Skip to main content

Social graphs

Protocols like Lens and CyberConnect are innovative solutions that leverage blockchain technology to build on-chain social graphs. These protocols use non-fungible tokens (NFTs), SBTs to represent user profiles, publications, and relationships between them, while media files are typically stored in decentralized storage systems.

These protocols typically face the following challenges when going multi-chain:

  • Fragmentation of the user identity. Typically user’s identity is synonymous with the wallet address. This is problematic in a multi-chain scenario because chains may use different address formats, and users may use separate wallets for specific chains. In addition, membership and reputation soulbound tokens can’t be bridged easily;
  • Fragmentation by the underlying chain creates silos that prevent users from engaging with content on other chains. For example, a user can’t leave a comment on a post from another chain because the social graph smart contract can't reference it. Replicating the social graph elements can mitigate this issue, but it is economically unfeasible for a big graph;
  • Lack of cross-chain interoperability means there is no structured way to interact with the third-party DApps on other chains or to bring in external assets such as NFT avatars;

Rarimo provides several solutions to address these issues:

  • Identity Protocol offers a universal self-sovereign cross-chain identity for users;
  • Rarimo Protocol is an EVM-compatible smart contracts platform with built-in cross-chain capabilities;
  • Social Graph Snapshots enable a cost-efficient way to propagate social graph state between different chains;

Identity protocol​

Rarimo has integrated a self-sovereign identity protocol based on the  Iden3 protocol. It implements the W3C Distributed Identity standard, meaning each user is identified by a globally unique identifier(DID) and can possess any number of claims signed by a third-party identity provider. This approach makes user identity seamlessly portable between different chains.

Unlike other identity representation methods like Soul Bound Tokens (SBTs) or Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), Rarimo allows users to utilize cryptographic proof as their identity representation. This cryptographic proof is comprised of two main components:

  • On-chain state that is used to verify proofs;
  • An off-chain claim that is owned by the user;

By leveraging these two components, users can provide DApps with proof regarding a specific statement about their identity without disclosing any additional information.

Using such proofs also makes for identity providers minting identity quite easy and cheap. Identity providers don’t need to mint NFT for each identity and only need to update the state on demand. Protocol has support for minting credentials, updating, revoking, and credentials with expiration time.

Rarimo Protocol​

Rarimo is a cross-chain interoperability protocol for the social layer. It provides trustless oracles of on-chain events from all supported blockchains, a cost-efficient way to bridge the assets or data, and EVM-compatible smart contracts for additional flexibility.

A combination of threshold signature technology(TSS), instant finality, EVM transaction bundling, and low protocol fees make cross-chain interactions affordable and hassle-free for the end user.

For social graph developers, the protocol provides:

  • NFT/SBT Ownership Proofs make it easy to incorporate external assets, such as avatar NFTs and game achievement SBTs, into the social graph;
  • Cross-chain minting of NFTs and SBTs may be used to incentivize users across the ecosystem;
  • Cross-chain asset bridging and transaction bundling enable interoperability with other DApps;
  • Automatic issuance of Identity Protocol credentials based on-chain data. For example, giving a DID for users who created a profile in a social graph;

Social graph snapshots​

Rarimo oracles can create a compact snapshot of a social graph by building a Merkle tree of it. Subsequently, the Merkle root can be replicated to other chains (periodically or on demand) to glue the respective graphs together.

This enables flows like:

  • Referencing publications made on other chains;
  • Cloning parts of the social graph from another chain;
  • Cheaply migrating user base from one blockchain to another;

Additionally, this feature may be used by third-party DApps to leverage the social graph data. For example, it may be used to calculate a user’s reputation based on the number of followers.