Farcaster's ZK Anons

This essay argues that pseudonymity and zero-knowledge proofs can support private, verifiable participation on decentralized social platforms, and that a variety of identity models, rather than complete anonymity, offers the most promise. It traces the build-out of anonymous posting on Farcaster, starting with Sealcaster, which Big Whale Labs developed and which Nikita Kolmogorov and Jason Kim created using Circom. Follow-on apps include superanon, which reached 4.3k followers within three weeks of starting, and Anoncast, built by slokh with Noir circuits. The author concludes that pure anonymity cannot sustain social or governance structures.