Mask Network Takes the Baton from Lens: A New Chapter for Decentralized Social—From Infrastructure to Mass User Adoption
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Mask Network Takes the Baton from Lens: A New Chapter for Decentralized Social—From Infrastructure to Mass User Adoption
Lens has completed its mission of proving the feasibility of decentralized social networks, and the baton is now passed to Mask Network, which will leverage its consumer-grade product expertise to push decentralized social from the experimental phase into mainstream adoption.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsFor years, decentralized social networks have promised a future where users own their identities, creators capture more value, and platforms are no longer beholden to a single corporation. Yet few projects have delivered on this vision at scale—until Lens.
Lens began as an ambitious experiment and has now accomplished what many Web3 practitioners once deemed impossible: proving that user-owned decentralized social networks can be built on open, composable, permissionless infrastructure—and actually work.
With this core mission achieved, Lens is entering a new chapter—and Mask Network is stepping in to carry the torch. Mask, the team that has consistently translated decentralized ideals into genuinely consumer-ready products, is the ideal successor.
Mask’s Long-Term Bet on Decentralized Social
Founded by Suji Yan in 2017, Mask aims to build an easy-to-use bridge from Web2 to decentralized applications in the Web3 era. As early as late 2019, the Mask browser extension enabled users to access secure decentralized social messaging, payment networks, and file storage directly atop mainstream social media platforms.
Mask has been deeply embedded in the decentralized social ecosystem since day one. The team has long supported Mastodon—the leading decentralized social network with roughly 1.9 million monthly active users. Mask operates two of Mastodon’s most active instances—mstdn.jp and mastodon.cloud—and acquired Pawoo.net, one of Mastodon’s largest instances, in 2022.
Mask has scaled rapidly. Its ecosystem now spans shared infrastructure and consumer-facing applications. In 2022, Mask launched its own venture arm, Bonfire Union, managing two funds totaling $100 million and investing in over 120 projects across decentralized social networks, underlying infrastructure, and the creator economy.
Mask’s current positioning is “Tencent of Web3”: not a single platform, but a network of interoperable social products governed by MaskDAO.
Suji Yan, Mask’s founder, said: “Mask is committed to making decentralized social more accessible, intuitive, and suitable for everyday users—aligning perfectly with Lens’s next chapter.”
From Infrastructure to Mass Adoption: Partnering with Lens and Orb
Stani Kulechov, Lens’s founder, says Lens—spanning protocol, ecosystem, and its dedicated blockchain—has laid the foundation for the next generation of SocialFi applications.
Lens began as a community experiment and evolved into open social infrastructure. Through multiple iterations of its protocol, it progressed from early developer adoption to production-ready social rails, ultimately becoming a permissionless, high-performance network supporting consumer-grade applications. Along the way, Lens proved its central thesis: user-owned decentralized social can operate at real-world scale while delivering the experience people expect.
The remaining challenge is transitioning from infrastructure to mass adoption—from protocol to product.
Mask Network is the ideal successor for Lens’s next phase. This transition mirrors Mask’s earlier acquisition of Orb—a Web3-native social application built on Lens.
By early 2025, Orb had surpassed 50K monthly active users, pioneering an “I was there” (you had to be there) experience through viral mechanisms like sticker packs, collectibles, and contests—all centered around creator-first monetization. Orb is now part of MaskDAO, joining an expanding suite of decentralized social products including Web3.bio and Firefly.social. Firefly.social has already partnered with leading ecosystem projects such as Fileverse, Snapshot, Polymarket, Mirror, Paragraph, and eth.limo—and earned public praise from Vitalik Buterin for its exceptional user experience.
Suji Yan, founder of Mask Network, said: “Lens has proven infrastructure feasibility. Orb has proven application viability on top of it. MaskDAO exists to bring decentralized social out of the lab and into daily life—to build products that scale to millions of users while preserving user ownership.”
Kimmo Sirén, Orb’s founder, said: “Lens Chain allows us to reimagine the shape of social. With MaskDAO, we’re bringing culture and ownership truly onchain.”
Why Mask Is Lens’s Best Next Successor
Lens has fulfilled its original mission: proving that decentralized, user-owned social networks can be built—and scaled. The infrastructure is now open, high-performance, and ready.
What the ecosystem needs next isn’t more protocols—it’s outstanding consumer-grade products.
Like Lens, Mask believes deeply in user-owned social—but brings years of experience operating consumer-scale platforms. From Mastodon to Firefly to Orb, the Mask team has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to turn open infrastructure into polished, mainstream-facing applications.
Stani Kulechov, founder of Lens Chain and Avara, said: “Lens was built to give people ownership over their digital lives—and we’ve proven this model works at scale. The infrastructure is now open, resilient, and ready to support real consumer-grade products. What comes next is mainstream adoption—and that’s precisely where Mask’s product leadership is critical to bringing decentralized social into everyday use.”
Going forward, Stani and Avara will continue advising Suji Yan and the Mask team. Both sides believe that, over the coming years, social and DeFi will increasingly converge within the internet’s economic layer.
Lens laid the foundation. Mask is building the community—bringing decentralized social out of the lab and into daily life.
About Mask
Mask Network is the leader of the decentralized social ecosystem, connecting Web2 and Web3 by enabling users to access decentralized applications, messaging, and payment tools directly within mainstream social platforms. Its ecosystem is governed by MaskDAO and includes decentralized social applications such as Web3.bio, Firefly.social, and Orb.club. Through its venture arm, Bonfire Union, Mask strategically invests in decentralized social networks, infrastructure, and creative content—aiming to make Web3 more accessible to everyone. Learn more at mask.io. Contact us: hi[at]mask.io.
About Lens
Lens is a SocialFi-optimized Layer 2 blockchain designed to deliver scalability and cost-efficiency for decentralized SocialFi applications. With its modular social protocol, onchain content storage, and stable gas fees powered by GHO, Lens is committed to driving Web3 adoption. https://x.com/LC
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