Péter Szilágyi, a key figure in Ethereum's development, has taken aim at Farcaster, a decentralized social network, alleging the presence of bot manipulation and casting doubts on the platform's transparency.

Expressing his reservations in a recent forum discussion, Szilágyi questioned the integrity of Farcaster's ecosystem, highlighting instances where bots purportedly dominate user engagement. According to Szilágyi, these bots engage in repetitive transactions to accrue DEGEN, an unofficial token designed to stimulate activity within the Farcaster community.

The Ethereum lead further posited a significant conflict of interest for Farcaster developers, suggesting their reluctance to address the issue stems from the platform's financial incentives. He criticized the default filtering mechanism that sidelines non-power users (those with fewer than 400 followers) from appearing in feeds, likening the project's current state to a "money and user printer."

In his own words, Szilágyi emphasized, "IMO the biggest problem is that there’s an insane conflict of interest for the FC [Farcaster] devs to not get rid of bots. It’s a money and user printer. They just need to make them not-annoying enough to cause real users to leave."

Despite these allegations, Farcaster has remained silent on the matter, with no public statements issued at the time of reporting. Efforts to obtain a response from the project by Crypto.news have been made, and any updates will be duly incorporated.

This isn't the first instance where Szilágyi has raised concerns regarding Farcaster's transparency. In a previous post in February, he questioned the platform's purported "organic growth," highlighting a tenfold increase in his Farcaster account activity within a few days despite minimal engagement.

Established in 2020, Farcaster mirrors a decentralized social network akin to X but operates on Optimism, a layer-2 solution for Ethereum. Recent reports have hinted at significant funding endeavors by Merkle Manufactory, the entity behind Farcaster, potentially valuing the company at approximately $1 billion. This follows a notable funding round in July 2022, where the firm secured $30 million, spearheaded by a16z crypto.