Mask Network has taken operational control of the Lens Protocol, a decentralized social media infrastructure project originally launched in 2022 by Aave founder Stani Kulechov. The transition, framed as a change in "stewardship," was confirmed in statements from both parties on January 20-21, 2026.
The handover marks a strategic pivot for Lens. Mask Network, a Web3 company with experience in decentralized social platforms like Mastodon, will now lead the consumer-facing execution, including product roadmap decisions, user experience design, and day-to-day operations for applications built on Lens, such as Orb. Mask's stated objective is to develop products people actually use, supported by social structures that sustain regular participation rather than short-lived attention.
Conversely, Aave is narrowing its role to refocus on its core DeFi lending business. The company will act as a technical advisor on protocol-level decisions but will no longer lead product development. Importantly, the underlying Lens Protocol components—its onchain social graph, profiles, follows, and smart contracts—will remain open-source and permissionless. There was no transfer of protocol ownership, intellectual property, treasuries, or governance control reported.
The move occurs against a backdrop of challenges for SocialFi projects. Lens, despite early adoption with over 110,000 user profiles and hundreds of connected applications after launching on Polygon, struggled to achieve mainstream daily engagement. This pattern mirrors other projects like Farcaster, which also shifted resources after failing to attract a broad audience with a social-first approach.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin commented on the transition, praising the Aave team's stewardship and expressing excitement for Lens's future. Buterin emphasized the importance of decentralized social platforms with shared data layers for improving online discourse, noting his own return to using such platforms in 2026.
