The promises were big when Friend.tech was launched in mid-August. The “crypto killer app” wanted to link social media to the DeFi space. Users should not only be able to trade with the profiles of prominent influencers with their X accounts (formerly Twitter), but also capitalize on their own accounts. Three weeks after the brilliant start, the high flight of the crypto platform Friend.tech seems to have come to an end. Here’s why.
Anyone currently taking a look at the transaction data who will hardly believe that Friend.tech was still one of the hottest crypto projects on the scene a few days ago. When the SoFi platform launched on Base, Layer2 from Coinbase, it didn’t take long for the first milestones to be reached: 100,000 users and $25 million in revenue after just two weeks.
Now the turnaround: the slump in transactions is also making itself felt in gas fees. On August 21, the project generated almost 1.7 million US dollars from the network fees, a few days later it was not even 200,000 – a decrease by more than 90 percent. some users condoled on X (Twitter) already mockingly “RIP Friend.tech”. In addition, alleged leaks of 100,000 user data caused confusion among users. The Friend.tech team denied the allegations.
Friend.tech: Next Social Token Zombie?
Friend.tech wanted to give users the opportunity to commercialize their social media profiles. Anyone who wanted could tokenize their account and then sell shares in the form of so-called social tokens. In the end, investors benefited from possible increases in the value of the profile. Influencers could have interacted “even better” with the community, it said.
But the business concept is by no means new. Two years ago, the BitClout platform entered the crypto market with the same idea: tokenized Twitter profiles. And just like with Friend.tech, the project generated enormous hype. A little later, however, the high flight was over again. In addition to the declining interest of the user community, the reasons were also licensing difficulties. Because the accounts of many prominent personalities such as Elon Musk or Kim Kardashian were operated without their consent. BitClout then sank into the “One Hit Wonder” category. Friend.tech now faces the same fate.
You might also be interested in this