology and society, we are delighted to see the impact and influence of Web3 Social on organizational forms, community formation, and identity unification. Account abstraction and smart contract-supported social graph will change our interest groups, gatherings, organizations, and democracy, truly becoming the gateway to Web3 in the process of mass adoption - just as Web2 social applications guide users.

Web3 Social is renamed. From now on, the thorn has been uprooted, and the path ahead for Web3 Social is clear and smooth.

SeeDAO is a blockchain-based digital polis that manifests itself as a decentralized digital network（SeeDAO Network）and physical bases (Seeshore) mapped across the globe are co-built, governed and shared by SeeDAO members. At present, we have formed several guilds, such as Translation Guild, Insight & Research Guild, Developers Guild, with more than 10,000 members.

It aims to help the birth of high-quality Web3 projects from the aspects of education, information and activities.

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