From the masked authors of The Federalist Papers, who laid the foundation for democratic debate, to whistleblowers (like WikiLeaks) who expose global injustices. Pseudonymity has allowed individuals to share ideas & truths unburdened by fear of retaliation.
Voltaire, Publius, Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), Satoshi Nakamoto.
Zero Knowledge (ZK) Proofs
ZK cryptography applied to decentralised social networks represents a significant inflection enabling one party to prove they know a piece of information without revealing the actual information itself. Akin to proving you're old enough to enter a venue without showing your ID—the critical fact (age) confirmed without exposing personal details.
Traditional platforms demand users surrender personal data, creating vulnerable centralized repositories of sensitive information. ZK proofs flip this paradigm, allowing users to verify credentials or ownership without compromising individual privacy.
by zkOG @zooko
it’s simple really
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Genesis
Sealcaster was the first ZK app built on the Farcaster protocol, developed by Big Whale Labs. Created by Nikita Kolmogorov (borodutch), Jason Kim and team. They utilized Circom, a domain-specific language for creating zero-knowledge circuits, to generate proofs that allow users to authenticate themselves without revealing personal details. Compact circuits create proofs without exposing underlying private information. By utilizing Circom's constraints and signals, the application can verify user credentials while protecting individual privacy.
sealcaster.xyz: anonymous casts from farcaster users
you can:
- prove you're a part of farcaster
- generate a zk badge
- create a burner wallet (locallly)
- cast an anon message:
blog.bigwhalelabs.com/introducing-se…
Sealcaster
Cast on Warpcaster anonymously!
In the broader context of Big Whale Labs' ZK products, Sealcaster was part of a suite of apps:
SealCred: A platform for minting zk-NFTs based on NFT and email ownership
SealCred Echo: An application for posting anonymously on Twitter with verified credentials
Ketl: A tool for pseudonymous communication between venture capitalists and founders
As one of the first practical applications of ZK on farcaster, Sealcaster demonstrated the potential of proofs to enable private, verifiable communication on decentralized platforms.
it was built on polygon but someone should take our codebase and deploy another version on @base
Superanon
Fast forward one bear market, more traction on farcaster, & a community built around a power-user client called supercast (rebranded to super by its founder woj), superanon was born.
anonymous posting on farcaster, available only from supercast
in less than 2 weeks:
- 2k followers
- multiple viral posts
- ~100 new customers
doubling down and iterating on the feedback
Supercast is (currently) a paid-for client for accessing the farcaster protocol that is geared towards power users e.g. it enables casting from multiple accounts, & usage of superanon.
it also earned 70 usdc from warpcast rewards, for being one of the most engaging accounts on the platform
only possible on a permissionless programmable social network
is at 4.3k followers now
started 3 weeks ago
x.com/wojtekwtf/stat…
ANON
The farcaster's AI bot token launchers coverage showcased custom tuned LLM's like CLANKER facilitating over 10,000 token creations to date in around a month of operations, handling $1bn in volume, paying out millions to creators. A superanon user anonymously created $ANON with CLANKER whilst woj was sleeping - talk about permissionless.
1) There is a sweet fc client called Supercast, and users of that app have access to a bot that lets them post anonymously using an account @ SuperAnon. There is also a bot by @_proxystudio called Clanker that can deploy tokens on @base just by…
Once woj had awoken he launched the $anon token (no capitalisation) that would underpin the superanon account, but also airdropped donated $ANON to all supercast users.
With this differentiation in place, slokh (previously built the incredible nook client) built a platform for users to cast anonymously given some ownership of $ANON.
"Anoncast is the most popular zk consumer app that's existed so far. We use Noir for our circuits, users generate proofs for the content they want to post in their browser, and only that proof is sent to our servers. There's no identifiable information for who sent the proof and no logs collected, thereby making it fully private. All the code is open source so anyone can verify these claims." slokh
This has spawned a number of iterations, applications and experiments.
now we can all anoncast from mobile.
have at it, nerds.
As well as constant updates and improvements such as revealing yourself as the author (of a banger) at a later date. Messr's Vitalik & Jesse Pollack are holders/users.
33Bits
One of those experiments is 33bits.xyz which limits those able to use it to those with FID numbers 20k and below (early farcaster users). Built by Kugusha and Sergey who have then gone on to launch 66bits.xyz to enable more open access to the utility, with extra capabilities for holders of the token.
Rumours
Built by Disky & Leovido, rumourcast.xyz is a farcaster client "that builds on the foundations of the popular Anon Cast but with a unique twist".
So long as you have enough of the token that underpins it, a user can cast as the anon account. The roadmap looking forward includes:
Frames V2 Integration: Creating a unique frame feature to enhance user interaction
NFT: mint collectible NFTs of rumours, with potential prediction market integration
Rumour AI Agent: elaborately expand & enhance rumours, adding depth/creativity to each cast
The iterations keep coming.
Pseudonymous Economy
Transitioning wholesale to fully financialized pseudonymous frameworks risks oversimplifying the complexities of human interaction. Much promise lies not in complete anonymity, but in a variety of sophisticated identity models.
Use zero knowledge, homomorphic encryption, secure multiparty computation, cryptocredentials, AI avatars, and the like to bring your minimum necessary self to work.
Thereby make both cancellation and discrimination impossible.
These online/onchain social experiments are key spaces where individuals can build reputation, share insights, and collaborate without the crushing weight of personal exposure.
Pure anonymity cannot sustain entire social or governance structures. But these nuanced digital personas—verifiable identities that can be trusted, and portable across platforms, without sacrificing individual privacy—pave the way for spaces where participation is voluntary, identity is fluid, and the power dynamics of online communication are fundamentally reimagined. More tools in the armoury for finding a delicate balance between transparency and protection, between collective trust and individual freedom.
“Behind this mask there is more than just flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea... and ideas are bulletproof.”
― Alan Moore, V for Vendetta
thanks for reading, consider minting this article & encouraging more like it, catch you on the next
Connect
Farcaster @papa — https://warpcast.com/@papa
Lens @papajams — https://lenster.xyz/u/papajams
Twitter @papajimjams — https://twitter.com/papajimjams
Read/Watch
Zero-knowledge is easy or the ultimate how-to article by Nikita Kolmogorov
Web3 Social Landscape by Paul Veradittakit, Pantera Capital
Introducing Sealcaster, by Big Whale Labs
Applied ZK how we made anonymous casts on Farcaster possible, by Nikita Kolmogorov
From Control to Community, Farcaster & The Future Of Social Media, by Forbes
The Pseudonymous Economy, by Balaji Srinivasan
