DeSo (Decentralized Social)
Category: Concepts / Crypto Summary: Decentralized social media blockchain - Jack growth hacked 30x on it Last updated: 2026-04-06
Overview
DeSo (Decentralized Social) is a blockchain designed specifically for social media applications. Originally launched as BitClout in March 2021 before rebranding, it was built by Nader Al-Ali with the premise that social media profiles, posts, and follower relationships should be stored on a public blockchain rather than owned by a centralized company.
Jack “growth hacked 30X in Deso” according to his jack-luo.com bio. This was during the 2021–2022 crypto boom.
BitClout / The Origin
BitClout launched in March 2021 to enormous controversy. The premise: every public figure - whether they consented or not - had a “creator coin” on the platform, and anyone could buy or sell it. The value of a creator coin would theoretically rise as the person’s social value rose.
This meant crypto traders were speculating on the social value of celebrities, journalists, and random Twitter personalities without their knowledge or consent. Elon Musk, Kim Kardashian, and Balaji Srinivasan all had creator coins they hadn’t created.
The controversy was enormous. It was also extremely effective marketing. BitClout got worldwide press coverage on launch day purely from the “we assigned everyone a crypto coin without asking” mechanic.
It later rebranded to DeSo and shifted focus to being an infrastructure layer for decentralized social apps rather than a single consumer product.
Growth Hacking on DeSo
“Growth hacking 30X” on a crypto social platform in 2021–2022 means Jack found some mechanic - posting cadence, engagement loops, creator coin dynamics, community building - that multiplied his follower count or coin value by 30x from a baseline.
This is consistent with his profile: he’s not a passive participant in platforms, he’s someone who studies the mechanics and finds leverage. The same instinct shows up in: - The TikTok viral strategy (Three Countries Tiktok) - The Wikipedia editing approach (Wikipedia Contributions) - The AgentDex waitlist strategy (organic growth, email blast, LinkedIn)
In each case: understand the platform’s mechanics, find the asymmetric lever, pull it.
The 2021 Crypto Moment
2021 was the peak of the retail crypto boom. NFTs, DeFi, DAOs, creator coins - every week brought a new category of crypto product promising to decentralize some incumbent industry. DeSo was decentralized Twitter. Other platforms were decentralized YouTube, decentralized Spotify, decentralized Uber.
Most of these failed. DeSo is still running but is niche. The core insight - social graphs and content shouldn’t be owned by corporations - is arguably correct. The execution hasn’t matched the vision at scale.
For Jack, the DeSo period was part of a broader crypto exploration that included growing on the platform, understanding ETH and alt coin mechanics, and developing opinions about what blockchain actually enables vs. what it just makes more complicated.
Connection to AgentDex
The DeSo experiment and Agentdex share a surface: both are about social graphs and relationships. DeSo tried to put the social graph on a blockchain. AgentDex is building intelligence on top of the relationship graph that already exists in your contacts, email, and calendar.
Different approaches to the same underlying insight: your network has more structure and value than most tools help you extract from it.