Exclusive Interview with Phaver: How Does a Web3 Social App Grow After Attracting 250,000 Users and Launching a Chinese Version?
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Exclusive Interview with Phaver: How Does a Web3 Social App Grow After Attracting 250,000 Users and Launching a Chinese Version?
How should we understand Phaver's Web2.5, and what enables it to stand out in Web3 social?...
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: PANews, Zen
On January 18, Phaver, a Web3 social application, announced support for Chinese language (both Simplified and Traditional) and launched its official Android APK. Users can update the app to the latest version and enable Chinese—the most widely spoken language globally—in the settings.
As the largest mobile application on Lens Protocol, Phaver has amassed over 250,000 users to date. In October last year, it raised $7 million in a seed round at a valuation of nearly $80 million, with participation from Polygon Ventures, Nomad Capital, Symbolic Capital, dao5, Foresight Ventures, among others.
Phaver’s achievements so far are closely tied to its co-founder and CEO Joonatan's leadership. With over a decade of experience in Web2 social apps, Joonatan defines Phaver as a gateway to Web3—an application bridging the gap between Web2 and Web3, essentially a Web2.5 solution. But how should we understand Phaver’s concept of Web2.5, and what sets it apart in the Web3 social landscape? To explore these questions, PANews conducted an exclusive interview with Joonatan. Below is the full transcript.
Can you briefly introduce what kind of project Phaver is?
Joonatan: Phaver is a decentralized social network platform designed to address privacy, data security, and user rights issues inherent in traditional social media platforms. It supports decentralized social graphs such as the Lens Protocol created by Aave and CyberConnect, along with various on-chain assets like NFTs. As the largest application on Lens Protocol, Phaver currently has over 250,000 users.
Please share some details about the Phaver team and the founders’ backgrounds.
Joonatan: Our core team members have complementary strengths. In addition to myself, there are two technically oriented co-founders. One established Finland’s first Bitcoin exchange back in 2012, giving us long-term expertise in the cryptocurrency industry. Our CTO was previously the lead developer at a major gaming company, bringing deep knowledge in gamification. Our CFO, Tomi, used to be an investment banker and venture capitalist, fully capable of overseeing token issuance, economics, and financial matters. We want to ensure that our product is truly sustainable and achieves steady year-on-year growth rather than spiking quickly and then losing momentum.
Personally, I’ve spent ten years working in marketing and business development within social media, gaining deep insights into who pays for which features in this model. Many people say there's no room for competition without advertising. However, pragmatically speaking, services always come at a cost—retaining talent and operations require funding. We aim to build a sustainable ecosystem where either every user pays, or our partners and advertisers contribute meaningful fees. Based on my experience, we’re building a system that offers users a comfortable, free interface while rewarding creators' efforts. At the same time, we won’t build systems in an "intrusive" way like many Web2 apps do—monitoring your every move online. Instead, we use more ethical methods of data collection, encouraging genuine sharing and engagement. Users participating in promotions earn cashback in the form of points. For example, if a user purchases a promoted post later, they receive extra points as rewards, which can be converted into tokens. This way, we aim to give users fairer returns.
Additionally, we currently have 28 employees worldwide, which is crucial because we offer native language support across many key markets. Our team covers languages including Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Turkish, and Vietnamese, ensuring we can provide mother-tongue support to users in local markets.
How should we understand Phaver’s Web2.5 approach?
Joonatan: We believe neither the world nor blockchain technology itself is ready for mass adoption yet. Moreover, not everything needs to be on-chain, and widespread blockchain adoption isn't inevitable. Therefore, what really matters is identifying where connecting ordinary users with blockchains creates real value. For instance, Phaver uses traditional cloud infrastructure, making access easier—even when protocols impose whitelists or other restrictions—so regular users face minimal barriers to entry.
We developed a mobile app for Phaver that delivers a user experience nearly identical to conventional social media apps—even my grandmother could easily join the Phaver system. Then, users can link their Lens Protocol profile to their Phaver account. This means every one of their posts gets mirrored on Lens, and every follow/follower relationship and new Lens profile stays synchronized with Phaver. All social activities are backed up on the blockchain, meaning users truly own their social graph—including relationships and shared content—without being controlled by Phaver.
In a sense, we see this as a win-win: users enjoy the convenience of single sign-on while gradually building their Web3 social graph. The more interfaces they connect, the tighter their integration becomes with ENS, Lens Protocol, and their Phaver accounts, allowing them to derive greater value from a Web3 perspective.
Since Phaver’s official launch, it has seen stable linear growth and now boasts over 250,000 users. What are your secrets to growth?
Joonatan: For Phaver, the most important thing is the community we’re building, and we’ve made significant investments in our community-facing teams. As I mentioned, Phaver supports multiple languages, and currently at least 14 team members work in community operations and business development, establishing partnerships beneficial to community users. I think this is especially critical during bear markets, when speculators may not make substantial profits and purely profit-driven users might seek other opportunities. Those who genuinely fight for the community and new possibilities are ultimately driven by the goal of creating tangible impact through Web3 technology. In my view, the users who stay are aligned in this vision.
For social media applications, unless you have a billion users, you aren’t truly a social media platform. Even within the entire Web3 space, Phaver remains a relatively small community. This motivates us to keep developing new features, continuously iterating, preparing for broader adoption, staying responsive to user feedback, and customizing personalized products so the app scales sustainably.
Web3 social is a highly watched category in crypto. What advantages does Phaver have compared to competitors?
Joonatan: The rapid rise of Friend.tech is intriguing, but we differ fundamentally. We emphasize social interaction over tokenomics. While we will have a Phaver token, our main focus in token design is exploring a completely new and fairer way to earn tokens and rewards. Tokenomics is indeed a clever mechanism to incentivize creators, contributors, and copyright holders on social media platforms, enabling them to earn higher revenues, attention, or profits from ads on the platform.
Therefore, Phaver has built a gamified system composed of reputation scores, badge collections, certifications, and more, ensuring Phaver functions as a true social platform rather than relying on multiple bank accounts like some others. We've also implemented a reward system to recognize users producing high-quality content. All these efforts aim to prevent abuse from bots, fake accounts, and farming (posting大量内容 solely for rewards) in the long term. Through these mechanisms, Phaver aims to create a genuinely sustainable system that rewards those creating real value.
In terms of partnerships, Lens Protocol is one of the protocols collaborating with Phaver and has gained wide adoption. Most content created on dApps built atop Lens will be adopted by Phaver. We’ve also integrated with CyberConnect, making us a multi-protocol system that allows users to connect all their assets and entities to their social graph.
How do you quantify each user’s contribution and distribute rewards accordingly?
Joonatan: Ensuring rewards go to users who genuinely create value—not professional farmers—has been a top priority for Phaver. This is a significant challenge in crypto systems. Ideally, projects can incentivize early adopters via token airdrops. However, if a large portion of rewards ends up in the hands of a few accounts abusing the system, generating massive “fake data” and farming, the airdrop becomes unfair. Therefore, we must establish a mechanism allowing all users equitable access to token airdrops—this is partly why Phaver hasn’t launched its token yet. While there’s no fixed timeline, we guarantee that once the Phaver token launches, users will be able to redeem it through the Cred system. Cred points reset monthly, meaning only active, authentic users can earn a certain amount of points each month for token redemption. We also encourage long-term holding of Phaver tokens, as token ownership increases account tier and entitles users to larger future airdrops.
Does Phaver have controls against harmful or malicious content? How do you balance freedom and platform moderation?
Joonatan: Fortunately, content moderation has been relatively light so far. Most spam is clearly identifiable, and we haven’t encountered genuinely harmful content. We have a reporting system and continuously review reports with our team. For future scaling, we plan to decentralize moderation. Verified users already vote daily on top content to avoid algorithmic bias common in other platforms that amplify harmful content. In the next phase, the most active users will be invited to participate in decentralized moderation experiences. Users can spend Phaver points to vote on whether to hide a reported post. If three anonymous voters agree, they all receive double points back; if they disagree, they lose their points. This makes voting fairer, and since randomly assigned voters don’t know each other, manipulation is minimized.
Regarding freedom of speech, one of the most revolutionary aspects of Web3 social is that users own their social graphs and content—we’re just one application enjoying that content. This means even if we disagree with someone’s views and delete their post or profile on Phaver, their content still exists on-chain and remains accessible via other apps unless those apps choose to hide it too.
Users earn points by connecting certain NFTs to Phaver, but the NFT sector appears to be weakening. Will Phaver continue supporting this feature and expand the number of supported NFT projects?
Joonatan: Actually, high-quality projects with strong communities—like our partner Pudgy Penguins (which recently hit new highs, with a floor price reaching 18 ETH as of January 19)—are performing very well in the current market. Overall, we believe NFTs serve better as identity symbols, community builders, and true collectibles rather than financial instruments. We look forward to seeing more consumer-focused NFTs emerge in 2024—concert tickets, fan and music NFTs, and collectibles from major brands like Disney.
While we’ll gradually reduce points awarded simply for holding NFTs, this strategy has already led users to connect over $100 million worth of assets on Phaver—even during bear market lows. Many Phaver-connected NFT communities have thrived, boasting hundreds of active members.
Could you briefly explain Phaver’s tokenomics and disclose any plans regarding the Phaver token launch?
Joonatan: We cannot disclose any specific token plans at this moment. However, we’ve been patiently building and refining our gamified system—to create one that’s easy to adopt via simple off-chain points, complex enough to resist farming, and capable of fairly airdropping rewards based on actual user contributions. The system will also reward top performers monthly, rather than relying on large early airdrops like some projects, ensuring our development is long-term focused. Utility functions of the Phaver token will include discounted point and ad redemptions, in-app perks based on token balances in connected wallets, and other future opportunities.
Phaver has released localized apps for different countries and regions. Besides language, what other differences exist?
Joonatan: Phaver launched versions in Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese in December 2023, and has just released its Chinese version. The delay was to include the official Android APK, a request from many Chinese users unable to access Google Play Store. Now, after downloading the latest secure official Phaver app, any phone set to Chinese will automatically display the new Chinese interface, which can also be adjusted manually in settings.
Our app has no regional variations, but we continue adding more native-language communities for users to discuss in their mother tongues. Soon, users will be able to choose whether their posts appear only within their community or simultaneously to all followers, enabling smoother multilingual discussions—even if some followers only speak English.
Are you concerned about traditional social giants like Twitter integrating crypto and competing for market share?
Joonatan: Fortunately, social giants like Twitter or X are moving in exactly the wrong direction. Recently, they removed the only useful Web3 feature—verified NFT profile pictures. It's also important to note that adding cryptocurrency payments doesn’t make an app closer to Web3. The true essence of Web3 lies in ownership and control—not something as superficial as “allowing users to send BTC instead of cash in DMs.”
Currently, Phaver’s user base consists mostly of crypto natives, and content is primarily crypto-related. Is this your final target audience and content composition?
Joonatan: Currently, our focus is on Web3 users who are familiar with wallets and easily grasp Phaver’s value proposition. However, our ultimate goal has always been to create fun, simple, and useful content for everyone—genuinely enabling users to enter Web3 seamlessly. We’re several months away from achieving that, but we already have a solid roadmap in place to ensure users entering the blockchain space also enjoy a better experience than existing social apps.
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