How mewe is bringing onchain solutions to social networking with Turnkey

Learn how this privacy-first social network uses Turnkey to power onchain creator tipping and utility token airdrops across millions of daily users.

• 640k user wallets created
• 439k SOSHI sent in tips
• 99.9% uptime

“Turnkey is the engine under the hood for all onchain actions on mewe. Without them, our journey into crypto solutions wouldn’t have been possible.” — Carlos Betancourt, CEO of mewe

About

mewe is a privacy-first social network that empowers its users with full data control, no ads, no tracking, and chronological feeds free from algorithmic bias. Since its founding in 2016, mewe has raised over $50 million in funding and is advised by numerous tech luminaries, including Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Steve Wozniak.

Challenge

Enabling direct monetization for users without data-sharing tradeoffs

When Carlos Betancourt joined mewe as CEO in 2025, he was tasked with leading the company’s transformation into the world’s first decentralized social network.

At the time, the platform’s hardline approach to protecting user data and delivering an ad-free experience meant that monetization opportunities for creators were slim to none. 

Rather than generating ad revenue from their content, creators relied on indirect methods like paid business pages or external links to third-party tipping services. While these alternative approaches didn’t hinder mewe’s user growth or creator loyalty, Carlos knew there had to be a more efficient way to support the platform’s most prominent users.

Having spent nearly a decade at the forefront of the crypto industry, Carlos theorized that introducing direct support for creators through token-based tipping would help mewe bridge this monetization gap. However, he was also keenly aware of the hurdles of onboarding non-crypto-native users. Between downloading external wallets and managing 24-word seed phrases, most users simply wouldn’t be able to overcome the technical barriers to adoption.

Even if mewe were able to abstract the complexities of crypto from its UX, there was still the question of whether the company could take on a project of this scale in-house. “For our engineers, social networking is their expertise,” Carlos explains. “While we had the resources to build in-house, asking the team to navigate unfamiliar territory seemed like a step in the wrong direction.”

To help execute mewe’s transition, Carlos sought an established wallet infrastructure partner that could support a large, multi-platform product surface without forcing users into fragmented experiences. That search ultimately led him to Turnkey.

“The most important decision was deciding how we would approach wallets. We considered building our own infrastructure, but in tech, when someone tells you they can build something in a year, it generally takes much longer. We decided to leverage Turnkey’s expertise so we could focus on building our product.”

Solution

Bridging social interaction and onchain utility with Turnkey’s wallet infrastructure

mewe implemented Turnkey to deliver instant, user-friendly wallet provisioning while supporting token-based tipping flows for the platform’s top creators.

The partnership began with a streamlined onboarding process, during which Carlos worked directly with the Turnkey team to unify API integrations across Android, iOS, and web SDKs. This level of hands-on support, combined with Turnkey’s comprehensive documentation, enabled the mewe team to go live in less than one month — a fraction of the time investment that would have been required for an in-house build.

Today, whenever a user signs up for a mewe account, Turnkey instantly creates an embedded wallet for them to send and receive $SOSHI, the platform’s utility token (built on AVAX and currently in testnet). Every private key generated through this automatic provisioning is stored and encrypted within Turnkey’s secure enclaves, where only users can authorize transactions. If the user loses access to their credentials, Turnkey’s native email-based recovery flows ensure that regaining access is as simple as changing a password.

By engaging with posts, inviting new members, participating in governance, or moderating the community, users earn $SOSHI, which they can donate to creators. Turnkey’s backend architecture ensures these rewards are distributed programmatically without requiring manual transaction approvals or threatening the platform’s non-custodial status. Meanwhile, users enjoy one-click tipping flows that feel as seamless as dropping a like on a post. These combined benefits enabled mewe to effortlessly scale creator support without sacrificing its privacy-first and user-centric principles.

“Turnkey enables us to automatically provision wallets upon a user creating a mewe account. From there, we can easily airdrop tokens to those wallets and start empowering our users to earn through social interaction.”

Results

Establishing the world's largest decentralized social network

Today, mewe generates value that stays with their users. With Turnkey’s Embedded Consumer Wallets, it has successfully transitioned into a fully decentralized social network, giving its community monetization opportunities comparable to some of today’s largest platforms.

• 640k user wallets created
• 439k SOSHI sent in tips
• 99.9% uptime

Looking ahead, Carlos is eager to deepen collaboration with Turnkey while mewe delivers on its vision of user-owned data and direct onchain monetization.

“Turnkey is one of those rare companies that truly cares about the end user experience while keeping sensitive information airtight. They’ve continuously gone out of their way to ensure our partnership drives value.”‍