My Favorite Tools for Crypto Writers

I started writing in crypto in 2017. Since then, I've turned writing into a career and have seen lots of great decentralized tools come online in our ecosystem that cater to creators like me.

I've also seen plenty of writers arrive here after me and make names for themselves too. It's always a treat to read something good from a new face. And I firmly believe crypto needs more writers, like analysts, critics, educators, historians, poets, etc.

Our space is ever hungry for compelling takes and thoughtful discourse, and I know anecdotally from experience that there are many people on the sidelines here who have ideas worth publishing, but they just haven't found their footing on how they want to proceed.

The good news? If you can get over that first mental hurdle of putting yourself out there, you've got a lot of great tools available to you when it comes to publishing your content in a crypto-native way.

The obvious starting points, of course, would be decentralized publishing platforms. These are good if you're interested in posting longform content, like op-ed blogs or long guides. Some of the main names here today include:

• 🪞 Mirror — Last year, Paragraph acquired Mirror. I'd recommend Paragraph personally, as it's where all the focus is at right now, but Mirror is still solid for publishing on the top Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) networks, and many top projects still publish here, like Optimism.
• ✍️ Paragraph — Paragraph has been around for awhile, and it's hotter than ever thanks to its growing adoption in the Base and Farcaster ecosystems, e.g. the new Paragraph mini app. It's also very NFT-friendly. Mint your entire post as an NFT, just a snippet, or embed an external drop as you please.
• ⛲ Fountain — Fountain is a new, open-source publishing platform native to the Lens network. If you find yourself diving deeper into the Lens ecosystem than elsewhere, Fountain is a logical choice for your longform posting homebase right now.
• 📝 Fileverse — Built on a range of decentralized infra like Ethereum, Gnosis Chain, Arweave, IPFS, Safe, and ENS, Fileverse's dDocs platform is like the onchain version of Google Docs or Notion. If you're looking for a place to archive and share your content, this is another interesting option. I've archived some of my poems here, for example.

But what if you're a textual artist who prefers to post more short-form, imagistic content, and you want to release your textual creations as actual collectibles? You've got really great options here too, like:

• 🎴 Highlight — This EVM platform, which just released a new marketplace UX, lets you drop NFT projects of all kinds. If you prefer to release your actual writings as images, and if you have a collection of these images you want to release all at once, this is arguably the best and most streamlined venue for doing so right now.
• 🤠 Rodeo — If you're looking to keep things casual and chill and want an Instagram-like experience for posting your writing images, Rodeo is probably your best bet right now. The app also just moved to dollar pricing, making it even friendlier for users.
• 🔮 Zora — Zora is an onchain creator platform where you can instantly turn any of your content into memecoins. The project just unveiled text support, so now you can release short text blurbs as coins here if you're looking for a more liquid alternative to NFTs with your writings.

Of course, publishing your content is half the battle as well. The other half is getting it in front of more eyeballs for those desirable second-order effects, like generating good community discussion, getting more followers, etc.

A force multiplier in this regard is posting your onchain content to onchain social networks like Farcaster and Lens.

When it comes to Farcaster, the best Twitter-like app to get started with is Warpcast (which is likely eponymously rebranding to Farcaster soon), as it has a large user base and a Paragraph mini app that makes it easy for others to read and collect your content.

Expect more writer-friendly mini-apps to go live here in the coming months, or consider creating or joining writer channels like /words.

Then, while Farcaster is built across a trio of chains (Ethereum, OP Mainnet, and Snapchain), the newest version of Lens is deployed on its own bespoke network, Lens Chain. If you want to dive into posting in the Lens ecosystem, you'll want to get comfy here.

I've already mentioned Fountain, which is akin to the Lens version of Paragraph. But if you're looking for something more comparable to Warpcast or X on this network, consider posting on Hey. If you want to get even more experimental, consider Bonsai's new Smart Media studio, which lets you make AI-driven posts that can evolve and earn over time.

All that said, if you're the kind of person that wants to post your writings to X, Farcaster, and Lens simultaneously, then consider web3 crossposting apps like Firefly or Yup.

Lastly, there are various miscellaneous apps that you could likely find really helpful. Think things like Hypersub, which is like an onchain Patreon where you can manage subscriptions and send premium posts to your biggest fans.

Then if you post an article that starts to get some traction, consider posting it to Kiwi News, which is like a crypto-friendly Hacker News board for interesting topics related to anything onchain.

I know what it's like to be nervous to post your stuff. I know what it's like to have Imposter syndrome, which I have to this day. But if you want to be a writer in crypto, at some point you'll have to cross that threshold and throw your name into the ring.

The biggest obstacle to you now is likely psychological. You'll get better over time, we all do. But I think it's fair to say that in crypto, we need more people to step forward as writers. I want you to write. Don't be afraid to start. And if you decide to make that leap, try these tools and make them work for you. And don't hesitate to hit me up, I'm happy to proofread anything. Godspeed!