Mask Network to Steward Next Chapter of Lens, Shaping Decentralized Social From Infrastructure to Consumer Adoption

For years, decentralized social networks have promised a future where users own their identities, creators capture more value, and platforms are no longer controlled by a single corporate gatekeeper. Few have come close to delivering that vision at scale. Lens has.

Launched as an ambitious experiment, Lens has now completed what many in Web3 once considered impossible: proving that user-owned, decentralized social networks can be built on open, composable, permissionless infrastructure — and actually work.

With that core mission fulfilled, Lens is entering its next chapter under new stewardship. It does so alongside Mask Network, a team that has spent nearly a decade turning decentralized ideals into real consumer products. For this new chapter, Avara will continue in an advisory role.

Mask’s Long Bet on Decentralized Social

Founded in 2017 by Suji Yan, driven by a belief in a truly free and open internet, the Mask team set out to build an easy-to-use bridge from Web2 to Web3-era decentralized applications. As early as the end of 2019, the Mask browser extension enabled users to access secure, decentralized social messaging, payment networks, and file storage directly on top of mainstream social media platforms.

Mask has been deeply embedded in the decentralized social ecosystem from the beginning. The team has long supported Mastodon, the leading decentralized social network with approximately 1.9 million monthly active users. Mask has operated two of Mastodon’s most active instances — mstdn.jp and mastodon.cloud — and in 2022 acquired Pawoo.net, one of Mastodon’s largest instances.

That hands-on approach shaped Mask’s evolution. Its ecosystem expanded to include shared infrastructure and consumer applications. In 2022, Mask established its venture arm, Bonfire Union, which manages two funds totaling US$100 million and has invested in more than 120 projects across decentralized social networks, infrastructure, and creator economies.

Today, Mask positions itself as the “Tencent of Web3”: not a single platform, but a network of interoperable social products governed under MaskDAO.

“Mask’s mission to make decentralized social accessible, intuitive, and ready for everyday users is aligned with Lens’ next chapter,” said Suji Yan, Founder of Mask.

Lens and Orb: The Formula for Widespread Consumer Adoption From Infrastructure to Consumer Adoption: Join Forces with Lens and Orb

From protocol to ecosystem to its own purpose-built chain, Lens has laid the foundation for a new generation of SocialFi applications, as Lens founder Stani Kulechov has noted in his blog post here.

Lens began as a community experiment and evolved into open social infrastructure. Over multiple generations of the protocol, it moved from early builder adoption to production-ready social rails, and ultimately to a permissionless, high-performance network that supports consumer-grade applications. In the process, Lens proved its core thesis: user-owned, decentralized social can operate at real-world scale while delivering the experiences people expect.

What remained was the shift from infrastructure to mass adoption, guided by the right stewardship to take the protocol into real-world products.

Mask Network is the ideal steward for what comes next. That transition is exemplified by the acquisition of Orb, a Web3-native social app built on Lens.

By early 2025, Orb crossed 50,000 monthly active users, pioneering “you had to be there” experiences through viral mechanisms like stickerpacks, collectibles, and competitions, all focused on creator-first monetization. Now part of MaskDAO, Orb is among a growing suite of decentralized social products, including Next.ID, Web3.bio, and Firefly.social, the latter of which has partnered with leading ecosystem projects such as Fileverse, Snapshot, Polymarket, Mirror, Paragraph, and eth.limo, and has been publicly praised by Vitalik Buterin for its exceptional user experience.

“Lens proved the infrastructure. Orb proves what’s possible on top of it,” said Suji Yan, Founder of Mask Network. “MaskDAO exists to take decentralized social out of the lab and into everyday life, building products that scale to millions while preserving user ownership.”

“Lens enables us to rethink what social can be,” said Kimmo Sirén, Founder of Orb. “With MaskDAO, we’re putting culture and ownership onchain.”

Why Mask Is the Right Steward for Lens’ Next Chapter

Lens has fulfilled its original mandate: demonstrating that decentralized, user-owned social networks can be built and scaled. The infrastructure is now open, high-performance, and ready.

What the ecosystem needs next isn’t more protocols — it’s great consumer products.

Mask shares Lens’ core belief in user-owned social while bringing years of experience operating consumer platforms at scale. From Mastodon to Firefly to Orb, the team has repeatedly shown an ability to translate open infrastructure into polished, mainstream-ready applications.

“Lens was built to give people ownership over their digital lives, and we’ve proven that this model can work at scale. The infrastructure is now open, resilient, and ready to support real consumer products. What comes next is mainstream adoption, and that’s where Mask’s product leadership is essential to bringing decentralized social into everyday use,” said Stani Kulechov, founder of Lens and Avara.

Stani and Avara will continue to serve as advisors to Suji Yan and the Mask team. Both sides believe that in the coming years, social and DeFi will increasingly converge into the economic layer of the internet.

Lens laid the foundation. Mask is building the neighborhood, bringing decentralized social out of the lab and into everyday life.