End of an era: The Friend.Tech team relinquished smart contract management

Friend.Tech developers have given up managing smart contracts.

The Friend.Tech team posted a message on X, announcing the transfer of control to a zero address on the Ethereum network.

The developers of the socialfi project have blocked any changes to the system, which raises questions about the project’s future development. A complete refusal of control makes the implementation of new functions unlikely.

This change does not affect the separate web client operated at Friend.Tech which will continue to function as is. No fees from either smart contracts or Friend.Tech currently go to the Friend.Tech dev team multisig.

The changes have caused the Friend.Tech token to collapse

The platform, launched on the Base network in August 2023, quickly attracted the attention of the crypto community and brought the developers more than $20 million. However, after the release of the second version and an unsuccessful token drop, user activity decreased, and the project faced stagnation. The transfer of control over smart contracts excludes the possibility of restarting Friend.Tech. The changes triggered a collapse of the project’s native token.

The Friend.Tech token (FRIEND) responded to this news with a sharp drop, falling by more than 39%. At the same time, back in May 2024, the asset price exceeded $1.

The rise and fall of Friend.Tech

Friend.Tech quickly gained popularity in the community. In September 2023, the protocol’s daily income exceeded Ethereum’s. The project also attracted venture capital firm Paradigm funding, although the investment amount has not been disclosed.

However, interest in the project has fallen. This is indicated by a noticeable decrease in the number of transactions on the social network.

Three weeks after the launch, the community started talking about the project’s “death” — the number of active users, the inflow of funds, and the volume of collected commissions fell by ~90%.

In addition, Friend.Tech trading volumes fell by more than 95% at the beginning of the year. The team hinted at an airdrop amid the decline in activity, but this could not restore the project’s former popularity.

Later, the decentralized social application’s developers announced the development of the Friendchain network in collaboration with the blockchain infrastructure company Conduit but later deleted the post with the announcement.

What is Friend.Tech for?

Friend.Tech is a decentralized social application based on the l2 solution Base from Coinbase, integrated with X.

At the end of March 2023, two developers known under the pseudonyms 0xracerAlt and Shrimp founded the web3 social network for multimedia distribution, Stealcam. In 2022, Racer was noted for creating the Tweet DAO, which was integrated with Twitter and provided access to accounts through the ownership of special NFTs.

In May 2023, after a sharp drop in revenue, the developers decided to rename the project to Friend.Tech. Initially, the platform was planned to be launched on Arbitrum, but a few months later, it was released on another network — Base.

The protocol allows trading “keys” — tokenized user shares. Their holders get access to closed channels and exclusive content. After registration, platform users can start selling their shares to other participants or buying “keys” to the accounts they are interested in. The project positions itself as a “marketplace for the friends” and essentially tokenizes influence in social networks using blockchain technology.

Soon after the launch, the platform faced criticism from some community members. Thus, a user under the pseudonym Yazan said the application has six to eight weeks before stock prices and overall activity decline sharply.

Among the project’s shortcomings, Yazan highlighted “ridiculous” pricing, a non-working group chat, and possible fraud.

Another user with the nickname Legendary predicted that the platform would collapse, as happened with BitClout. Perhaps, the user was right.

Do the latest changes mean the end for Friend.Tech?

The changes did not affect the Friend.Tech web client, so the application can continue to operate indefinitely. However, Ethos founder Serpin Taxt believes that the latest changes mean the end for the platform. He said he would buy the project’s technology to integrate it into his own protocol, but “it’s over now.”