Mini Apps: What are they and why we should take them seriously

[Tekr0x.eth]

I’ve never been to China, but a friend of mine has. When he got back a month ago, we met up for a drink and he told me all about it.

What stood out most was how central WeChat is to everyday life there.

Paying for groceries? WeChat. Ordering a cab? WeChat. Getting food delivered? Also WeChat.

Everything happens in one app. Fast, easy, and seamless.

It made me think about crypto and our goal of bringing millions of users onchain. Where are we now, and how far do we still have to go?

The recent momentum around Mini Apps got me thinking about this again. So here’s a short guide to what Mini Apps are, and why they matter, especially for us at Arbitrum.

What are Mini Apps

Mini Apps aren’t exactly a new concept. What is changing is how builders are starting to think about what’s possible with them. Lately, there’s been a kind of Mini App renaissance. That’s thanks to stronger distribution channels (like Farcaster, World App, and Telegram) plus improvements like account abstraction, seamless bridging, and ultra-cheap microtransactions. Basically, a dream setup for anyone building consumer apps.

Many social platforms have caught on to the idea of letting developers launch Mini Apps through embedded app stores. Since users are already on these social apps, it makes access incredibly easy. What really sets things apart, though, are the built-in wallets. No more wallet popups or endless confirmations.

Today, using a Mini App can feel as smooth as a Web2 experience.

Examples of Mini Apps on various platforms

1. Farcaster Mini Apps (aka Frames 2.0)

Mini Apps are lightweight, native-like web apps that live inside the Farcaster ecosystem.

They let developers create social, onchain experiences with minimal friction and quick turnaround times. This new interaction model lowers the barrier to entry and opens up fresh ways to keep users engaged (and monetize).

Fast to Build, Fast to Launch: Developers can go from idea to live app in just a few hours, no app store approval needed. Mini Apps use familiar web tech like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, plus SDKs that help them feel just like native apps.

Easy to Discover: Mini Apps show up directly in users’ social feeds, making them easy to find and use with one click. They also benefit from built-in viral loops and emerging Mini App stores inside Farcaster, helping them grow organically.

Better Retention and Re-engagement: Push notifications and persistent access features help bring users back when there’s something new. Users can also bookmark their favorite Mini Apps to return anytime, which boosts long-term engagement.

Seamless Onchain Actions: Thanks to built-in Ethereum wallet support, users can send tokens, mint NFTs, or donate with a single click. No popups, no extra logins, no extensions.

Native Identity and Personalization: Farcaster handles identity and login, so developers don’t need to build sign-in flows. They can also tap into Farcaster’s social graph to create personalized experiences based on user activity and connections.

Ponder

A question-and-answer Mini App where users can bet on which answer will win the most votes. It turns casual conversations into interactive prediction markets-right in the Farcaster feed.

Farcade

A fun, lightweight gaming app you can launch directly in your feed. Play, compete, and share your scores with others. Shoutout to Hyve Labs (backed by the Arbitrum Grants Program) for also launching a Mini App. Check it out here: https://farcaster.xyz/hyve-labs/0xf4ff09a9

Noice

A clever Mini App that lets users set tipping rules in any ERC-20 token. Like a cast, tip a creator. It’s a great example of how simple and powerful microtransactions can be.

GeoCaster

Built by Ben from the OCL team, this is a geo-guessing game where you test your map skills-and mint a proof-of-completion NFT on Arbitrum when you’re done. Try it here: https://farcaster.xyz/hummusonrails/0x985ebdf3

If you’re curious about building Mini Apps, there’s a small private group of Arbitrum devs (some from OCL, some independent) chatting about it regularly. DM me on Farcaster if you’d like to join: https://farcaster.xyz/tekr0x.eth

2. Coinbase Wallet Mini Apps

Another exciting Mini App distribution channel to keep an eye on is Coinbase Wallet. While it’s no surprise that most of the focus is on Base, it’s still worth tracking their progress-especially given Coinbase’s reach.

Recently, Coinbase Wallet announced plans to integrate a DEX on Base directly into the wallet - big move toward decentralizing app access. And much of this will be powered by Mini Apps. Here’s the announcement: https://x.com/coinbase/status/1933274988041080859

If you’re curious about how Mini Apps are evolving on Base, check out this excellent guide by David Tso: https://www.dtso.org/web3/mini-apps-guide

3. World App

Another unique Mini App distribution channel is World App-mainly because of its user base. Thanks to its unique verification system, it’s much harder to game compared to other platforms. That means fewer bots, less farming, and a more authentic user base- something Mini App developers pay attention to. Also, World App has a much stronger push towards daily life apps (but you pay for them in crypto).

World App also does a solid job with developer support. Their tutorials and docs are well put together. Here’s a quick video guide to get started: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJ0htHP6lb0

And here’s the full documentation for Mini Apps on World App: https://docs.world.org/mini-apps

4. Telegram & TON Network

In the crypto world, Telegram has taken the lead with its own version of Mini Apps, often powered by bots integrated directly into the app. The concept has been around for over a year now, and we’ve already seen some big hits—like Hamster Kombat (yes, the one where people were endlessly tapping their screens for free tokens).

Telegram was (as far as I know) the first to launch blockchain-powered Mini Apps, supported by its native TON network: https://ton.org/en/mini-apps

If you’re interested in building on TON, the documentation is pretty extensive. This guide by Thirdweb is a great starting point: The complete guide to Telegram Mini Apps on TON Blockchain: Benefits, Use Cases, and Apps

Why Mini Apps Matter to Arbitrum

With Mini Apps onchain user experiences become not just possible, but practical. And this brings us to crypto’s biggest challenge: real-world use cases and meaningful adoption. Mini Apps are well-positioned to help solve this. They’re simple, fast, and user-friendly. The blockchain stays in the background. Most users won’t even realize they’re interacting with it.

This is where Arbitrum comes in. With over $14B in total value locked and a highly decentralized network, Arbitrum is already a leader. But we can-and should-play a bigger role in the next wave of user onboarding. Mini Apps present a twofold opportunity for Arbitrum:

Bring new users and TVL onchain: By making onboarding easy, Mini Apps can attract more users and capital to the Arbitrum ecosystem.

Increase usage and revenue: For users already on Arbitrum, Mini Apps offer new ways to engage with the chain, driving more transactions and increasing sequencer revenue for the Arbitrum DAO.

Recommendations for Arbitrum

Proactive approach: The Arbitrum team (like Hunter and others) has recently taken a more active role on Farcaster, which has noticeably boosted awareness. For example, activity in the /arbitrum channel has grown significantly. The team also helped add native Arbitrum chain support inside the Farcaster wallet just a few weeks ago. How could we all get more Arbitrum builders more proactive in these channels?

Include Mini Apps in existing grant programs: Programs like Questbook D.A.O. grants could promote Mini Apps by directing developers to relevant channels. This might fit well within the scope of Arbitrum New Protocols and Ideas 3.0. A small campaign could be launched to promote our grant program between mini app devs on this channel:
https://farcaster.xyz/~/channel/miniapps

Incentives for existing builders: How can we encourage Arbitrum native projects like Camelot or others to adopt Mini Apps as a new distribution channel? Not the same interface, but by using Camelot’s technology to create new interfaces that engage users, like participating in Earn programs through Mini Apps. One click to earn yield.

Retroactive programs from OCL: In the past, there were initiatives like retroactive Frame grants. It might be worth trying retroactive grants or similar incentives again to support Mini App development?

Open dialogue: Organizing hackathons, talks, workshops, or discussions among Arbitrum stakeholders can help generate more ideas and build momentum. The more we talk about it, the more opportunities we’ll uncover.

Conclusion

It’s easy to brush off Mini Apps as just another phase or hype. Some can say, “We see these trends come and go”.

But what I see is that all this experimentation is actually helping us find better ways to onboard new users. And that’s the real game-changer. Trends like this are what will bring more people onchain, and Arbitrum should be right in the middle of it.

This post is a call to action for developers, DAO members, and ecosystem partners to get involved and stay proactive. A good place to start? Simply try out a Mini App and share your experience in the comments below.

[bntrry]

Great write up, @Tekr0x.eth! It’s time to have fun and experiment onchain again. Mini Apps are a great way to make noise and find signal to build to new audiences. LFG! Arbitrum Everywhere!

[TempeTechie]

That’s a great post @Tekr0x.eth! The concept of mini apps is gaining traction and we shouldn’t be left behind.

Fun fact: I just launched my first mini app on Farcaster a few days ago (link)

I know some people think Farcaster isn’t worth paying attention to because it’s smaller than Twitter/X. Some have even suggested that people are only there for airdrop farming (which I strongly disagree with).

I’ve been very active on Farcaster for a few years now, and have attended several Farcaster events and talks (Istanbul, Warsaw, Bangkok), where I’ve met many others who, like me, use Farcaster as a daily social network - an alternative to Twitter, and not a place for airdrop farming. Airdrops are mostly a thing of the past anyways.

While the community is smaller than Twitter’s, it’s much more engaged and open to experimentation.

For us builders, Farcaster is a great starting place to launch an app that’s integrated with a social network. It can help you figure out whether you have product–market fit (PMF) or not. And it’s easier to launch a new app on Farcaster than on X, because the attention span isn’t as saturated. You can quickly gain visibility on Farcaster, even if you’re an indie dev who sucks at marketing

I’ve seen several projects launch on Farcaster first, and once they confirmed PMF, they expanded to other social networks (e.g. Bankr, Clanker etc.)

In my experience with mini apps on Farcaster (both as a user and a builder), I’ve noticed that it’s not enough for your chain to simply be supported by the Farcaster’s built-in wallet (Arbitrum is supported, by the way).

It’s also important that users actually have funds (e.g. ETH) on Arbitrum in their Farcaster wallets.

The vast majority of Farcaster users have wallet funds on Base. So if you want to develop a mini app that uses Arbitrum instead of Base, you may have trouble acquiring or retaining users, since they won’t be able to interact with your app unless they have ETH on Arbitrum in their Farcaster wallets.

So while I fully support encouraging developers to build Arbitrum-based mini apps, we also need to get users to fund their Farcaster wallets with Arbitrum ETH. Builders build where users are.

How to get them to do that?

One option could be to airdrop ARB to the most active Farcaster users.

To claim the ARB tokens, these users would need to send some Arbitrum ETH to their Farcaster wallets.

I know @CupOJoseph has been advocating for a new ARB airdrop for a while. In this case, we could do a highly targeted mini airdrop focused only on the most active Farcaster users.

Bottom line, mini apps are a distribution channel, and this concept seems to be gaining traction lately (even X wants to become a super-app). During the SOS discussions, it became clear that most delegates believe Arbitrum needs to do much more on the distribution front - and mini apps are one of the things we should be exploring.

[Tekr0x.eth]

@TempeTechie

The vast majority of Farcaster users have wallet funds on Base. So if you want to develop a mini app that uses Arbitrum instead of Base, you may have trouble acquiring or retaining users, since they won’t be able to interact with your app unless they have ETH on Arbitrum in their Farcaster wallets.

That’s a great point. First impressions matter a lot, especially for mini apps. If the first thing a user sees is “Not enough funds”, it might be enough to make them leave right away.

Airdropping tokens is an interesting idea. It could create a viral effect on Farcaster and really boost adoption. But it’s also expensive, and it’s hard to predict the long-term impact. Plus, there’s the challenge of convincing developers to build Arbitrum-first apps.

An alternative could be to support mini app developers on Arbitrum by giving them funds to airdrop to their users. For example, if a user opens an Arbitrum app and doesn’t have any ETH on Arbitrum One, they could instantly be offered a free claim of $1–$3 worth of ETH (maybe in exchange for a recast). This gives us more control over who gets the airdrop and lets us measure its impact directly within the app.

[TempeTechie]

@Tekr0x.eth

An alternative could be to support mini app developers on Arbitrum by giving them funds to airdrop to their users. For example, if a user opens an Arbitrum app and doesn’t have any ETH on Arbitrum One, they could instantly be offered a free claim of $1–$3 worth of ETH (maybe in exchange for a recast). This gives us more control over who gets the airdrop and lets us measure its impact directly within the app.

Okay, so one option could be an ARB airdrop to the most active Farcaster users, where they need to first get themselves some Arbitrum ETH in the Farcaster wallet to claim the airdrop.

Another option is the one you proposed: a smaller (ETH) airdrop distributed by selected mini app developers.

A third option (suggested to me by Lorenzo, the Head of Technology at AF) is to use chain abstraction. That means even though a mini app runs on Arbitrum under the hood, users could pay for transactions on another chain, and a relayer would carry out the corresponding action on Arbitrum.

The third option is the cheapest option since it doesn’t require an airdrop, but it adds extra complexity to the app. We’d need to provide developers with support/guidance on how to implement chain abstraction correctly.

[Tekr0x.eth]

Quick update on Mini Apps (what happened in the last 7 days or so)

Since the last post, a lot of the conversation has moved to Farcaster. Recently, teams from Offchain Labs and the Arbitrum Foundation have become more active on the platform, and we’re already seeing results.

Here’s what’s happened over the past week:

• A Mini Apps group was started on Farcaster. Big thanks to Hunter for organizing a group of over 20 people, including developers and folks from the Arbitrum ecosystem, who are now actively discussing and sharing updates about Mini Apps.
• Arbitrum is being integrated into existing Mini Apps on Farcaster. For example, Noice (mentioned in the last post) has added Arbitrum support. Right now, it supports only Base and Arbitrum, and users can tip using tokens on Arbitrum.
• Griv, a social fitness app that’s been gaining traction, is showing interest in growing on Arbitrum.
• 9Lives, a prediction market on Superposition (Orbit chain), is launching as a Mini App on Farcaster. The beta version is already live, which is great to see.
• There is a rumor that someone is building a GMX Mini App for Farcaster, and the Arbitrum community has been actively supporting the effort.
• Mini Apps were mentioned on stage during ETH Milan at Arbitrum Day by Riccardo from the Arbitrum Foundation as a new distribution channel.

It’s been amazing to see Arbitrum pick up on this trend so quickly, thanks to the initiative of a few delegates and strong coordination between the DAO, the Arbitrum Foundation, and Offchain Labs. Special shout out to Hunter (Offchain Labs), Lorenzo and Ben (Arbitrum Foundation), and Alex (Superposition) for pushing this narrative forward and being so proactive.

[WinVerse]

Thank you for putting this up @Tekr0x.eth and for sharing this update.

We believe mini apps are definitely worth exploring so it is good seeing things go in this positive direction.

On this

@Tekr0x.eth

But what I see is that all this experimentation is actually helping us find better ways to onboard new users

With the recent stream of events on Farcaster by Arbitrum, it might be useful to track these ongoing activities properly. Is that something on your radar?

This way, we can monitor how effective these activities were over the course of 3-6 months.

[Tekr0x.eth]

A few days ago, a big announcement was shared on Farcaster. The Noice mini app now supports Arbitrum. This means anyone can set up tips in any token on the Arbitrum One network.

Noice is currently one of the top 10 trending apps on Farcaster. Just recently, it reached 2 million transactions. This is great news for all Arbitrum-based tokens, as the Noice app currently supports only Base and Arbitrum networks.

What does Noice do?

It lets you tip people automatically for things you already do on Farcaster, like liking posts, commenting, reposting, or following new users. For example, I’ve set it up so that every time I like a cast, I tip the person 1 ARB. The person I tip gets the ARB straight to their Farcaster wallet.

How to set up Noice tipping:

1. Open the Noice app on Farcaster: Farcaster
2. Choose any ERC-20 token on Arbitrum to tip with. You’ll need at least $5 worth of the token in your wallet, or it won’t show up.

3. Decide how much to tip for each action (like, comment, recast, etc).

4. Turn on Programmatic Tipping. This means setting a budget so you don’t overspend. I usually set mine to $10–15 and refill it manually every few days.

5. You’re all set. Just use Farcaster as usual, and the app will handle tipping in the background. You can check your wallet for transactions or view stats in the Noice app.

If you need help setting it up, feel free to message me on DM or Telegram. Happy to help.

[TempeTechie]

@Tekr0x.eth

What does Noice do?

It lets you tip people automatically for things you already do on Farcaster, like liking posts, commenting, reposting, or following new users. For example, I’ve set it up so that every time I like a cast, I tip the person 1 ARB. The person I tip gets the ARB straight to their Farcaster wallet.

This is really cool! Maybe this is the way we can get more people to fund their Farcaster wallets with Arbitrum ETH (instead of just having ETH on Base).

If they get ARB through tipping via Noice, then at some point they will want to do something with ARB (e.g. swap it) and they will need ETH to cover gas. So they will bridge ETH from Base to Arbitrum in their Farcaster wallets.

Not sure how many of us here have Farcaster, but anyone who does, let’s set up a Noice mini app as shown in @Tekr0x.eth’s screenshots and let’s start tipping fellow Farcasters with ARB

[1a35e1]

Hey @Tekr0x.eth great post. So much so it promoted me to write some thoughts on the matter.

Mini Apps: A UX Fight That Will Shape Ethereum's Future

Like OP, I think mini-apps have the potential to unify discovery in crypto and solve a lot of the UX challenges but we should be aware of the downstream implications if we over-index on any one platform.

TL;DR

• Mini apps are great and have a proven track record
• Current mini-apps are far from their service oriented counter parts in the real world but we should be using that as a benchmark
• We should be cautious of platform lock-in. Developing native mobile apps (iOS/Android) is already an order of magnitude harder than just a website and we already have several competing standards for mini-apps (World/Farcaster/Coinbase) it could be great to champion the idea of universal mini-apps where possible as it would be more Ethereum aligned.