FRIEND pours 26% as Friend.Tech Dev Team abandons project

Friend.Tech, the Web3 social networking platform that allows users to exchange tokens for access to sources of influential individuals, appears to be winding down just a year after its successful launch.

On September 8th, the developers behind it relinquished control of their smart contracts by transferring ownership to Ethereum’s null address. This action locks the system in its current state and prevents further updates or feature additions.

FRIEND Token Drops 26%

The decision was confirmed in an announcement published by the team on X, “The administration and ownership parameters have been set to 0x000…000 to prevent any changes to their rates or functionality in the future.”

The release also clarifies that there will be no fees for the Friend.Tech development team. While the platform appears to remain operational, the loss of control over its smart contracts makes it highly unlikely that any new features or changes will be introduced.

Following the announcement, data from CoinGecko shows that its native FRIEND token has fallen 26.4%, currently trading at $0.05942, and also hit an all-time low of $0.05748 on September 9 .

Meanwhile, investors have also felt the impact of FRIEND’s fall. Lookonchain reported that crypto influencer Machi Big Brother, which invested approximately 5,200 ETH worth about $16.7 million to acquire 11.1 million tokens, is now facing a loss of 16 million dollars as its value has plummeted to just $0.7 million.

The Rise and Fall of Friend.Tech

Launched on Base in August 2023, Friend.Tech quickly gained traction for its innovative model of selling “keys” for exclusive influencer content. However, despite its initial success, trading activity on the platform began to decline. A significant blow came when Racer hinted that he was leaving the Base blockchain for a new project, “FriendChain.”

Although these plans were eventually abandoned, the announcement caused confusion and activity on the platform never fully recovered. To drum up interest, Friend.Tech introduced version 2 and conducted a token air release, which briefly returned to users.

However, this short-lived resurgence did not sustain long-term commitment, with protocol fees only around $60,000 as of June 2024. The latest reports indicate that fees generated on the platform have dropped to $71 , a situation that may be behind the team’s decision to relinquish control.

The circumstances are eerily similar to other large decentralized social platforms like Farcaster and Lens. Data from a Dune analyst shows that new Farcaster users have dropped from a peak of 15,000 in February to around 650 currently.

Additionally, the number of daily active users on the platform has plummeted by around 40%, from a peak of 100,000 in July to around 60,000 today.

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