Monero and the Fediverse, a conversation with silverpill

The future of social media is decentralized. Silverpill explains why he is working on Mitra and why he is into Monero.

Why are you into the Fediverse? How did you get into this topic?

I am involved in the blockchain space for many years, but there is one thing that I don't like about the space: almost everyone uses centralized platforms like Twitter, Reddit and Discord to share ideas and communicate. In my view, this is a big weakness, because people who control these platforms can use deplatforming and disinformation to attack our communities, and destroy the alternative financial systems that we've been building.

Why is federation important for social networks? What problem does it solve?

There were many attempts to build decentralized social networks using blockchain technology, but at some point it became obvious to me that this is the wrong approach, which leads to centralization. So I started to look for a better solution.

I realized that true p2p social networks are very hard to build. Mainstream browsers can't make peer-to-peer connections, and without a nice web interface you won't get users. It will be just another ghost town. Federated networks trade off some decentralization for usability, and though initially I dismissed them, in the end I decided to use the ActivityPub protocol in my project.

Why can we not just rekindle the old forum culture that existed before the advent of social media?

Big social platforms out competed the small sites of the old web because of the network effect: the more people are there, the more value a social network provides. Federation solves this problem by uniting many small blogs and forums into one big network.

Your project Mitra includes Monero tips as well as web3 wallet login. How do you think these tools can help the Fediverse achieve its goals?

Mitra has a tipping feature and it has subscriptions, which allow people to earn Monero by publishing subscribers-only content. In general, I want to help the parallel economy grow. Independent developers, researchers, writers and artists need monetization tools that do not depend on the legacy banking system and centralized social media platforms.

I think the Fediverse also needs these tools to remain independent. It was built by volunteers, but it grows, and some software developers are starting to accept grant money from structures affiliated with governments.

So from your point of view integrating payment features is essential to make the Fediverse sustainable in the long run?

If it remains a small network, it can be maintained by volunteers indefinitely. But I think it will grow, and the recent exodus from Twitter to Mastodon shows that the possibility of Fediverse going mainstream is real. In this scenario commercialization becomes inevitable, and by default it will be a strong centralizing force, unless the foundation for the peer to peer economy is laid out early on. So yes, I think payments are essential, and the infrastructure for them must be built with decentralization in mind.

Why did you pick Monero over other cryptocurrencies?

In the beginning Mitra had only Ethereum integration, because for some features I needed smart contracts. Monero was added later on, and it is possible that some other currencies will be supported in the future, though at the moment I'm not working on that.

I like Monero because it provides good privacy and its transactions are cheap. This is the cryptocurrency I usually use for payments. Also, people were asking for Monero support, I think it's one of the most popular cryptocurrencies in the Fediverse.

Okay great! Where can people find out more about you and your project?

The code and documentation can be found at https://codeberg.org/silverpill/mitra My Fediverse address is

@silverpill@mitra.social

We will have more content on the Fediverse in the future. Please also join the builders group in the monerochan.news forum if you are interested in this topic!