$ETH Breaking through 4200, the power of Ethereum has brought Wall Street to its knees! While financial assets have gradually become decentralized, social assets remain highly centralized. Do you remember the recent bloody incident where many KOL were banned? For those who truly want to run a community long-term, centralized platforms lack sufficient security. Binance recently launched @TownsProtocol $towns, hoping to change all that. Let's take a closer look at its mission: It's an open-source, decentralized, real-time messaging protocol that empowers everyone to create and manage their own digital communities freely, securely, and permissionlessly, and directly benefit from them. ⭐️ The underlying architecture is compatible with EVM's L2 (Towns Chain) - specially designed for social scenarios, achieving messaging speeds comparable to centralized applications. Decentralized off-chain Stream Nodes — responsible for real-time message delivery, while coordinating end-to-end encryption to ensure that no one can eavesdrop on the chat content. Smart contracts deployed on Base are used to mint and manage each chat space (Space), control access rights, pricing, rules, etc. ⭐️ Core Features 1️⃣ Speed comparable to centralized systems: Based on dedicated social chain optimization, messaging can reach thousands of users simultaneously. 2️⃣ Fully ownable community: Space is minted on the chain and you have permanent control over it. 3️⃣ Programmable gameplay: supports access to any EVM-compatible contract, with unlimited functionality expansion. 4️⃣ Built-in payment mechanism: The on-chain membership system allows creators to earn income directly without the need for advertising or middlemen. 5️⃣ On-chain social graph: user relationships and community data are publicly verifiable. 6️⃣ Scalable reputation system: Based on peer evaluation, a traceable reputation record is formed on the chain. 7️⃣ End-to-end encrypted communication: ensures privacy and security from a technical perspective to prevent censorship and monitoring. ⭐️ Your Town community = on-chain assets In Towns, each Space is an independent asset on the chain. You are the sole owner and can freely set the rules: - Who can read and who can write - Is there a fee for entry? - Do you need to hold a certain NFT to participate? - Allow members to rate each other, forming a reputation system verifiable on-chain. You can directly monetize by selling membership tokens on-chain. Users can only send and receive messages if they hold valid membership tokens. All membership transactions, tips, and transactions between users will incur a protocol fee denominated in ETH. The Towns protocol uses the ETH it collects to buy back and burn tokens, thereby offsetting the inflation of node rewards. As of July 26th, Towns had collected 9,117 ETH, including 901 ETH in transaction fees. This buyback not only ensures the stability of the token economy but also provides long-term incentives for node operators, enabling sustainable economic development. Funding Background: This project has raised $46.3 million through three private rounds and one public offering, selling 16.36% of the total token supply. Participants include a16z, Framework Ventures, Credibly Neutral, Benchmark, Coinbase Ventures, and echo. Currently, approximately 20.826% of tokens are in circulation, marking the 30th #BNBHODLer airdrop. ⭐️ Challenges and Outlook The Web3 world has long lacked a truly decentralized, programmable, and sustainable social protocol. Towns not only provides a censorship-resistant free communication environment, but also offers a direct monetization model for creators and community managers. The main challenge facing Towns is the network effect of existing web2 platforms, which depends on whether the product experience improvement that Towns brings to web3 users is greater than the user migration cost. In the future when data sovereignty, digital identity, and decentralized economy gradually become mainstream, we will have to wait and see whether Towns will become the cornerstone of the next generation of social networks.