How to Implement Social Graph Data Licensing Models

On-chain social graph data—such as follower relationships, content interactions, and community memberships—is a valuable asset. Unlike traditional web2 platforms that silo this data, decentralized social protocols like Lens Protocol and Farcaster make these graphs public and portable. A data licensing model allows the creators of this data (users or applications) to define terms for its commercial use, enabling new revenue streams while preserving user sovereignty. Implementing this requires smart contracts that can issue, verify, and enforce licenses programmatically.

The core component is a licensing smart contract. This contract stores the terms of a license, such as the licensed data set (e.g., a user's follower list), the permitted use cases, the fee structure, and the duration. A common approach is to use non-fransferable soulbound tokens (SBTs) or verifiable credentials to represent active licenses. For example, a data consumer could pay a fee to mint an SBT from the licensor's contract, granting them the right to query and use a specific data set for a year. The contract acts as the single source of truth for license validity.

Here's a simplified example of a licensing contract using Solidity and the OpenZeppelin library. It issues an SBT (ERC721) to represent a data license.

solidityCopy
// SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT
import "@openzeppelin/contracts/token/ERC721/ERC721.sol";
contract SocialDataLicense is ERC721 {
    uint256 public nextTokenId;
    address public licensor;
    mapping(uint256 => LicenseTerm) public terms;

    struct LicenseTerm {
        address dataSubject; // Whose graph data is licensed
        uint256 expiry;
        string dataSet; // e.g., "followers-v1"
    }

    constructor() ERC721("SocialDataLicense", "SDL") { licensor = msg.sender; }

    function mintLicense(address _dataSubject, uint256 _duration, string calldata _dataSet) external payable {
        require(msg.value >= 0.01 ether, "Fee required"); // Example fee
        uint256 tokenId = nextTokenId++;
        terms[tokenId] = LicenseTerm(_dataSubject, block.timestamp + _duration, _dataSet);
        _safeMint(msg.sender, tokenId);
        // Transfer fee to licensor/data subject
        (bool sent, ) = licensor.call{value: msg.value}("");
        require(sent, "Fee transfer failed");
    }

    function isValid(uint256 tokenId) public view returns (bool) {
        return terms[tokenId].expiry > block.timestamp;
    }
}

A data consumer's API or indexer would check isValid(tokenId) before serving licensed data.

For verification, your application's backend or a decentralized oracle must validate licenses before serving data. A typical flow: 1) A third-party app requests a user's social graph via your API, providing a licenseTokenId. 2) Your service calls the isValid() function on-chain. 3) If valid, the service queries the subgraph (e.g., The Graph) for the licensed data and returns it. This creates a gated data access layer. Projects like Airstack are building infrastructure to seamlessly integrate such on-chain verification into data queries, abstracting the complexity for developers.

Consider these key design decisions: Fee Models can be one-time minting fees, recurring subscriptions (managed by the contract), or revenue-sharing via smart contract royalties. Data Granularity—licenses can cover an entire profile, specific relationship types, or even individual data points. Compliance & Attribution—licenses can enforce on-chain attribution, ensuring derived products credit the original data source. Revocation—while SBTs are non-transferable, consider including a revokeLicense function for the licensor in case of terms violation, though this impacts decentralization.

Real-world implementation is evolving. The Lens Protocol ecosystem explores licensing through Open Actions that can attach terms to content. Farcaster's Frames could integrate license checks. Start by defining a clear Data Licensing Standard (similar to ERC-721 for NFTs) for your application to ensure interoperability. The goal is to move beyond open access to programmable access, enabling users to own and benefit from the social capital they generate on-chain while allowing developers to build sustainable businesses atop this data layer.

Before implementing a data licensing model, you must define the data assets and their provenance. For a social graph, this typically includes user profiles, connections (follows), content posts, and engagement data (likes, comments). The core prerequisite is establishing a clear, on-chain record of data creation and ownership, often using non-fungible tokens (NFTs) or soulbound tokens (SBTs). For example, a user's profile could be minted as an NFT where the token metadata URI points to the profile data stored on a decentralized network like IPFS or Arweave. This creates an immutable, ownable record that can be licensed.

The next step is selecting a licensing standard. While general-purpose standards like ERC-721 (for NFTs) imply ownership, they lack explicit licensing terms. For programmable licensing, you should integrate a dedicated standard. ERC-721-C (Creator Token Standard) allows for on-chain royalty enforcement. For more complex commercial terms, consider Canonical Protocol Licenses (CPL) or building upon the EIP-5218 standard for licensable NFTs. Your choice dictates how license parameters—like duration, fee structure, and permitted uses—are encoded into the smart contract logic governing your social data assets.

You will need a development environment configured for smart contract work. Set up Hardhat or Foundry with Solidity (version 0.8.x or later). Essential dependencies include OpenZeppelin contracts for secure base implementations (@openzeppelin/contracts) and a library for handling signed messages if implementing off-chain approvals, like EIP-712. For testing, prepare mock data and use a local blockchain (Hardhat Network) or a testnet like Sepolia or Goerli. Ensure your environment can interact with decentralized storage SDKs, such as web3.storage for IPFS or ArweaveJS.

A critical architectural decision is where to store the actual social graph data. Storing large datasets fully on-chain is prohibitively expensive. The standard pattern is to store a content identifier (CID) or transaction ID on-chain, which points to the data stored off-chain. Use IPFS for mutable data with possible pinning services, or Arweave for permanent, one-time storage. Your licensing smart contract must reference this pointer. For example, the tokenURI function in an NFT contract would return an ar:// or ipfs:// URI, creating a verifiable link between the license (the token) and the licensed data.

Finally, plan the license lifecycle management. Your system must handle: license issuance (minting), fee collection (via msg.value or ERC-20 approvals), term validation (checking expiry dates or usage limits on-chain), and revocation. Implement access control modifiers (using OpenZeppelin's Ownable or AccessControl) to restrict minting to authorized issuers. Consider how licensees will prove their right to access the data—often via a verifiable check of their token balance or through signature verification of a permission signed by the licensor, which can be validated by an API or a smart contract.

Social graph data—the network of connections, follows, and interactions between users—is a valuable asset for applications in decentralized social media, recommendation engines, and identity verification. Implementing a licensing model for this data allows users to retain ownership and control while enabling developers to access it under clear terms. Core to this is the concept of verifiable credentials or attestations, where a user's social connections are cryptographically signed statements stored on-chain or in decentralized storage, creating a portable, user-owned social graph.

The foundational step is to define and issue attestations for social relationships. Using a framework like Ethereum Attestation Service (EAS) or Verax, you can create schemas for connections (e.g., "follows", "is friend of"). A user (the attester) signs an attestation linking their identity to another (the recipient). This creates a tamper-proof record. For example, an EAS schema for a 'Follow' attestation would specify fields for followerAddress, followedAddress, and timestamp. The resulting attestation UID becomes a portable proof of that connection that can be queried and verified by any application.

Once attestations are created, you need a mechanism to license access to them. A common pattern is token-gated access, where holding a specific NFT or token grants permission to query a user's social graph. Implement this using a smart contract that checks token ownership before returning data. For instance, a SocialGraphLicensing contract could have a function getConnections(address user) external view returns (address[] memory) that first verifies the caller holds a DataAccessToken NFT. This creates a direct, programmable revenue model or permission layer for the data.

For more granular control, consider composable licensing terms encoded directly into the attestation or a related smart contract. This could include: expiryTimestamp for temporary access, maxQueryCount to limit usage, or allowedApplications to restrict data use to permitted dApps. These terms are enforced at the smart contract logic level. Privacy can be enhanced using zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs); a user could generate a ZK proof that they have over 100 followers (meeting a license requirement) without revealing the followers' identities, using a system like Sismo or a custom Circom circuit.

Finally, integrate this licensed data into your application. Query on-chain attestation registries like EAS's GraphQL API or use a subgraph from The Graph. Your dApp's backend or smart contract should verify the attestation's validity (checking the schema, attester, and revocation status) and the user's access rights before consuming the data. This architecture enables new business models—like users earning fees when their social graph is used for targeted advertising—while ensuring transparency and user sovereignty over their digital relationships.

A License NFT is a non-fungible token that grants its holder specific, on-chain permissions to access or use a defined set of social graph data. Unlike a standard NFT representing ownership of a digital artwork, a license NFT's primary utility is its embedded access rights. The contract must define what data the license covers (e.g., a user's follower list, engagement history), the permitted actions (e.g., query, compute, commercialize), and the license's duration. This transforms raw social data into a programmable, tradable asset with clear terms.

The contract design centers on two key data structures. First, the License Metadata stored on-chain or referenced via a URI (like IPFS) must include the license terms: dataScope (which user's graph), permissions (read, analyze, derive), expiryBlock, and a revocable flag. Second, the contract's state must track which addresses hold valid licenses for which data subjects. A common pattern is a mapping like mapping(address dataSubject => mapping(address licensee => uint256 tokenId)) to efficiently verify permissions.

For implementation, we extend the ERC-721 standard, adding functions to mint, check, and manage licenses. The core minting function should be permissioned, often callable only by the data subject (the user) or a designated protocol. It must encode the license parameters into the token's metadata upon creation. Here's a simplified function signature:

solidityCopy
function mintLicense(
    address licensee,
    address dataSubject,
    uint256 expiryBlock,
    string memory permissions
) external returns (uint256 tokenId);

This creates a unique token ID linked to the specific dataSubject->licensee relationship.

A critical security consideration is license revocation. If the revocable flag is true, the data subject (or a decentralized governance mechanism) must be able to burn the NFT, invalidating the access rights. This requires overriding the ERC-721 _burn function to include authorization logic and update the internal permission mappings. Without this, licenses become permanent grants, which may not align with user sovereignty principles in decentralized social graphs.

Finally, the contract must include a permission-checking function that other smart contracts (like data oracles or compute modules) can call to verify a user's rights. A view function like function hasValidLicense(address dataSubject, address licensee, string memory requiredPermission) external view returns (bool) allows for gas-efficient, on-chain verification. This interoperability is essential for building a larger ecosystem where the license NFT is the key that unlocks data utility across multiple applications.

By completing this step, you establish a soulbound-like token that is non-transferable by default (to prevent rights speculation) and directly ties data access to a verified identity. This contract becomes the source of truth for data licensing, enabling transparent and compliant monetization models for social graph data on platforms like Lens Protocol or Farcaster.

The foundation of a data licensing model is a permission registry—a smart contract that maps user addresses to specific data access rights. A common implementation uses a nested mapping structure: mapping(address => mapping(bytes32 => bool)) public permissions. The outer key is the data subject's address, the inner bytes32 key is a unique identifier for the data licensee (or a hash of their address and a license type), and the boolean value represents whether access is granted. This structure allows efficient on-chain checks to enforce data sovereignty before any query is processed.

Granting permission is a straightforward transaction initiated by the data subject. The function grantAccess(address licensee, bytes32 licenseId) would update the mapping to true for the given keys. For enhanced functionality and user experience, you can integrate with EIP-712 signed typed data, allowing users to sign off-chain permission grants that can be submitted by a relayer, reducing gas costs. It's critical to emit a clear event like AccessGranted(address indexed dataSubject, address indexed licensee, bytes32 licenseId) for indexing by subgraphs and frontends.

Revocation logic must be equally robust and immediate. The function revokeAccess(address licensee, bytes32 licenseId) sets the permission mapping to false. A key design consideration is revocation granularity. Will users revoke a specific license ID, all licenses for a particular application, or globally? Implementing a revokeAllForApp(address app) function that iterates through a user's active licenses for that app provides practical utility. Always pair revocation with an AccessRevoked event to ensure downstream systems update their state promptly and cease data service.

Before serving any social data, your indexing or API layer must call a permission check. A typical pattern is a modifier or internal function like checkPermission(address dataSubject, address requester). This function queries the registry contract. If it returns false, the call reverts. For scalability, consider implementing an off-chain attestation system using a framework like EAS (Ethereum Attestation Service), where a valid, unexpired attestation signed by the data subject serves as the permission proof, reducing on-chain reads.

Advanced models incorporate conditional logic and time-based permissions. You can extend the permission struct to include fields like uint256 expiryTimestamp or uint256 maxUsageCount. The check function then validates not just the boolean grant but also that block.timestamp < expiry and usedCount < maxUsageCount. This enables flexible licensing terms like "30-day analyst access" or "one-time use for a credit check." Managing these stateful conditions requires careful contract design to avoid gas inefficiency during checks.

Finally, integrate this logic with your data infrastructure. Your subgraph or indexer should listen to the AccessGranted and AccessRevoked events to update its own permission cache or database. Your GraphQL API or RPC endpoint should include the requester's address as a parameter and validate it against the on-chain registry or cached state before resolving the query. This end-to-enforcement ensures the licensing model is not just a contractual concept but a technically enforced gatekeeper for user data.

A robust royalty mechanism requires a smart contract architecture that can track usage and distribute fees automatically. The core component is a payment splitter contract that receives all licensing fees and distributes them according to predefined shares. For social graph data, these shares typically go to the data originator (the user who generated the social connection), the application that facilitated the connection, and potentially a protocol treasury. Using a standard like OpenZeppelin's PaymentSplitter ensures security and gas efficiency for this distribution logic.

To trigger payments, your licensing contract must integrate a payment function. A common pattern is to implement a mintLicense function that requires a fee. The function should calculate the fee based on the license type (e.g., one-time, subscription) and data scope, then forward the funds to the payment splitter. Here's a simplified example:

solidityCopy
function mintLicense(address dataSubject, uint licenseType) external payable {
    uint fee = licenseFee[licenseType];
    require(msg.value >= fee, "Insufficient payment");
    
    // Record the license issuance
    _issueLicense(msg.sender, dataSubject, licenseType);
    
    // Forward payment to splitter
    (bool success, ) = payable(paymentSplitterAddress).call{value: fee}("");
    require(success, "Payment failed");
}

For recurring or usage-based models, consider more advanced patterns. ERC-20 token streaming via Superfluid or Sablier allows for real-time royalty flows as data is consumed. Alternatively, you can implement an accounting ledger within your contract that tracks cumulative usage and allows for periodic settlement. When integrating with existing social graphs from protocols like Lens Protocol or CyberConnect, you must design your royalty contract to be composable. This often means implementing a hook that their protocol can call upon data query or export, triggering your payment logic without modifying their core contracts.

Critical considerations include gas optimization for micro-payments and handling multiple currencies. Using Layer 2 solutions like Arbitrum or Optimism significantly reduces transaction costs for small fees. For currency flexibility, accept stablecoins like USDC in addition to native ETH, and use a decentralized price oracle like Chainlink to handle conversions if needed. Always implement a withdrawal pattern for payees to claim their accumulated royalties, rather than pushing payments automatically, to save gas.

Finally, transparency is key for trust. Emit detailed event logs for every payment (LicenseMinted, RoyaltyDistributed) and consider implementing a view function that allows any payee to query their accrued but unclaimed earnings. This audit trail, combined with the immutable logic of the smart contract, creates a verifiable and fair royalty system that aligns incentives for all participants in the social data economy.

Social graph data—the network of connections and interactions between users on platforms like Farcaster or Lens Protocol—is a valuable asset. Implementing a licensing model allows data creators (users or protocols) to define terms for how their data can be accessed, used, and monetized by third-party dApps and researchers. This moves beyond simple public/private binaries to create a permissioned data economy. Core concepts include the data subject (the user), the licensee (the dApp), and the licensor (which could be the user or a protocol acting on their behalf).

Several licensing frameworks are emerging for Web3. The Creative Commons suite (e.g., CC BY-SA) offers familiar, human-readable licenses for content and data. Open Data Commons licenses, like the ODbL, are tailored for databases. For more granular, machine-readable control, smart contract-based licenses are key. These encode terms directly on-chain, enabling automated compliance checks and revenue splits. Projects like Ocean Protocol's data tokens exemplify this, wrapping datasets as tradable assets with embedded access rules.

For dApp developers, integration starts with querying a user's or dataset's license. On Farcaster, a user's profile might specify a license field pointing to an on-chain or IPFS-hosted license document. Your dApp should parse this to understand permitted uses (e.g., commercial use, derivatives). For smart contract licenses, you'll interact with a license manager contract. A basic check in a Solidity smart contract might look like:

solidityCopy
interface ILicenseRegistry {
    function checkLicense(address dataSubject, address licensee, uint256 useCase) external view returns (bool approved, uint256 fee);
}
// Query the registry
(bool approved, uint256 fee) = ILicenseRegistry(registryAddress).checkLicense(userAddress, address(this), 1);
require(approved, "License not granted for this use");
// Handle fee payment if fee > 0...

Researchers analyzing bulk social data face different integration patterns. The process often involves: 1) Discovery: Finding licensed datasets via marketplaces like Ocean Market or protocol-specific subgraphs. 2) Access Negotiation: Acquiring a data token or signing a verifiable credential that proves license compliance. 3) Computation: Running analysis on the data, potentially using compute-to-data frameworks where the data is never directly downloaded, preserving privacy and license terms. 4) Attribution: Ensuring results comply with attribution clauses, often by cryptographically citing the source dataset's DID (Decentralized Identifier).

Key challenges include license interoperability (different protocols using different standards) and enforcement. While on-chain licenses can automate payment, enforcing terms like "no redistribution" off-chain is harder. Solutions involve zero-knowledge proofs to verify computation was performed correctly without leaking data, or trusted execution environments (TEEs). Always design with user agency in mind: the model should allow users to easily view, modify, and revoke licenses granted to applications, putting control back in their hands.

Implementing a social graph licensing model requires a multi-layered approach. Start by defining your data schema using standards like Verifiable Credentials or EIP-712 typed data to ensure interoperability. Your smart contract, likely an ERC-721 or ERC-1155, must encode the licensing terms—such as duration, permitted uses, and revenue share—directly into the token's metadata or an attached legal wrapper. Use access control modifiers to restrict function calls to license holders, and implement a secure payment splitter, like OpenZeppelin's PaymentSplitter, for automated royalty distribution.

For the user experience, integrate gasless transactions via meta-transactions or a paymaster to lower the barrier for non-crypto-native users. Front-end development should focus on clear consent flows, displaying the specific terms of the license before minting. Consider using Lens Protocol or CyberConnect modules if building within an existing social graph, as they provide tested primitives for profile and connection management. Always store the definitive license agreement, such as a hashed version of the legal text, on-chain for immutable proof of terms.

Testing is critical. Use a framework like Hardhat or Foundry to write comprehensive unit tests for all contract functions: minting with payment, checking access rights, executing revenue splits, and handling renewals. Perform fork testing on a mainnet fork to simulate real economic conditions. For decentralized data storage, pin the license metadata to IPFS using a service like Pinata or nft.storage, and reference the CID in your token URI. Ensure your front-end fetches this data reliably.

After deployment, your work shifts to monitoring and iteration. Use subgraphs from The Graph to index event data for dashboards that track license issuance, revenue, and active users. Gather feedback on license terms and pricing; be prepared to deploy new contract versions with upgraded logic via a proxy pattern like the Transparent Proxy or UUPS. Engage with your community through governance forums to propose changes to the model, potentially decentralizing control over fee parameters or approved data use cases.

The final step is ecosystem integration. Publish your contract addresses and ABI on platforms like Etherscan for verification. Document your APIs and licensing standards to encourage third-party developers to build applications that consume your licensed data. By implementing a transparent, on-chain licensing layer, you create a new primitive for user-owned social economies, turning passive data into a programmable and tradable asset.