Friend.tech is closed. The creators of the project have withdrawn the ability to make changes to it. They still walked away with a $44 million fee generated protocol.
Friend.tech, the crypto social network built on Coinbase's buzzing base blockchain, is shutting down.
The ending left investors disappointed, but the project's creators walked away with nearly $44 million.
Since friend.tech launched a year ago, it has collected nearly $90 million in fees data Compiled by 21.co. Half of that fee went to the project development team.
Investors aren't so lucky — the FRIEND token has declined 98% since its May launch. It fell another 21% on news of the shutdown before partially recovering.
The FRIEND token will drop on the news that the project is effectively shutting down.
Friend.tech is a blockchain-based social network that allows users to invest in influential people by purchasing tokens called keys that grant access to exclusive chat rooms.
Monday, friend.tech Announced It transferred administrative and ownership rights for code that supported the protocol to a null address.
Simply put, although the friend.tech protocol still exists, the project's creators have irrevocably withdrawn their ability to make changes to it – or charge fees.
The situation highlights the capricious nature of crypto apps and their users and the risks of investing in such projects.
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Investors in trouble
Friend.tech's demise was not entirely unexpected.
The project, which at one point accounted for more than half of all activity on the base network, has struggled in recent months.
In May, friend.tech launched a new version of the app, along with a much-awaited token airdrop to early users. It did little to revive the project, and it continued to bleed users.
According to DefiLlama, deposits are now down 92% from their October 2023 peak data.
Friend.tech deposits dropped from $52 million to just $4 million.
Daily new users dropped Single digitsAnd the daily fee, which once reached $2 million, is less than $100.
Many expected friend.tech to become a breakthrough app and usher in a new wave of crypto adoption.
Venture firms are paradigm and notation capital Invested Friend.Tech's seed round is at an undisclosed valuation. Many crypto investors bought the project's FRIEND token in hopes of profiting from its success.
The effective shuttering of the project paints a bleak picture for these investors. But this may not be the end for friend.tech.
Now that the project's original creators have abandoned it, there's nothing stopping the app's users or another team from copying or “forking” the mantle and picking it up.
Previously abandoned projects have found renewed success through forks.
Strictly, a decentralized exchange co-created by DeFi godfather Andre Cronje left Shortly after launch several bugs interfered with the protocol.
But Solidly was forked by a new team and relaunched as a new exchange called Aerodrome at Base.
Moreover the aerodrome became the largest protocol of the base $548 million Deposits.
Tim Craig is News' Edinburgh-based DeFi correspondent. Reach out with tips at [email protected].
Related TopicsFRIEND.TECHBASE
