thirdweb acquires Yup
We are thrilled to announce that thirdweb has acquired Yup, a decentralized social connection platform. This acquisition marks a significant milestone in our mission to further onchain social identity and build industry-leading web3 social SDKs.
Why thirdweb chose Yup
The current social media landscape is broken —platforms own user data, control speech through opaque moderation, and capture ~97% of the $326B digital advertising market.
Decentralized alternatives flip this model: users collectively govern networks, creators earn directly via tokenized rewards and smart contract splits, and open protocols prevent unilateral censorship. This shift transforms social platforms from data extraction engines into community-owned utilities.
However, building this vision requires robust tools. That’s why Nir Kabessa (CEO) and Vernon Johnson (CTO) built Yup: to drive necessary advances in web3 social and identity. This aligns perfectly with thirdweb’s mission to empower developers to build the next generation of internet applications; which is why welcoming them into thirdweb’s ecosystem was such an easy choice.
“At thirdweb, we’ve admired Nir and Vernon’s leadership in the web3 social and identity space for some time. Their vision and expertise will supercharge our development of social-focused SDKs, helping us move even faster toward our goal of offering the most comprehensive, full-stack Web3 toolkit. We couldn’t be more excited to bring the Yup team’s talent and insights into the thirdweb family.” – Jake Loo, Founder & CTO, thirdweb
Yup x thirdweb: driving web3 social innovation
Our acquisition of Yup will accelerate our ability to provide leading tools for ecosystems like Farcaster and Lens Protocol, streamlining features such as portable identities, anti-censorship relays, and creator monetization layers—critical steps toward building onchain social apps.
We look forward to this new chapter and the advancements it will bring to our web3 ecosystem. Together with the team, we will continue to innovate and deliver unparalleled solutions to developers and creators worldwide, paving the way for web3 adoption.
Welcoming New Talent
As part of this exciting new move, we welcome the brilliant minds from Yup to our team:
- Nir Kabessa as Senior Product Manager
- Vernon Johnson as Senior Software Engineer
These exceptional individuals will play crucial roles in driving innovation and maintaining our commitment to building best-in-class web3 development tools.
“thirdweb serves as a critical platform for some of our favorite apps, protocols, and crypto user experiences; their commitment to web3 social with an eye on agentic frameworks and composable identity aligns perfectly with Yup’s mission to empower creators across platforms seamlessly. We’re very enthusiastic to join them.“ - Nir Kabessa, CEO, Yup
What does this mean for Yup?
The Yup product itself will be sunsetted over the next few weeks. While the Yup platform will no longer be operational, the YUP token, given its decentralization, will remain onchain and accessible by its holders.