Lens Protocol

Lens Protocol is a composable and decentralized social graph protocol built on the Polygon Proof-of-Stake blockchain. It re-architects social media by making the core social graph—the network of user profiles, connections, and content—a public, user-owned piece of infrastructure. Unlike traditional platforms where data is siloed and owned by a corporation, Lens stores social relationships and content as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and other blockchain assets, giving users true ownership and control. This foundational shift allows for permissionless innovation, where any developer can build a social application on top of this shared data layer.

The protocol's architecture is built around key, user-owned primitives. A user's profile is represented by a Profile NFT, which acts as their portable identity. When someone follows a profile, they receive a Follow NFT, which can be programmed with unique utility. Content publications, such as posts, comments, and mirrors (similar to reposts), are also minted as NFTs, creating a permanent, verifiable record. This design enables powerful new features: users can collect (like a paid like or mint) publications, revenue from fees and collect modules flows directly to creators, and social capital becomes a tradable, composable asset that can be integrated across different applications, known as "moments."

For developers, Lens Protocol functions as a modular and extensible base layer. It provides a core set of smart contract modules for essential social functions—publishing, following, and collecting—while allowing for custom modules to be added for features like unique membership schemes, revenue splits, or governance mechanisms. This composability means a social media front-end, a curation dashboard, and a analytics tool can all read from and write to the same underlying social graph, creating an ecosystem of interoperable applications rather than walled gardens. The protocol is governed by a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), Lens DAO, which oversees upgrades and the community treasury.

The primary use case for Lens is enabling a new generation of user-owned social networks. Applications built on Lens, such as Lenster, Orb, and Phaver, offer familiar social media experiences but with key differences: users can switch between clients without losing their audience or content, creators have direct monetization pathways, and communities can build valuable, persistent assets. By decoupling the social graph from specific applications, Lens Protocol aims to solve issues of platform lock-in, data ownership, and algorithmic control, presenting a foundational protocol for a more open and equitable web3 social ecosystem.

At its core, Lens Protocol operates on a modular architecture where key social primitives are represented as NFTs. The central component is the Profile NFT, which acts as a user's portable, self-sovereign identity. This NFT is the root of a user's social graph, storing their posts, mirrors (reposts), and followers. All content and interactions—such as publications (posts, comments, mirrors) and collects (a monetization feature)—are linked as metadata to this profile NFT, creating an immutable and user-controlled record.

Interactions on Lens are permissionless and composable, enabled by a set of standardized smart contract modules. Developers can build applications—or "frontends"—that plug into this shared social layer using these modules for features like following, collecting, and referencing. This means a user's social connections and content persist across any app built on Lens, breaking platform lock-in. The protocol uses a follow module to gate access, a collect module to monetize content, and a reference module to control commenting and mirroring, all customizable by profile owners.

The underlying data structure is stored on the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) and Arweave for decentralized, permanent storage, while the Polygon blockchain secures the ownership and transactional logic. This separation ensures content availability and censorship resistance. For example, when a user posts, the content (text, image) is hashed and pinned to IPFS, and that hash is recorded on-chain as part of the publication's metadata linked to their Profile NFT.

From a user's perspective, working with Lens involves using a crypto wallet to manage their Profile NFT. Actions like following another profile often require holding a Follow NFT, which can confer governance rights or exclusive access. Revenue streams are native; creators can set a fee in MATIC or other tokens for their collect module, allowing followers to directly support and own a piece of the content. This creates a circular economy where value flows between creators, curators, and consumers without intermediary platforms taking a cut.

The protocol's design emphasizes composability, allowing any developer to create new social experiences or monetization models by writing custom modules that adhere to the protocol's interfaces. This has led to a diverse ecosystem of Lens-based applications, from traditional social feeds to community tools and NFT-gated experiences, all interoperating through the same underlying social graph owned by the users themselves.

Core social primitives are the essential, modular components—such as user profiles, posts, comments, and follows—that form the foundation of a decentralized social graph. In a protocol like Lens Protocol, these primitives are represented as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) or other on-chain assets, granting users true ownership and control over their social identity and content. This architecture stands in stark contrast to traditional platforms where user data and connections are siloed and owned by a central corporation.

The key innovation of these primitives is their composability and interoperability. Because a user's profile is an NFT and their posts are collectible assets, these elements can be freely integrated, extended, and utilized by any application built on the protocol. A developer can create a new social front-end, a curation dashboard, or a monetization tool that seamlessly interacts with a user's existing social graph, fostering an open ecosystem of innovation without platform lock-in.

For example, on Lens Protocol, core primitives include the Profile NFT (a user's portable identity), Publications (posts, mirrors, and comments), and Follow NFTs (tokenized follower relationships). When a user collects (like purchasing) another user's publication, that action creates a new, tradable NFT, directly linking content creation to potential revenue. This transforms social capital into verifiable, ownable assets on the blockchain.

The security and verifiability of these relationships are anchored in smart contracts on the Polygon blockchain. Every interaction—following, posting, collecting—is a transparent on-chain transaction, creating an immutable and censorship-resistant record. This allows for novel features like provable social reputation, programmable monetization rules encoded directly into the content, and the ability to "take your followers with you" across different applications.

Ultimately, core social primitives aim to realign incentives in social media by putting users at the center. By owning their social graph, users capture the value they generate, and developers can build on a stable, permissionless foundation. This paradigm shift enables a future where social networks are user-owned utilities rather than centralized attention marketplaces.

Lens Protocol is a decentralized, composable social graph built on the Polygon Proof-of-Stake blockchain, enabling developers to create social media applications where users own their content and connections. Unlike traditional platforms, it treats social relationships—such as profiles, posts, follows, and comments—as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and other transferable assets stored on-chain. This architecture allows for permissionless innovation, where any developer can build a new application or feature that interoperates with the existing social network and user data.

The protocol's core modules are smart contracts that define the logic for key social actions, such as Follow, Collect, and Reference. These modules are upgradeable and can be customized by developers to create unique social mechanics, like token-gated content or revenue-sharing mechanisms. For example, a profile is an NFT (Profile NFT) that serves as a user's portable identity; followers are represented by Follow NFTs, and collected posts become Collect NFTs. This modular design is the foundation of its composability, allowing different applications to read from and write to the same underlying social graph.

Composability in Lens refers to the ability for applications and smart contracts to be seamlessly combined like building blocks. A post created in one Lens-based app can be displayed, collected, or commented on in any other app built on the protocol. This creates an ecosystem where innovation is additive rather than siloed. Developers can fork and remix existing modules, and users can take their social capital—their followers and content—with them across different front-end interfaces, from micro-blogging apps to video platforms or decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs).

The user-owned data model fundamentally shifts power dynamics in social media. Since relationships and content are on-chain assets, users have provable ownership and can potentially monetize their influence directly. They can also grant permissions to applications through ERC-6551 Token Bound Accounts, where a Profile NFT can control its own wallet. This enables complex use cases like profile-based transactions or asset management, further blending social and financial interactions within the Web3 stack.

For developers, Lens Protocol provides a suite of tools including the Lens API (a decentralized index of social data), the Lens SDK, and the Lens Network (a Layer 3 solution using zkSync's ZK Stack for scaling). This infrastructure aims to reduce the cost and complexity of building social features while ensuring data remains open and interoperable. The protocol exemplifies how modular blockchain design can be applied to social networking, creating a fertile ground for experimentation beyond the constraints of walled-garden platforms.