Authors: Wu Tianyi, DeThings

According to the market data from CMC, the friend.tech token FRIEND briefly reached 2.74 USDT, and is currently priced at 2.48 USDT, with a 24-hour increase of 79.62%.

Despite experiencing a brief significant increase, as reported by DLNEWS, FRIEND has dropped over 9% since its release. Last Friday, friend.tech distributed 13,349,967 tokens to early users of FRIEND.

Due to users rushing to buy the new tokens, the price of the token quickly rose to as high as 169 USD shortly after its launch.

By early morning, the token had plummeted significantly, with the trading price at only 2.02 USD.

According to Nftevening, the decentralized social network friend.tech is located on the Ethereum Layer 2 scaling network Base, allowing users to buy and sell "keys" linked to Twitter accounts, which can access private chat rooms and directly link to exclusive content on creators' social media accounts (e.g., X (Twitter)).

As a result, creators can receive private messages from fans holding "keys". The platform was launched in August 2023, and the trading volume on the first day reached approximately 4,400 ETH (equivalent to about 8.1 million USD). Ten days later, it had brought in about 709,000 USD worth of Ether, second only to the Ethereum blockchain (which collected 3.33 million USD in fees) and the staking service Lido (which collected 1.54 million USD in fees).

However, the decline of friend.tech was swift, with a significant decrease in activity, fund inflow, and trading volume just three weeks after its launch. The fund inflow dropped by nearly 90.5%, from 16.8 million USD on August 21 to 1.6 million USD on August 27. Concerns about privacy policies and regulatory issues have also been plaguing Friend.tech.

Recently, Friend.tech has returned with its native tokens and V2 version, but users still seem unconvinced.

Controversial Token Airdrop and New Version

According to TheBlock, the token airdrop coincided with the release of the FriendTech new version, which provides new features for users. This includes "Clubs," which are community spaces owned and operated by key holders. The keys to the clubs will be traded with Friend tokens, and a 1.5% fee will be charged for each transaction made to their DEX liquidity providers. In addition to following at least 10 users on FriendTech, users must also join 1 club to receive airdropped tokens.

However, many of friend.tech's actions have left users dissatisfied. Decrypt reported that the token and v2 release, originally scheduled for April 29, was postponed to May 3.

FRIEND tokens were supposed to be airdropped to users who participated in the April snapshot, but many users encountered difficulties in claiming the tokens.

"All my friend.tech points are gone, I now have 0 friends to claim," one Twitter user said. "I won't sell my friends' airdrop because I can't even claim them," another netizen said.

Even those who successfully claimed the tokens were not satisfied, as the price dropped from 2.78 USD to 1.49 USD in less than four hours, a 46% plunge. The community believes that the developers' addition of only 0.01 USD in liquidity was the main factor in the rapid devaluation.

Furthermore, participating in the new version's club feature is a crucial step to qualify for the airdrop, but it seems that the feature did not work as planned. Users reported that the platform did not register their joining of clubs, or newly created clubs did not appear on the platform.

"This terrible SocialFi app still doesn't verify the step of joining a club," a Twitter user complained. "I hate friend.tech."

Some threatened to sell their tokens once they received the airdrop.

"I had high hopes for friend.tech V2," Twitter user mcSleuth said. "But the app still looks terrible, slow as hell, and 8 months later the only update we get is 'Clubs,' and people are just using it to claim airdrops."

BSC stated that after its release, the largest Friendtech whale (referred to as "Murphys1d") sold its 55,000 newly issued FRIEND tokens, causing the price to plummet by over 60% to just 0.99 USD. Blockchain expert Anndy Lian stated that the short-term price drop caused by the sell-off may disrupt the market and lead to a more decentralized distribution of tokens. He emphasized that the long-term value of FRIEND will largely depend on the community's trust and the management's strategy to address these early challenges.

How Far is SocialFi from Mass Adoption?

CoinDesk stated that Web2 platforms are highly centralized, with all data stored on a single server. Large tech companies monopolize these platforms and ultimately control users' data, privacy, participation, interaction, and monetization.

SocialFi eliminates these intermediaries, allowing users to fully control fees through its network. The decentralized nature of SocialFi means that users can better control their monetized content and data.

In addition, similar to centralized servers, distributing data across various network nodes reduces privacy leaks by eliminating single points of failure.

Previously, CoinDesk reported that many individuals outside the cryptocurrency community have joined Friend.tech, with some believing that this opens the door for the general public to adopt cryptocurrencies.

However, the recent poor performance of Friendtech has raised doubts about its potential for "Massive adoption." According to bitcoinist, Dogecoin founder Billy Markus recently bluntly responded to the enthusiastic support for SocialFi:

"It's interesting when I make money from it, otherwise it's very uninteresting."

bitcoinist stated that Markus's comments emphasized a key issue surrounding SocialFi: the issue of user engagement. Can these platforms offer more than just novelty appeal? Will they provide tangible benefits that bring users back not just for quick profits?

While Ethereum's Vitalik Buterin and some industry leaders are outspoken supporters of decentralized social networks, others, like Markus, are cautiously optimistic. The success of SocialFi depends not only on the technology itself but also on its ability to address the issues plaguing traditional social media—data privacy, lack of content ownership, and platforms' difficulty in providing creators with a fair share of platform revenue.

nftnow indicated that the uncertainty surrounding Friend.tech exists in several different areas, including its privacy policy or lack thereof, potential regulatory issues, and the public release of data from 100,000 accounts (referred to as a leak by some media).

When navigating to the application's privacy policy, a pop-up window appears with the message "Coming soon." Considering the financial system's connection to the application, this is off-putting for various users, which is understandable.

Many artists and prominent community figures have expressed reluctance to join Friend.tech. Despite the platform's popularity, it has not piqued the interest of these key participants. Their hesitation has raised doubts about the platform's potential for mainstream adoption, or whether it's just fatigue from other decentralized platforms like BitClout, Mastodon, and Bluesky, which have short lifespans in the community.

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