Omoju Miller

Vibecoding Mini Apps, an under-tapped opportunity

Wow!!! Ding, ding, ding, vibecoding mini apps

Any one that knows me, knows that I am that annoying friend that won't shut up about the blockchain. I was first introduced to BTC in 2012, but didn't get into it until 2017. And since then, I have pretty much gone bankless, and have been crypto native ever since. However, something that I didn't quite get was Telegram. Even though it feels like the defacto comms app for crypto native people, I just couldn't wrap my head around it until I listened to Manuel Stotz on Raoul Pal's podcast.

As someone who had a seat at the table when LLM's went mainstream¹, you would think I would be super excited about all things AI, but I think I had had enough, and it didn't light me up anymore. My dream had already been realized, we could go from intent to code, and that was that. It took a while for my interest in AI to reignite. I use granola to transcribe my meetings, I use Claude everyday, but I see them as tools, fabulous tools. Doing some introspection, I realized they didn't excite me because I couldn't figure out how the financial value captured by these tools could be pushed to the edges of the network.

Aside: In his book, Read, Write, Own, Chris Dixon talks about how money moves through networks. In centralized networks like Google or GitHub, most of the value captured goes to the center. In the Gen-AI boom, it is the same. In decentralized networks like blockchain networks, most of the value captured
goes to the edges and not the center.

It took me a while to understand the main philosophy that drives me.

1. Permissionless technology accelerates human progress by taking luck out of the equation.
2. Human beings are innate problem solving machines, literacy isn't a prerequisite.
3. The way to get wealthy is to become a super owner.
   
   

I believe deeply that permissionless technologies change the world. This is what drew me to GitHub, a permissionless open-source community where anyone could rise to the top without gate-keepers or being lucky. Blockchain networks are the next evolution of the open-source movement.

If you want to improve the world, and take a real bite out of poverty, give everyone the ability to become a super-owner; the way to do that is to leverage permissionless networks. And we are in a moment in time where that is now possible.

Which brings me back to Telegram. I had thought of Telegram solely as a messaging app just like iMessage, signal, or whatsapp. However, Telegram is more than that, it is a social media app, with close to a billion users. Anyone can download the app and use it, and most of its features are free. Telegram recently integrated a blockchain into their application, TON. In addition, Telegram has an app eco-system, filled with mini apps. These mini apps are web apps that can run fully within Telegram. So, we have an eco-system with over a billion users, an open app market, and a means of payment, everything necessary to create an economy where anyone can become a super-owner.

Now add vibecoding. And you have the perfect set of conditions to bring on massive transformation. Anyone can now vibecode a mini app, deploy it to Telegram, create value for their user base and get paid for it. My only concern is that Telegram is not decentralized, the Telegram team could ban an app from its platform, so there is still that platform risk. The good news is there is Farcaster, a truly decentralized social media platform that is crypto native and also has its own built in mini app eco-system.