Darnell (Seize The Day)

Props to @atomicpoet@mastodon.social for breaking this news on Mastodon, as it seems Mask.io has not only purchased the second largest Mastodon server, but has been quietly managing two other Mastodon servers as well.

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 21st, 2022, with no impact on existing users. [...]

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. (Mask Network)

With the latest acquisition of Pawoo.net, Mask now owns three out four of the largest Mastodon sites worldwide, & seems intent on dominating the Fediverse (at least in Japan).

Currently both Mastodon.cloud & Mstdn.jp are run by admins from Sujitech, who has offices in the United States & Japan.

Mask appears to be based out of Singapore (props to @binarytango@mstdn.binarytango.com for finding this info) & is a “Web 3.0” cryptocurrency company according to TechCrunch.

I wonder if Mask will expand their empire towards other platforms like Pixelfed‽ I would not be surprised if the owners of Pixelfed.Tokyo & Pixelfed.de started receiving offers soon.

Update: Here is a summary of the Zoom call I had with Pawoo.net new owner

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