TOKYO, Dec. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Social Coop Limited (Social Coop), the entity affiliated with Mask Network has acquired Pawoo.net, one of the largest Mastodon instances. The new team will be taking over the operation and maintenance of Pawoo.net starting from December 21^st, 2022, with no impact on existing users.

Pawoo, operated from Japan since 2017, is the second largest instance for Mastodon. It has drawn users from all over the world including illustrators, anime fans, novelists, and music enthusiasts since its inception. Accumulating around 800K users, Pawoo has become a "place to enjoy creative activity and unfettered communication." The Pawoo acquisition marks another milestone of the Mask team towards the building of a decentralized social network and a free, open internet.

Anticipation is riding high for decentralized social networks to emerge. As an open-source-based and decentralized social network, Mastodon, currently with 1.9 million monthly active users, has become the to-go choice for many users who believe in self-control and autonomy. Despite its functions like Twitter, Mastodon allows individual users to set up their own social networks and determine how it operates and what their users can share. Mask team has been the maintainer of two of the most active instances of Mastodon, mstdn.jp, and mastodon.cloud, and built the first official app for Mastodon collaborated with Mastodon core builder team and NYC-based design firm Lickability.

Founded in 2017 by a group of young believers in a truly free and open internet, the Mask team aims to build an easy-to-use bridge from Web 2.0 to the Web 3.0-era decentralized apps. As early as the end of 2019 Mask extension can support its users with secure, decentralized social messaging, payment networks, file storage and sharing upon the current mainstream social media networks.

Embracing the ownership economy and helping to build the next phase of decentralized social networks, Mask has obtained tens of thousands of users and has raised over US$50 million from private and institutional backers. To further its vision of building the Web3 social network ecosystem, Mask announced the launch of a US$42 million Bonfire Union fund in July 2022 to strategically invest in decentralized social network, infrastructure, and creative contents.

As a major Mastodon instance, Pawoo will have plenty of space to grow. The new operation team hopes to play a crucial role in driving its future growth. The team believes that on the journey to the free and open Internet, the decentralized infrastructure and applications are under development at a rapid pace. The future decentralized social networks including Pawoo will play an important role during this process to achieve a new and open internet.