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Towns Protocol
Towns Protocol is an open-source, open messaging protocol built on Base that powers private, on-chain group chats ("Towns/Spaces") with native crypto features such as memberships, tipping, and token trading. It serves crypto communities, traders, creators, and developers who want to build bots and monetized social experiences directly inside chat.
Distributed
Description
Towns Protocol is an open-source protocol for building decentralized, real-time messaging applications. It consists of an EVM-compatible L2 chain, decentralized off-chain stream nodes, and smart contracts deployed on Base, allowing anyone to permissionlessly create programmable communication "Spaces" that are ownable, feature on-chain subscriptions (Memberships), an extendable reputation system, and end-to-end message encryption. The product (towns.com / app.towns.com) lets communities monetize chat through tipping, token swaps, and paid memberships, and offers a developer hub for building chat bots that integrate wallets and move money natively within conversations. The $TOWNS token secures and governs the network: staking $TOWNS lets community members help govern messaging capacity and earn yield, while fees from memberships, tips, and trading flow back into the ecosystem via buy-and-burn mechanisms. The organization also runs developer competitions, an academy for learning to build on the protocol, a grants program, and on-chain governance (Towns Lodge/Forum). It is associated with the River Eridanus Association, based in Switzerland, and Towns Labs as the builder entity.Grant Funding
VC Funding
None
2023
2024
2025
$0
$74M