Popset builds a better Instagram, launches on college campuses nationwide

Popset is a new onchain social app targeting mainstream users, designed to let creators monetize through micropayments and NFTs.

When you sign up for Popset, you don’t realize you’re onchain—and that’s exactly the point. While all of the blockchain elements are abstracted away, this Solana-based app has the potential to upend how the long tail of creators monetize social media.

What’s more, Popset’s entire blockchain stack runs on just two simple Crossmint API integrations. Not only are onchain apps getting easier to use—they’re also easier to build.

The challenge 

The team aimed to leverage the benefits of web3 and NFTs while building an onboarding flow comparable to that of web2 social apps. As a product-focused company without an extensive blockchain engineering team, they needed a fast, scalable, single-vendor solution.

The result 

Popset features a photo-only feed reminiscent of Instagram in its earlier days. Users can get started by signing up via email or single sign-on accounts, and immediately begin sharing photos from their daily lives. Verified creators can make posts available for paid collections. 

Under the hood, Crossmint spins up a wallet for each user. Every time a photo is posted, it's minted as a Solana NFT using our Mint API.

Once minted, other users can “collect” their favorite creator’s posts, which Crossmint facilitates via an airdrop to their wallet. Paid collections take place through standard in-app purchases. 

This is all gasless for users, with no transaction signing needed.

Our APIs remove complexity for users and manage all onchain operations for Popset. We also provide enterprise-grade support and simple dashboards that the Popset team can use to monitor activity. 

Since launch, we’ve delivered 100% uptime, letting Popset run onchain without interruption. 

Popset now has one of the most intuitive user experiences of any social app. The team can focus solely on growing their user base, knowing our infrastructure can scale alongside them.   

Easy to use; easy to build 

For users, the process of downloading a wallet, buying crypto, and paying gas fees, is now replaced with simple web2 style UX. For builders, what once took thousands of hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars to create and maintain, now takes a few simple API integrations. 

Now that everyone from startups to Fortune 500 companies can easily build onchain apps that everyday people can actually use, the scope and scale of applications is set to explode.

To learn more about how you can leverage Crossmint for your entire blockchain stack, from wallets, tokenization, payments, identity, and more, reach out to set up a demo. 

To learn more about Popset’s plan to upend social media, read this.