Guest: Allen Soc, Co-founder of Metya
“To do things in a bubble, you need faith and a sense of direction.”
This is a phrase that Metya co-founder Allen Soc often says. As the former global growth manager of the leading Web2 platform, Allen has been deeply involved in user growth, product operations and community ecology for a long time, and has a strong insight into how to create a sustainable user experience and scale growth system.
He witnessed how traditional social platforms drive growth through centralized algorithms, and also experienced the bottlenecks brought about by data privacy disputes and the decline of traffic dividends. In the process of global operation experiments and localization implementation, Allen began to think deeply about the proposition of whether users really own their own data and identity.
“Web2 has turned social networking into a traffic business, but has forgotten the original purpose of connection.”
It is based on this reflection on digital identity sovereignty and the value of user participation that Allen gradually turned to Web3 and began to build a new decentralized, incentivized and evolvable social network system - this is the starting point of Metya.
He firmly believes that the only products that can truly survive cycles are those that serve real users and have the ability to evolve over the long term, rather than short-term narratives or speculative hotspots.
Metya was born under this concept - a new Web3 social platform that combines AI Agents, DePIN network and on-chain incentive mechanism, dedicated to redefining the connection between people. Since its launch in early 2025, Metya has exceeded 1.9 million registered users, the global community has expanded rapidly, $MET tokens have landed on many mainstream platforms, and operating nodes in multiple regions have also been landed.
But all this is far from the end.
Starting point: Why “social”?
Allen has never concealed his obsession with connecting people.
“Social networking is the closest to human nature among all applications. It naturally possesses the attributes of frequency, emotion, and value accumulation. Even in the cycle of AI explosion, GameFi innovation, and BTC narrative, the relationship and interaction between people is still the next super entrance of blockchain.”
Therefore, from the very beginning, Metyas goal is far more than labels like Web3 version of Tinder or decentralized WeChat. It is a full-stack social system driven by AI, driven by on-chain incentives, and supported by the DePIN network.
On Metya, users match, chat, create, and govern through AI agents, and all social relationships are deposited as on-chain assets. Data belongs to the users themselves, behaviors can be rewarded, and even the chat itself can create economic value.
“We are not making an app, but reconstructing the social network protocol.”
Allen said that Metya’s long-term goal is to become the “Android system for Web3 social networking” - developers can deploy various agents based on the protocol, users can switch freely between different social scenarios, hardware nodes provide computing power support, and value feedback is closed through $MET.
Four steps to build a social financial operating system
To realize this systematic vision, Metya has constructed a development path from the shallow to the deep.
In the early stage, Metya focused on cold start and the establishment of economic models. The launch of the $MET mainnet token introduced a basic value circulation system for the platform; the deployment of the on-chain staking module gave users incentives for sustainable participation; the launch of the Mini App formed a closed loop of early AI social experience, planting the first interactive seed for users.
Entering the second phase, Metya will continue to expand and evolve its technology stack. The AI system implements multi-language matching, emotion recognition and other functions, and the wallet module gradually integrates multi-chain support and cross-scenario transactions, paving the way for the assetization and tokenization of social relationships. At the same time, NFT is introduced into the platform as an experimental form of social assets, laying the foundation for the future Web3 personality and relationship network.
In the third phase, the platform will introduce content incentive mechanisms and hardware entry points. The Mini Ear device designed based on DePIN not only has voice recognition and AI interaction capabilities, but also can achieve efficient response through edge computing; at the same time, the on-chain UGC mechanism will also be launched to encourage users to create profitable social content and truly activate the creator economy.
Eventually, Metya will enter the stage of global expansion and governance implementation. Local nodes in Southeast Asia, Japan, South Korea, Latin America and other regions will be connected one after another to build a multi-language, multi-cultural global social network; the community governance system will also be launched simultaneously, and users can participate in the evolution of the platform through proposals and voting; Metya will also create an offline social center and activity space to complete the closed loop of the virtual and real ecosystem.
“We may not be moving at a fast pace, but every step we take is laying the foundation for the future.”
Don’t chase hot spots, just build the underlying structure
While the entire market is chasing after “AI concepts”, “Meme narratives”, and “L2 explosions”, Metya is taking a structuralist “slow road”:
Don’t make a “virtual AI chat toy”, but create a “personality agent”
Instead of doing social currency stacking through pictures and texts, we want to achieve financialization of on-chain relationships
Instead of being a traffic diversion tool platform, we are building a closed-loop social economic system
Allen recalled: “Many people saw that our community was active and the data was amazing, and suggested that we focus on exchanges, pumping the market, and making ‘quick money’. But we were always very restrained. The issuance of $MET is not for hype, but to build a truly sustainable social economic system.”
In his view, Token should not just be a financing tool, but a value agreement that connects users, developers and ecosystem participants: If it is just for short-term pull, we can choose an easier path. But what we want to build is an operating system that can support hundreds of millions of users and trillions of interactions.
Instead of pretending to understand E, it is better to be I sincerely
Although Metya is now quite popular on X and Telegram, Allen claims to be a typical INTP - quiet, rational, technology-oriented, and likes systematic thinking. He joked:
“Most of us are ‘I-people’, not very good at socializing and not very good at marketing. But this is exactly why we started Metya - to provide a fairer, smarter and more trustworthy way to connect introverts, marginalized people and cross-cultural users.”
Therefore, from product structure design to operational activity arrangement, Metya always adheres to real interaction and pragmatism.
Rather than desperately trying to attract people to join the group, they care more about whether users are willing to stay and establish long-term relationships on the platform.
Three numbers that define the next three years
When talking about the next three years, Allen only mentioned three numbers:
100 million registered users
10 million daily active users
50 million AI-Agent assets
He made it clear: We are not drawing airdrop pies or predicting market value, but we hope that one day, Web3 social networking will no longer be a concept, but a part of peoples daily life.
He ended the interview with one of his favorite quotes:
“Long-termism is not about waiting for miracles, but about doing the right thing every day.”
Conclusion: The future of social networking is on the chain
AI is a wave, DePIN is a breakthrough, Staking is the engine, and governance is ownership. But the core of all this has always been people.
They are people who are eager to express themselves, who are eager to respond, and who are eager to establish real relationships in a complex world.
Metya is trying to reconstruct a new social universe for them.
