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Friend.Tech Token Hits All-Time Low as Two Other Metrics Tumble
After abandoning plans to launch their own chain, many of Friend.tech’s key metrics dropped, while users criticized them for “greed or incompetence.”
Friend.Tech, known for tokenizing people’s social networks, lets cryptocurrency users exchange “keys” that grant access to private group chats.
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Published on July 12, 2024 at 4:49 PM EST.
Friend.Tech, which raised funding from venture capital firm Paradigm, has lost momentum: the price of the social tokenization platform’s native cryptocurrency, the amount of crypto locked in Friend.Tech, and the revenue generated by the protocol have all plummeted to or near historic lows.
In May, the price of a single FRIEND token traded above $3, while in October, the total value locked for Friend.Tech was nearly $50 million, both all-time highs for the social protocol. When it launched in August 2023, and until October of that year, the protocol was also making millions of dollars in revenue on a weekly basis. But those numbers have since dropped significantly.
On Friday, FRIEND fell to an all-time low of 17.7 cents before settling at 20 cents, down 4.7% over the past 24 hours and 79.2% over the past 30 days, deflating its market cap and fully diluted valuation to $18 million, according to CoinGecko.
Similarly, the amount of cryptocurrency locked in Friend.Tech has shrunk by more than 31%, from 2,650 ETH a month ago to 1,820 ETH at press time, while its revenue for each of the past weeks starting June 16, 23, and 30 has been below $20,000, three of the four worst-performing weeks for the protocol, data from DefiLlama shows.
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Friend.Tech’s last tweet was on July 3, when the account announced as it was cutting plans to build its own native blockchain and cutting protocol fees entirely.
Who still has FRIEND?
Even though Friend.Tech has hit record lows in several metrics, some still hold FRIEND.
Addresses identified by blockchain analytics firm Nansen as belonging to Jeffrey “Machi Big Brother” Huang and cryptocurrency investment firm Sigil Fund are among the largest holders of FRIEND, with the former holding 8.7 million tokens worth more than $1.7 million and the latter having 1.2 million in his wallet address worth about $245,000.
Sigil Fund has not transferred any tokens from its wallet since it increased its exposure to FRIEND on May 26 and 27, when the token was above $1. On the other hand, Huang’s address, which currently holds 11.38% of the FRIEND supply, has exchanged about $200,000 worth of FRIEND for ETH in the past two days, according to Nansen.
“My biggest percentage loss was $FRIEND,” he wrote co-founder of DeFi creation studio Pink Brains who uses the handle @DefiIgnas on X. “All the major influencers cashed out, but I was stuck holding the hot potato.”
“I really wanted them to be able to create a consumer-facing app that combines the best of cryptocurrency: speculation and social elements. Unfortunately, short-term greed or incompetence ruined it,” added @DefiIgnas.
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Additionally, a number of cryptocurrency users on X have labeled The pseudonymous founder of Friend.Tech, Racer and Paradigm, asking where they are located and how involved they are in the project at the moment.
Friend.Tech is known for tokenizing people’s social networks, allowing users to exchange “keys” on its platform that provide access to private group chats. On Friend.Tech, the last 33 exchanges for Runner’s Keys were all sales. A month ago. Racer’s keys were trading at 0.784 ETH, but have fallen about 44% to 0.441 ETH, valued at $1,384 at current prices. Racer’s X account linked to his Friend.Tech profile no longer exists.
Paradigm did not provide comment in light of Friend.Tech’s circumstances, while Friend.Tech did not respond to Unchained’s request for comment.
