What Is Friend.Tech and Should You Believe the Hype?

Picture this: a social media platform where your data is not a commodity, algorithms don’t hold the reins to your feed, and you have the final say in what you see and share. Friend.tech is a decentralized social media (DeSo) platform with a cryptocurrency twist. It understands your frustration with algorithms deciding what should grace your feed, drowning out the voices that matter to you.

With Friend.tech, you’re back in control. You determine whose posts grace your feed and what content deserves your attention with control over authenticity and privacy. Say goodbye to the echo chamber and welcome back diverse perspectives and conversations that broaden your horizons.

What Is Friend.tech?

Friend.tech is an on-chain social networking platform built on Coinbase’s Layer 2 blockchain, Base. The platform empowers users to tokenize their identity by selling and buying keys (previously known as shares) of themselves to their followers.

As a result, followers also become shareholders. This grants them the benefit of directly communicating with the user and accessing a new personalized engagement feature in their preferred online platforms, like X (formerly known as Twitter) and Telegram.

How Does Friend.tech Work?

The concept of Friend.tech is similar to the ownership principle of the stock market, in which having shares means having a stake in a specific company. When you first look at Friend.tech, it may seem similar to other messaging platforms such as WeChat or Telegram. However, the unique aspect of the decentralized social media application is the process of joining and leaving group chats, which is the core feature of this platform.

As a user, you join specific groups by paying a participation fee (in Ethereum), which gives you a share of that group. Later, if you leave the group, you can sell your shares to liquidate your investment. When group members experience a rise in share value, they have the option to sell their shares and exit the group. This means that joining a group has social benefits and potential financial gains.

This factor adds a dynamic layer by fueling social engagement with an opportunity to invest. However, it is crucial to mention that the Friend.tech protocol imposes a 5% transaction fee, and the owner earns profit from the trade spread.

To start using the app, you must obtain an invitation code and connect your X (formerly Twitter) account. Once these steps are completed, you must deposit at least 0.01 Ethereum (ETH) into the Base network. This deposit gives you access to all the features of the Friend.tech application.

How Much Has Friend.tech Raised? How Many Users Does Friend.tech Have?

Friend.tech protocol has witnessed significant activities since its (invite-only) beta version launched on August 11, 2023. Eight days later, on August 19, 2023, Friend.tech announced that it had secured seed round funding from crypto venture capital firm Paradigm. This news sparked speculation about the possibility of an airdrop and a potential token launch in the future.

In addition to this, according to data from Defi Llama, Friend.tech has generated $6.64 million in fees since its beta launch.

Meanwhile, the project has generated more than $3.32 million through its social platform and, according to a Dune dashboard, processing over one million transactions and more than 110,000 unique traders (which effectively translates to unique Friend.tech users) within the same time frame. The hype around the crypto social media protocol also helped the Base network (on which Friend.tech is built) acquire attention quickly.

Is Friend.tech Safe? Is Friend.tech a Scam?

Given the hype around Friend.tech, people are cautious but want to get involved, and crypto industry leaders have praised Friend.tech network’s advancements.

David Phelps, who co-founded Jokerace and EcoDAO, praised Friend. tech’s user experience as the best in the crypto industry. He identified three key factors that make the app a significant breakthrough for cryptocurrency.

Firstly, users aren’t required to download the app through an app store account, which emphasizes decentralization. Secondly, the app automatically links funds, simplifying transactions. Finally, the app lets users deposit their ETH once and buy and sell shares without repeatedly signing transactions. Many decentralized applications in the crypto space have been criticized for requiring constant verification of transactions through MetaMask signatures.

Conversely, a few critics have also raised red flags against the decentralized social media network. According to Ignas, a decentralized finance (DeFi) researcher, Friend.tech only earns revenue through trading fees and not by having more shareholders. This means that “controversial personalities might earn more or even creating FUD will be used as a strategy to earn fees.”

Additionally, Legendary, a pseudonymous Web3 marketer, shared a bearish prediction about the longevity of Friend.tech, drawing parallels to BitClout, a DeSo app from 2021.

I think the platform will collapse as BitClout did. We are in a bear market, and there’s nothing to do. Everyone jumps on an opportunity to make money, but I think the platform will be done within the next weeks to months.

Is It Time to Board the Friend.tech Hype Train?

Whether the hype is sustainable or not, Friend.tech’s decentralization, privacy, emphasis on authenticity, and diverse content options make it a unique and promising player in the social media world. Decentralized social media has a key part to play in Web3 and the wider internet, but it seems most opportunities and ideas remain limited to those already in the world of crypto.

Despite offering strong privacy and control over content, there is always one major issue facing any social media network: users. If the users aren’t there, the people won’t come. It’s as simple as that.