Balaji network school buys Farcaster from Neynar

Farcaster has changed hands againthis time landing at Balaji Srinivasan’s Network School less than nine months after Neynar took over his original team’s decentralized social protocol.

• The agreement: Neynar co-founder Rish said the Farcaster app, protocol repositories and associated products were heading to Network School, along with some of Neynar’s staff. Rish and his co-founder Manan are stepping down.

• New internal regulations: By The blockthe app is renamed “Network State Protocol” and asks users to sign an on-chain “smart social contract.” Signers gain NFT access, while holdouts become read-only, with their accounts having to be transferred to another client.

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• The vision: Balaji launched the redesign with the aim of building “the Singapore of social media”, combining stricter moderation with an appeals process. Some users have already been banned for older posts.

• Free points: Clanker, the symbolic launchpad provided with Neynar’s January deal, was not mentioned during the transfer.

• The big picture: Farcaster is now on its third steward in 2026. Balaji says the underlying protocol remains open to all manufacturers, but its flagship application will be much more opinionated.