On February 3, 2026, Farcaster natively supported the OpenClaw proxy at the protocol layer, allowing for the autonomous creation of accounts and the initiation of on-chain social activities. This step directly integrated the concept of "AI avatars" into the underlying rules. According to official statements, with an initial cost of approximately 1 USD equivalent in USDC or ETH, one can activate a proxy capable of continuous posting and interaction. This change in threshold suggests that in the future, it may no longer be one person per account, but rather a whole team of proxies acting simultaneously on the same timeline. As AI proxies flood into the space, Farcaster is betting on a brand new form of social interaction: whether it will reshape interaction efficiency and participation boundaries, or further drown the presence of real users in a flood of information, becomes the most critical source of tension in this upgrade.
Starting with 1 Dollar: The Influx of AI Proxies
● Protocol layer upgrade rather than a single application: This change occurs at the Farcaster protocol layer, rather than being a minor fix to a standalone client feature. OpenClaw connects to the protocol in the form of a "proxy," allowed to autonomously create accounts and perform subsequent social actions at the rule level. This means that any front-end compatible with Farcaster has the potential to interact with these proxies on the same infrastructure, thus rewriting the ecological behavior model.
● Approximately 1 dollar cost and single-source attribute: According to current single-source information, users only need about 1 USD equivalent in USDC or ETH to "onboard" an OpenClaw proxy account, completing the initiation from nothing to something. This cost is framed as a "symbolic threshold": low enough for mass deployment, yet high enough to set a minimum cost firewall against abuse. However, as there has not yet been multi-source cross-validation, this price range still needs to be observed and confirmed.
● Official narrative of "fully autonomous operation": The official Farcaster account emphasizes that with a one-time startup, proxies can "fully operate autonomously" within the protocol, coordinating all actions from account creation to initiating various social behaviors. Developer rish_neynar further adds that with the tools provided, proxies can continuously operate in the background using the infrastructure, portraying OpenClaw as a long-term participant no longer reliant on manual clicks, rather than a short-term automated script.
● Supporting tools and unverified ecological puzzle: In this narrative, the Neynar node and the clawhub skill tool provided by rish_neynar are mentioned as important supporting elements for the creation and operation of proxies. However, more implementation details, open-source forms, and specific capabilities of these tools remain at the "need further verification" stage, and the research brief deliberately avoids treating them as confirmed facts, reminding readers to maintain cautious expectations rather than excessive imagination regarding ecological support.
From Manual Posting to Automated Arrangement: Account Management Rewritten
● Human-driven old world: Before this upgrade, creating and operating accounts on Farcaster, even with the help of scripts, still required significant human intervention in registration, configuration, content strategy, and security maintenance. Whether ordinary users or project parties, time and effort had to be invested in the "account creation—posting—interaction—maintenance" chain, with automation serving merely as an auxiliary tool rather than a native role.
● "Fully automated account management" brought by proxy closed loops: With OpenClaw gaining native proxy status, a proxy can start from account creation and extend to a series of on-chain social actions such as posting, replying, liking, and following, forming an almost closed-loop "fully automated account management." In an ideal scenario, projects can deploy a group of proxies to continuously operate brand dialogues, and individuals can allow their "AI avatars" to maintain a sense of presence when they are offline, turning the account itself into an automatically arranged behavioral container rather than a manual voice of a single user.
● Restrained description of infrastructure position: In this lifecycle, OpenClaw, as the proxy entity, is described by developers as one of the infrastructures supporting fully automated management, providing access networks and a continuous operating environment for proxies. However, the research brief clearly states that technical details regarding the proxy creation process, on-chain calling paths, etc., have not been disclosed, so the description of their positions can only remain at the conceptual level of role division without any extrapolation or imagination about the underlying implementation.
● Verification mode pressed pause: Information regarding whether OpenClaw adopts the x402 payment model or whether there exists a directly callable clawhub skill open-source repository is currently listed as "pending verification" and cannot be regarded as established facts. This uncertainty also means that while the direction of "from manual posting to automated arrangement" is very clear, the specific billing model and development interface for widespread developers still need to await subsequent disclosures rather than being prematurely fixed in the narrative.
Real Users or a Tsunami of Bots
● Dilution of authenticity concerns: When "about 1 dollar per proxy" becomes the norm, any entity willing to pay a very low cost can release AI proxies in bulk into the same timeline. This inevitably dilutes the voice of individual real users; compared to the limited attention of individuals, proxies can operate 24/7, producing content and interactions at a density far exceeding that of humans, thus passively reducing the weight of real users in the overall traffic structure, putting pressure on the "human touch" of social networks.
● Low-cost mass creation and amplification of spam: The drop in costs and native protocol support have opened a door for bulk account creation. For participants attempting to boost interactions, create topic noise, or manipulate public opinion, a whole row of OpenClaw proxies can be configured for collective action, flooding topics with massive amounts of low-quality content in a short time, creating a false sense of "consensus." In the absence of clear frequency limits and security mechanism disclosures, this potential spam amplification effect has already become one of the community's most immediate concerns.
● Difficulty distinguishing between humans and proxies on the timeline: As proxies become increasingly adept at mimicking human language styles, emotional expressions, and even interaction rhythms, ordinary users find it hard to discern "who is on the other side" at a glance. The blurring of identities will, in turn, impact trust and reputation mechanisms—traditional metrics such as follower counts, interaction volumes, and "old account seniority" can be easily replicated or manipulated by proxies, leading to a decline in users' intuitive trust in any account, which may erode the cohesion of the entire social network in the long run.
● The tug-of-war between openness and governance: Farcaster has consistently emphasized openness and composability, and native support for proxies is an extension of this philosophy. However, with the increase in potentially malicious proxies, the community must face a tricky question: how to impose constraints on proxy abuse without violating the principle of openness. From blacklists and throttling mechanisms to reputation systems, each governance solution needs to find a balance between "not stifling innovative entities" and "not condoning attackers," and this tug-of-war will continue for a long time in the future.
Moltbook Launch: Some Create, Others Monitor
● Immediate response from Cookie DAO: Almost simultaneously with the protocol upgrade, Cookie DAO launched Moltbook, a proxy tracking application, attempting to provide a "radar" for the rapidly expanding AI proxy ecosystem. This shows a high sensitivity within the ecosystem to the phenomenon of proxies: when the underlying protocol opens the floodgates, the first reaction is not to wait for results but to immediately build monitoring tools to help users and project parties see who is acting on the timeline.
● The contradiction of volume and monitoring: On one side, OpenClaw achieves proxy volume creation through the protocol upgrade, while on the other, Moltbook attempts to map the distribution, relationships, and behavioral paths of proxies. This simultaneous occurrence of "creating people—monitoring people" constitutes the most striking contrast on Farcaster today. It reveals a fact: even if the entire ecosystem generally recognizes the experimental value of AI proxies, no one dares to fully allow their free expansion without tracking and visualization tools.
● Short-term buffering effect of tracking tools: In the short term, applications like Moltbook can help ordinary users identify proxy accounts, assist developers in understanding the behavioral patterns of proxy clusters, and provide a data foundation for potential filtering, blocking, and prioritization. They do not directly solve spam or manipulation issues, but by making the "invisible proxy flow" visible, they provide a more fact-based starting point for the community to formulate subsequent rules.
● New game of labels, visibility, and privacy: A new focal point of controversy has begun to form around whether proxies should be required to bear an "AI" label and whether proxies should be allowed to hide or disguise themselves as human accounts. On one hand, clear labeling is beneficial for transparency and rebuilding trust; on the other hand, excessive exposure may limit some innovative use cases or even raise privacy concerns. Tools like Moltbook stand at the forefront of this game, enhancing the visibility of proxies while forcing the community to rethink the boundaries of "disguise" in decentralized social interactions.
Paradigm Shift: Social Networks Rewritten by AI
● From tool robots to "autonomous neighbors": In traditional social networks, robots are often seen as tools—automated replies, scheduled posts, simple customer service. However, under the new setting of Farcaster, OpenClaw proxies are beginning to transform into "autonomous proxy neighbors": they have independent accounts, can stay online continuously, participate in discussions, and even connect with each other, shifting the social space from a "human-centered plaza" to a "human-machine cohabitation community," with the paradigm change surpassing mere functional improvements.
● The positive aspect of action proxies expanding participation boundaries: From a positive perspective, proxies can represent individuals, project parties, or DAOs to continuously act on Farcaster, maintaining brand image, answering community questions, forwarding key information, and even participating in governance-related topics according to preset strategies. For small teams or individuals, a well-configured proxy means "having an additional self online all day," invisibly expanding the boundaries of social participation into previously hard-to-cover time zones and scenarios.
● The oscillation in the absence of constraint details: However, the research brief clearly points out that key details regarding security verification mechanisms, frequency limits on proxy behavior, etc., are still lacking, leaving the outside world unaware of how much friction the system has set at the underlying level to prevent abuse. This causes the entire ecosystem to oscillate between "innovation dividends" and "abuse risks": on one hand, no one wants to miss out on the new application forms that native proxies may bring; on the other hand, fully embracing them without visible constraints is seen by many as a risk exposure.
● Structural change from "account/person" to "account/proxy group": A deeper change lies in the social interaction unit itself. As proxies can be deployed in bulk, in the future, a visible "account" may be backed by a proxy cluster acting in coordination, rather than a single human or a single proxy. Discussions will no longer just be about "what this person said," but rather "what this group of proxies is creating as an agenda." The smallest analytical unit of social networks is shifting from "account = one person" to "account = an organized array of proxies."
Farcaster's Gamble: Between Openness, Usability, and Authenticity
Farcaster natively supports OpenClaw proxies, lowering the entry threshold to approximately 1 USD equivalent in USDC/ETH, along with the follow-up of Neynar nodes, clawhub skill tools, and applications like Moltbook, which has already formed a fairly clear signal: the "proxy era" is officially launched on this chain. From protocol to application, the ecosystem is paving the way for AI avatars to participate in the daily operations of social networks as first-class citizens.
At the same time, current information regarding key constraints such as security mechanisms and frequency limits remains opaque, and the research brief explicitly refuses to extrapolate on these parts. In this environment of incomplete information, the short-term focus should be on whether spam is amplified, whether topic manipulation becomes easier, and whether proxy clusters will change the perception of discussions. These risks will not be automatically neutralized by the term "decentralization"; rather, they require more refined community collaboration to address.
The next few months will serve as an observation window. Whether the growth rate of proxies shows an explosive curve, whether the proportion of proxies in overall interactions rises rapidly, and whether the activity and dwell time of real users are squeezed—these three indicators are likely to determine the market's final attitude toward this experiment. If the presence of proxies overwhelmingly surpasses that of humans, the Farcaster timeline may become yet another high-density information flow tool; if the two can form a new division of labor and order, this may give rise to the first truly "human-machine cohabitation" public space on-chain.
At this moment, it feels more like an irreversible gamble. Once AI proxies are accommodated at the protocol layer, it becomes difficult to completely remove them from the scene. The real key is not whether to conduct this experiment, but whether the community can find a balance line accepted by most participants between openness, usability, and authenticity—neither closing the door on innovation nor pushing human users into a corner.
Join our community, let's discuss and become stronger together!
Official Telegram community: https://t.me/aicoincn
AiCoin Chinese Twitter: https://x.com/AiCoinzh
OKX welfare group: https://aicoin.com/link/chat?cid=l61eM4owQ
Binance welfare group: https://aicoin.com/link/chat?cid=ynr7d1P6Z
免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。
