Subsocial chat program uses Ethereum usernames and allows Polygon donations.

Grill.chat is a chat application that is based on the Subsocial network. In a June 7 announcement, it was revealed that the app has now implemented Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) wallet compatibility. This allows users to chat using their Ethereum identities and send cryptocurrency to each other via Polygon. Subsocial is a Polkadot parachain that has been designed for social media applications.

Grill.chat offers users over 70 chat rooms that are focused mainly on crypto-related topics. The development team aims to attract new Web3 projects to build their communities on the platform. The integration means that users can now connect their Subsocial wallets to their EVM wallets by signing a transaction to verify that they are the wallet’s owner. This prevents them from needing to own SUB tokens to donate to other users, and it allows them to prove their Ethereum identities to users in chat rooms. In the future, the developers plan to use this integration to allow non-fungible token (NFT) collections to be shown to other users.

Subsocial CEO Zachary Edwards stated that Grill.chat is targeting crypto projects as potential sponsors of chat rooms. Currently, many crypto communities are built around Discord servers and Telegram channels. These channels cannot be integrated into the developer’s website, which means that users need to load a separate program to join the community or interact with it, creating what Edwards sees as unneeded friction for users. Chat groups on Grill.chat can be integrated into a development team’s website or application interface. The app’s users previously encountered friction from another source, as many of the biggest crypto projects are on EVM-based networks such as Ethereum, Polygon, and Avalanche. Crypto users are accustomed to using wallets from these networks and don’t necessarily want to download a new wallet to use a chat app.

To partially solve this problem, the team implemented a feature that lets users create a Subsocial wallet directly from the app’s interface. They also paid for users’ gas fees via a smart contract that can delegate signing privileges for a limited number of functions. However, this still didn’t completely solve the problem, as it siloed the user’s Ethereum identity from their Grill.chat posts. The team implemented EVM compatibility to make it easier for Ethereum users to switch to the app.

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Grill.chat isn’t the only social media app trying to entice crypto projects into building communities on it. OpenChat is a chat app on the Internet Computer network that is working on a similar feature to show OpenChat chat rooms on a project’s website. Web3 companies are racing to create a blockchain-based social media app that will see mass adoption.

On April 26, the Polygon-based Lens network announced a new scaling solution that it said would allow for “instant posts.” The same day, MeWe said it would move its 20 million users to the Polkadot parachain network Frequency.