Friend.Tech has remarkably established itself as a leading topic of discussion in crypto Twitter, seeing quick growth over the past few days.
Users of the ground-breaking SocialFi network can purchase tokenized shares of influencers, with share prices determined solely by market demand. The app, which is currently invite-only, launched on Base little over a week ago but has already made around $700K in income in the past 24 hours alone, solidifying its position as the highest-grossing decentralized software to date. Since going online, Friend.Tech, which charges fees on every in-app transaction, has enabled an astonishing $28M in buy volume and $21M in sale volume.
Here are some invite codes for you to sign up with if you haven’t already:
- ft-xqzek4eq
- ft-ryri75se
- ft-sn7xj1aw
- ft-h08tqlth
- ft-ohxkn5cv
Some figures for friend.tech:
- $3M in protocol fees
- 1.6M total txs in total
- $61M total inflow (35k ETH)
While activity dipped briefly after the initial frenzy, trading volume came roaring back on Friday and has remained robust since. This resurgence follows a surge in new users after Friday’s airdrop of points to around 44K accounts. The project revealed plans on August 19th to distribute 100M points during the 6-month beta, sending airdrops every Friday, with changing criteria to discourage farming. High-profile influencers are now joining the platform en masse, so exponential growth looks set to continue in the near future.
It’s clear Friend.Tech is capturing the crypto community’s imagination and rapidly emerging as a force to be reckoned with.
The innovative SocialFi model taps into key trends like influencer marketing, fan engagement, and blockchain technology. By tokenizing individual popularity, Friend.Tech gamifies social clout and allows anyone to essentially invest in and profit from the rising fame of creators. This is a brilliant evolution of social media that provides new monetization opportunities for influencers while letting fans support and benefit from their success.
While there are valid concerns around hype, speculation, and sustainability, the numbers speak for themselves – Friend.Tech has struck a chord and found a product-market fit. The team’s clever growth hacking tactics, like shared tx fees, are attracting droves of new users.
With top influencers now onboard, network effects are materializing as creators attract their fanbases.
Friend.Tech’s unique approach of tokenizing access to influential personalities for trading and speculation is certainly more entertaining than many existing crypto models. By letting users invest in social clout, Friend.Tech taps into the human fascination with popularity, fame, and status.
While the idea of buying tokens for access to “crypto gigabrains, celebrities, and other influencers” as purely speculative assets raises some ethical questions, I believe Friend.Tech has found a model that resonates with today’s culture. In an attention economy driven by influencer marketing and parasocial relationships with online personalities, many value digital proximity and connection to the elite, famous or beautiful.
However, reducing people to tokenized assets traded purely for speculative profit could dehumanize and objectify them. A thoughtful framework is needed to ensure ethical participation by influencers and a focus on more than superficial social capital.
There is an opportunity here to evolve the model into something more substantive over time – where holders become true fans and participants in creator economies, not just speculators. Features fostering real engagement between influencers and token holders could enrich the experience.
Expect Friend.Tech’s momentum to continue as more crypto natives and mainstream users get turned on to SocialFi through hype-fueled FOMO. But the startup will need to keep innovating and adding value beyond speculation to transition from a viral novelty to an essential platform.
Final Thoughts
By leveraging tokenomics and activities like sharing tx fees, Friend.Tech has expertly played into web3’s love of speculative potential and “money legos”. They’ve essentially gamified and monetized social clout, introducing a social casino dynamic that caters perfectly to crypto natives’ desires for novelty, engagement, and profit.
The project has also illustrated the power of influencers and hype – big names driving their communities to platform-fueled growth. This shows the strength of aligned incentives, as creators benefit from token appreciation.
However, I believe this is just the first wave of interest, driven largely by speculative mania and FOMO. Sustaining growth long term may prove challenging without adding more utility and real social value.
There are also valid concerns around data privacy, platform control, and whether users are really building meaningful social connections. Effective decentralization and governance will be needed to fully deliver on the Web3 promise.
While skepticism is warranted, Friend.Tech remains one of the most interesting crypto experiments of 2023 so far. Its short-term success highlights the community’s incentives and offers lessons for driving engagement. But platforms that solve real problems and generate true utility, not just speculation, will win out in the long run.