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Dogecoin Social Layer — North Star

Status: Canonical greenfield design (Era 2)
Motto: Few rules. Hard money for attention. Keys over platforms.
Normative public protocol: Ðocial (Ð:SOC)
Normative private protocol: Ðignal (Ð:DIG)

This document is the single mental model for social on Dogecoin under Dogenals.
If a marketing name, old draft, or folder conflicts with this file, this file + the linked spec.md win.

1. Why this exists

Dogecoin already has inscriptions. What it lacked was a simple, public, self-custodial social standard the whole ecosystem can index the same way:

  • Posts anyone can read
  • Engagement that can pay creators without a platform middleman
  • Follows that live on L1
  • Private messages that never pretend to be the public feed

dogenals.com, doge.cam, wallets, and dogex should all speak one public social language.

2. The whole map (only three jobs)

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  PUBLIC SOCIAL OS          Ðocial   Ð:SOC               │
│  posts · threads · follows · engage (react / tip)       │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  PRIVATE MESSAGING         Ðignal   Ð:DIG               │
│  DMs · rooms · whisper on a public post                 │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  IDENTITY (optional)       ÐMS · Ð𝕏 · ÐPFP / ÐPFA       │
│  profile metadata · anti-grift handle · avatar / audio  │
│  (separate protocols — any app may resolve without feed)│
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

That is the full social surface for launch. Everything else is either:

  • absorbed into Ðocial (see §4), or
  • not social (marketplace ÐMP, tokens, lotto, …).

ÐPFP / ÐPFA stay outside Ðocial — see ../protocols/dpfp/spec.md. dogex GET /api/profile/:address is the eco resolver.

3. Satoshi-style rules (non-negotiable)

  1. Chain is truth. dogex materializes; command.dog notifies; the website displays. None of them invent likes.
  2. One public protocol. New public social txs use Ð:SOC only.
  3. One engage verb. Free react and paid tip are the same op with different economics (UTXO tip optional).
  4. Tip amount lives in the UTXO, not in the OP_RETURN. The signal names the target; the money speaks for itself.
  5. One emission per user action. No dual-writing Ð:P + Ð:SOC + ÐEcho for the same click.
  6. Keys over accounts. No protocol admin, no global mute key, no centralized follow server as authority.
  7. Private stays private. Encrypted bodies are Ðignal. Ðocial content is public forever — say so in the wallet.
  8. Simple enough for a weekend wallet. If a rule needs a committee, delete it.

4. Consolidation (what happened to the museum)

Greenfield decision: stop shipping five parallel “social” products.

Old nameStatus for new deploymentsWhere it lives now
ÐocialCanonical public social OSdsocial/
ÐignalCanonical private messagingdignal/
Doge Signals (umbrella)Superseded as product surfacePoints here + Ðocial engage
ÐPulse (Ð:P)Legacy free reactionsIndexers MAY map → Ðocial engage; wallets MUST emit Ð:SOC
ÐEchoLegacy amplify-onlyNew reshares → Ðocial repost
ÐGiftOptional later / non-feedKeep own spec; not required for feed v1
ÐSPProduct-specific (doge.show)Keep; not part of dogenals.com feed core

Historical specs remain in-repo for reference. They are not competing launch products.

5. User verbs (what dogenals.com ships)

User actionOn-chainPays creator?
PostInscription op: post (+ optional announce signal)—
Reply / Quote / RepostInscription with parent/quote/repost_of—
Like (primary button)engage + DOGE ≥ min to post pay_toYes
React (emoji)engage with reaction byte; tip optionalOnly if tip attached
Follow / Unfollowcompact signalNo
Message / WhisperÐignalNo

Default Like = paid. That is the cultural and economic loop: attention has cost; creators get koinu.

6. Adoption path

  1. Spec freeze on this north star + dsocial/spec.md
  2. dogex: posts + engage validation + follows + feed APIs
  3. web-com: home feed, compose, like, follow, profile
  4. doge.cam: media → post
  5. command.dog: notifications only
  6. Wallets: one builder for Ð:SOC engage + tip output

No mainnet dual-stack. No “phase 1 free likes only.” The default product is honest about money.

7. What we are not building

  • Platform-owned social graphs sold as “on-chain”
  • Smart-contract social on Dogecoin
  • Encrypted public feeds (use Ðignal)
  • Free infinite spam “likes” as first-class protocol success metrics
  • A new protocol folder for every emoji

8. Success

Success is not 40 protocol READMEs. Success is:

  • A stranger opens dogenals.com, connects a wallet, posts once, gets tipped on a like, and understands it without a whitepaper.
  • Two independent indexers agree on engage_count and tip_total for a post.
  • Elon (or anyone) can verify a claim by looking at a transaction — not an API key.

Dogenals forever. Doginals are history. Social belongs on the chain that tips in DOGE.

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