Mask Network Launches Uniswap Trading via its Twitter extension

Mask Network launched a novel trading widget powered by CoinMarketCap and Uniswap on Twitter earlier today. Now, instead of going to CMC to discover a new token and then execute the trade on Uniswap, users can hover on any "$+ticker," such as $ETH or $UNI, and view the token price—and even trade directly via Twitter.

And that’s just the start. The company (website here) plans to start doing “Initial Twitter Offerings” to allow users to discover and buy new tokens, all via their Twitter extension.

The feature unveiled today is the latest addition to a suite of Twitter-based applications from Mask Network, a company that is trying to use it and Facebook to create an easy-to-navigate bridge from the Web 2.0 world to Web 3.0. Mask's extension is cleverly built around an Ethereum wallet, which facilitates interoperability with the decentralized world.

“Our final goal is to decentralize ourselves,” Suji Yan, founder of Mask Network told Decrypt. “This is why we are launching Initial Twitter Offerings and many other upcoming features. Our vision has never changed: bring the decentralized web to the current web.”

Mask Network, which recently rebranded itself from “Maskbook,” initially gained fame when it launched a“Twitter Red Packet 🧧” with MakerDAO. The app, which works via a browser extension, allows users to claim DAI tokens on Twitter.

A DeFi Family Bucket

“The Twitter Trading Widget is really just a baby step for Mask Network to bring the whole suite of DeFi Family Bucket to the web2.0,” Taylor Zhang, a core team member of Mask Network, told Decrypt.

“We are really benchmarking against the Chinese super-apps such as WeChat Pay and Alipay where financial services are offered everywhere (albeit without the centralization part). We believe that Mask Network can bring the best of DeFi—from payments, trading, borrowing, lending, launching, betting, and portfolio analysis—all within the existing social network interfaces.”

Zhang said that Mask plans to launch an “Initial Twitter Offering” in 45 days. It will allow users to discover new token launches and purchase the tokens, without leaving Twitter, he said.

But wait–there’s more! An NFTmarketplace

The company also has its sights set on the burgeoning NFT market and wants to create a marketplace to trade non-fungible tokens, all in its Twitter extension.

Indeed, the Mask team believes that most digital content on the web, including pictures, video, and text articles will soon be turned into NFTs in the not-too-distant future, and will be stored on decentralized networks such as IPFS.

That’s why the Mask team figures there’s a huge opportunity to bridge decentralized storage and payment.

“We believe that native NFT e-commerce platforms will be huge and we want people to trade NFTs on Twitter using Mask Network,” Taylor said.

As a first step, Mask Network integrated with Arweave, a decentralized storage network. Users can send files stored on Arweave to friends via Twitter and Facebook. (Think of Mask Network as the user interface aspect of the storage network.) The payment part is still under development. Yeah, it’s mind-boggling stuff.