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DeSo Launches $50M Fund for Decentralized Social Ecosystem
The Octane Fund will fuel development of early-stage social media projects for the blockchain.
Updated May 11, 2023, 4:00 p.m. Published Oct 5, 2021, 5:14 p.m.
The foundation of DeSo, the blockchain started by the founder of social media site BitClout, has unveiled a $50 million fund to support the development of a decentralized social media ecosystem.
- Established by Nader Al-Naji (who formerly used the pseudonym “Diamondhands”) as the blockchain for BitClout, DeSo aims to offer a framework for social networks, just as Ethereum provides tools to build decentralized computer programs.
- The DeSo Foundation’s $50 million Octane Fund will help accelerate the growth of the DeSo developer ecosystem. It will draw from the $200 million in venture capital the project has received from Andreessen Horowitz, Coinbase Ventures and others.
- The fund will focus on early-stage initiatives that will then build a demo on the DeSo blockchain or integrate DeSo features into an existing product.
- While BitClout’s purported goal of decentralizing social media earned Al-Naji the pseudonym “the Facebook killer,” he now says that the network was merely a proof-of-concept for DeSo.
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