Many agree that the cryptocurrency industry needs apps that can attract new users. Apps like these will catapult the crypto industry towards mass adoption. From DeFi apps, and blockchain games, to running apps that give crypto rewards, developers are betting on creating apps that millions of people can use. One of the recently trending apps is Friend.Tech. Many people think that Friend.tech will be the next big thing in the crypto world because of its innovative system. So, what is Friend.tech? Why is it popular and what is its future potential? This article will discuss Friend.tech in detail.
Article Summary
- 🐰 Friend.tech is a decentralized social media app that offers tokenization of social value. Users can purchase “keys” to someone’s account to gain access to interactions with that account.
- ⚙️ Built on L2 Base on Ethereum, Friend.tech has raised $228 million in total assets with 221K users and 6.8 million transactions as of September 20, 2023.
- 💰 Friend.tech users can earn incentives through airdrop points and ownership of “keys”. The platform charges a 10% tax on each transaction, split equally between the creator and the platform.
- 🧠 While Friend.tech shows potential benefits for users but there are concerns about the sustainability of its incentive model and platform in the long run. Friend.tech is still in beta for the next 4.5 months.
- ⚖️ Friend.tech has achieved significant growth in a short period of time and is part of the popular crypto asset app trend. However, we cannot know what the future holds for FT. Friend.tech needs to think of a new incentive model to retain its users after the point system is over.
What is Friend.Tech?
Friend.tech is a decentralized social media application that combines social elements and financial incentives (also called SocialFi). In Friend.Tech (FT), you can buy and sell shares (called keys) of every user in FT. The Friend.tech app is built on top of Base L2 on Ethereum.
Once you buy someone’s keys, you get access to interact with that person. The group contains everyone who has keys and everyone in it can interact with the account.
Keys on Friend.tech are similar to a typical crypto asset, where the price will rise and fall according to supply and demand. Basically, Friend.tech tokenizes the social value of everyone who logs into its platform. As we know, well-known figures in the crypto world like @cobie have high social value, and their opinions are important. Friend.tech creates a platform where that social value becomes tangible in the form of ETH.
Many people said that Friend.tech replaces the influencer monetization scheme that sells group trading signals with a monthly subscription system. You can instantly chat with many experienced crypto influencers by purchasing keys on FT.
Friend.tech was born from the minds of 0xRacerAlt and Shrimppepe who launched it on August 10, 2023. Currently, FT is still in the beta testing phase where users have to get invitations from other users to enter Friend.tech.
In a relatively short period of time, FT has already earned $11.4 million in transaction fees. The total value of assets that have entered FT has reached $228 million dollars with a current TVL value of $36.7 million dollars. In addition, the total number of users of Friend.tech has reached 221 thousand users with 6.8 million transactions (September 20, 2023). Friend.tech’s stats have continued to break new highs in the past month.
Friend.tech Features and How it Works
Friend.tech is a platform aimed at monetizing content and digital content creators. Influencers, digital artists, and famous figures such as musicians have a way to tokenize themselves. In addition, they also have a platform to interact directly with their fans or social circle. With the key system, users who want to enter a certain group or circle need to make an initial investment.
Two features that everyone can do in FT:
- Buying and selling (trading) people’s “keys”. Owning keys gives access to chat with that person.
- Creating exclusive content and promoting FT groups. The more people buy, the higher the price of your keys and you will get a share of the platform tax when people buy.
Basically, every account on Friend.tech fulfills two roles: holders and creators. As the name suggests, keys are access to every account on FT. Friend.tech applies a 10% tax to each user. The split is that 5% goes directly to the creator and 5% to the platform. Furthermore, this 10% transaction fee applies to every purchase and sale of keys. Someone even created a list of buying and selling prices after calculating the 10% fee.
Then, why is the development and growth of FT so massive despite the 10% tax? It has to do with the Friend.tech flywheel model which is quite innovative.
Friend.Tech Incentive Mechanism
Despite its simplicity, FT’s key mechanism has proven effective in attracting thousands of users, including well-known influencers on Twitter such as @cobie and @hsakatrades. Additionally, because FT’s system is still invite-only, the platform managed to attract many people from the crypto community to try it out.
Furthermore, Friend.tech also implemented a point system for airdrops in the beta phase. FT announced on August 15 that it will distribute 100 million points within the 6-month beta period. These points will be distributed every Friday and are earned when interacting with other FT users.
As in the image above, this creates a flywheel cycle that successfully attracts new users and keeps existing users. Many people are attracted to FT because of two potential benefits:
- The potential benefits of holding the key of a popular, coveted account (so the price keeps increasing).
- Potential airdrop benefits from the accumulation of points.
The FT incentive mechanism also relies on doing (3,3) (a concept born from the OlympusDAO mechanism). In short, what (3,3) means is that two parties on a platform have an interaction that can benefit the platform and both parties. In OlympusDAO, that action is staking. Meanwhile, the (3,3) behavior on Friend.tech is buying each other’s keys, not selling them, and interacting with each other. This set of interactions provides maximum point potential and also benefits Friend.tech.
Many accounts try to scam new holders by buying their own account's keys in large quantities so that the price spikes suddenly. Check the holders' section first and make sure that the account key owners are diverse and not just one person.
How to use Friend.Tech?
First of all, you need to get the Friend.tech invitation code from someone who is already using it. Many people share this invitation code on Twitter. After getting the code, you just need to visit the Friend.tech page and the image below will appear.
Follow the above instructions to get to the next page. As seen below, you need to input Friend.tech’s invitation code that you can get from other FT users.
Once you’ve entered the invitation code, Friend.tech will ask you to top up your FT wallet with a minimum of 0.01 ETH (about 250k rupiah or $15 dollars). This means that you need to move ETH from Ethereum to Base L2 and then send it to the FT wallet pictured below. This is very easy to do as you can just go to bridge.base.org/deposit. However, you should note that withdrawing money from Base L2 takes about 5-7 days due to the Optimistic Rollup’s challenge period mechanism.
After topping up ETH, you can immediately use it to buy keys and interact with other FT users. After the last Friend.tech update, you can also open FT on your computer or laptop browser.
Future and Potential of Friend Tech
Friend.tech continues the trend of cryptocurrency apps that have seen a dramatic rise in users and suddenly become very popular. Stepn, Axie Infinity, DeFi Kingdom, and OlympusDAO are some of the protocols that have experienced the same thing. Among all these different protocols, there is something in common: they all lack a sustainable incentive model. So, all of these protocols are just temporary trends that come and go quickly.
So, will Friend.tech experience the same thing? Let’s first look at the various FT statistics.
The total value of protocol fees that Friend.tech has collected until September 23, 2023, is $12 million dollars. In the period of September 14-15, FT collected $1 million dollars of transaction fees in a single day, surpassing the figures of Base, Tron, and even Ethereum.
The September period was the second wave of FT adoption. In this period, Friend.tech reached all-time highs in many metrics, including the number of users, TVL, incoming asset value, and number of transactions. In fact, Friend.tech’s transaction volume briefly rivaled the transaction volume of the entire NFT market.
We can clearly see the waves of FT adoption in the graph above. The first wave happened around the end of August and the second wave of users entering FT happened between mid-September to the end of September.
The beta phase and point system of FT has only been running for about 1.5 months. This means that there are 4.5 months left until 100 million points are distributed. The period after the point incentive is completed will be a crucial phase for FT. So, FT needs to retain its users with other incentive mechanisms and new features or risks going the way of Stepn, Axie Infinity, and others.
Despite having a large number of users, many in the crypto community on Twitter are pessimistic about Friend.tech. Again, they see FT just like STEPN and other trends that will eventually go downhill. These people see FT as just a speculative platform.
Friend.tech already has a big investor in Paradigm. In addition, Manifold Trading also started to jump into FT on September 12, 2023. Manifold is testing ways to counter sniper bots so that the price of Twitter accounts with high followers doesn't spike immediately.
Besides the pessimistic attitude towards FT, there are some valid critiques about Friend.tech. First, many bot snipers are now ready to buy every newly created FT account. This is especially true for Twitter accounts with high follower numbers. Sniper bots can price a large new FT account above 1 ETH in seconds. Secondly, the incentive mechanism (3.3) has also proven to be unsustainable, with Olympus DAO eventually suffering massive losses.
In the end, all the talk about the future of Friend.tech is just speculation. For every person who feels optimistic that FT will become an app with millions of users, there are also people who feel that FT will die after the points incentive is over. What will determine the future of FT is whether or not it can create a sustainable incentive mechanism. If not, it will join the list of apps like Stepn.
Conclusion
Friend.Tech is a decentralized app that combines elements of social media and financial incentives, creating a platform for monetizing content and social interactions with the use of “keys” as a symbol of ownership or access. Built on Base L2 on Ethereum, the app promotes the tokenization of social value and offers incentive models such as airdrop points that attract users. However, there are concerns about the long-term robustness of this incentive model and the risks to users. The future of Friend.tech will be determined by how FT keeps existing users and attracts new ones. So, this must be done on an ongoing basis to maintain its relevance as a crypto app.
How to Buy Cryptocurrencies on the Pintu App
You can start investing in cryptocurrencies by buying them on the Pintu app. Here is how to buy crypto on Pintu:
- Create a Pintu account and follow the process of verifying your identity to start trading.
- On the homepage, click the deposit button and top up the Pintu balance using your preferred payment method.
- Go to the market page and look for your favorite asset.
- Click buy and fill in the amount you want.
- Now you are a crypto investor!
In addition, the Pintu application is compatible with various popular digital wallets such as Metamask to facilitate your transactions. Go and download the Pintu cryptocurrency app on the Play Store and App Store! Pintu is regulated and supervised by Bappebti and Kominfo.
You can also learn crypto through the various Pintu Academy articles which are updated every week! All Pintu Academy articles are for educational purposes, not financial advice.
References
- Route 2 FI, “Let’s talk about Friend.Tech Game Theory – WAGMI or just a giga Ponzi?”, Substack, accessed on 20 September 2023.
- Aylo (alpha please), “I’ve been using friend.tech every day for four weeks” Substack, accessed on 20 September 2023.
- Ananda Banerjee, “What is Friend.Tech? A Deep Dive Into The Web3 Social Media App”, Bein Crypto, accessed on 21 September 2023.
- @cryptokoryo, “Friend.Tech”, Dune Dashboard, accessed on 22 September 2023.