Advancing the Lens Ecosystem: A Strategic Collaboration to Build the Web3 Social Multiverse

Phala's Role in ZURF’s Innovation

October 30th, 2023 - Phala Network, a leading computation infrastructure platform, has forged a strategic partnership with ZURF. A notable web3 social platform, built on the Lens Protocol, that enables users to monetise their social engagements.

This collaboration aims to enhance the ZURF application and integrate efficient data availability features into the wav3s protocol - the payment processing engine of ZURF. Additionally, Zurf’s 1000+ trusted customers will be introduced to the groundbreaking capabilities of Phala Network and Phat Contract.

Phala Network enables developers to supercharge their smart contracts by leveraging its decentralized compute cloud via Phala’s off-chain programming model, Phat Contract. Following the recent release of Phat Contract 2.0, Phala unveiled new features tailored for EVM development. Providing limitless capabilities with a JavaScript SDK and seamless verifiable connections across any API, smart contract, and blockchain.

Transforming Social Media Interactions

Zurf.social is redefining social media, creating a unique space at the nexus of social interaction and finance. They're pioneers in unlocking the value of sharing content on social platforms and harnessing social capital in web3 social graphs.

Big brands, realizing the potent impact of this engagement model, are now increasingly eager to monetize this social capital, compensating individuals for sharing posts and thereby enhancing the spread of their content across the social network.

Wav3s, developed by ZURF, is an innovative way to directly reward users for each repost, like, comment or other interaction, allowing them to monetise their social capital and time spent on social media. This is achieved by integrating the contracts that define social graphs with new contracts that enable new monetization experiences.

From Limited to Limitless: ZURF & Phat Contract

Prior to this partnership, ZURF faced limitations in integrating off-chain information directly with its on-chain smart contracts.

By utilizing Phala’s Phat Contracts ZURF is now able to enhance the functionality of its smart contracts seamlessly, negating the need for intermediaries or additional layers.

This pivotal integration narrows the gap between off-chain dynamics and on-chain smart contracts, fostering innovation in the web3 social space, particularly within the Lens ecosystem.

This integration will provide  numerous  key benefits to the ZURF application and all their end-users:

1. Direct HTTP/HTTPS Requests: Phala enables ZURF smart contracts to send HTTP/HTTPS requests directly, fully integrating the wav3s protocol on-chain.

2. On-Chain Functionality: Wav3s, ZURF’s payment engine, can now access on-chain data, tracking interactions with promoted content.

3. Enhanced Security: The partnership enhances security, trustworthiness, and robustness within the ZURF application.

4. Accessible Social Statistics: ZURF users' social metrics, such as follower count and post totals, are now readily available on-chain.

Celebrating Synergy & Innovation

Daniel Beltran, Co-founder and CMO of ZURF, expressed his enthusiasm for the collaboration: “Almost since the beginning of ZURF development, we envisioned the need for a LensAPI Oracle that would allow us to enrich the experience of promoters using the app. It's the best way to create advanced filters that help us better allocate rewards to web3 social users, and with Phala, we are making it possible.”

Marvin Tong, Co-founder of Phala Network, added his own excitement about the partnership, stating: “Web3 social is the most potential use case for Web3, and smart contract-driven monetization is the key to scale. Zurf Social is building an amazing platform to connect content creators, social protocols like Lens, and promotion customers. As a user, Zurf helps me gain awareness for content promotion in the Lens community. By turning reactions into money, Zurf Social creates a win-win situation where both content creators and their audience can benefit from engaging with each other. It's an innovative way to revolutionize social media and empower users to earn while enjoying their favorite content.”

Launch Events: Learn & Connect

Both teams, Phala Network and ZURF, are excited for this new partnership and will be committed to bring the best user experience to their web3 social users within the Lens community and beyond!

This partnership marks an important milestone in the advancement of user content monetization for the new generation of social media applications.

To learn more about this use case, you can rewatch our launch events below. We discussed technical details about the Phat Contract 2.0 upgrade and the technical motivations behind the ZURF and Phala use case.

About ZURF

The ZURF app is the point of entry to web3 social media, an interface to interact with the new, highly interconnected, composable and evolving world of social interactions.

ZURF is also powered by the Wav3s protocol, a decentralized protocol that allows you to automatically pay users on social media that shares, likes or engage with your publications.

Start Zurfin today, there's so much to see! https://zurf.social/