Not just social, the booming friend.tech brings opportunities that you can't miss
What makes friend.tech dominate the Web3 social "screen"? What other participation opportunities are there?Written by: Karen, Foresight News
With social media virality and IP monetization strategies, the decentralized social platform friend.tech launched on Coinbase L2 Base achieved a "great start" in mid-August. Subsequently, high-profile airdrops and support from Paradigm further propelled friend.tech's popularity and demand.
Ten days after its launch, friend.tech recorded nearly 1.13 million transactions, with a total trading volume exceeding 30,000 ETH and independent users surpassing 70,000, including 68,000 independent buyers and 26,000 independent sellers. The following friend.tech user and transaction data illustrate the platform's explosive growth.
Total independent buyers and sellers on friend.tech, source: Dune
friend.tech transaction volume, source: Dune
This article will not elaborate on the detailed introduction of friend.tech but will summarize several key reasons why friend.tech dominates the Web3 social "screen" and explore related participation opportunities.
Why does friend.tech dominate the Web3 social "screen"?
Initial scarcity that made it hard to obtain.
Monetization strategies for KOL value and IP. Although it is an old concept in a new bottle, the monetization of creator IP (the pricing algorithm for shares), potential benefits for shareholders (5% of each transaction is distributed to group share holders), and the project's profit model (5%) continuously attract user attention.
The involvement of heavyweight KOLs, including Cobie and Su Zhu. Among them, friend.tech builder Racer (@0x Racer Alt) has the highest share price at 2.47 ETH, with 143 shareholders; followed by esports team FaZe Banks (founder of esports team FaZe Clan, share price of 2.3 ETH) with 2.77 million followers, as well as influential individuals in the crypto space like Cobie and Zhu Su.
Support from Paradigm. According to screenshots disclosed by friend.tech, discussions about seed round financing with Paradigm took place as early as three months ago, but it is still unknown whether the financing transaction has been completed.
Airdrop expectations. The first wave of wealth-generating airdrops led by Paradigm for Blur has created high airdrop expectations for friend.tech users.
Seamless user experience with MPC wallets. friend.tech uses Privy MPC wallets to support seamless account login, allowing users to create accounts using their phone numbers or other social login methods. Privy aims to bring Web2-level user experience to Web3 products (e.g., using email and social logins) and allows users to link any number of external wallets while providing out-of-the-box integration tools.
Users do not need to download an app from the app store but can directly add the page to their home screen. However, while this is simple and convenient, the experience is far from as smooth as a native app.
What participation opportunities does friend.tech offer?
- Use friend.tech to distribute invitation codes to others and trade shares.
Last week, friend.tech distributed its first Friday points airdrop to 44,000 users and stated that it would distribute a total of 100 million points during the six-month testing period, with special uses assigned to the points after the testing period ends. This means there will still be opportunities to strategize for higher points in the next six months. Distributing invitation codes to others may also be a way to gain airdrops.
In addition to airdrop expectations, 5% of the transaction volume will also flow to group share holders (another 5% will go to the treasury). The first share price for a creator is 0, and the price for the next share equals s^2/16000 ETH (where s is the current number of shares), meaning that the share price will move along a quadratic function. Creators need to enhance their IP value to continuously attract more fans, while share buyers can choose to sell after the share price increases or continue to HODL, which tests investors' vision and foresight.
Anish Agnihotri, a former researcher at Paradigm, launched the professional interface FriendMEX for friend.tech last week, which is an important supplement to friend.tech. It does not require invitation codes and provides real-time trading dynamics, leaderboards, and new user discovery windows.
The number and amount of transactions (buying or selling), invitation code sharing, and chatting may all become criteria for increasing airdrop potential.
Delegate founder foobar (@0x foobar) launched Wrapped Friend for friend.tech last week, allowing shares to be directly wrapped into ERC-20 format when minted and split into 100 tokens (100 * shareCount ERC-20 Token), thereby increasing the liquidity of share tokens, which can also be used for collateral purposes. Of course, arbitrageurs can also engage in arbitrage, but they need to consider minting and burning royalties comprehensively.
The order book perpetual contract protocol Hyperliquid has launched the FRIEND-USD index contract today, supporting low leverage (maximum 3x) and isolated margin mode, tracking the total ETH value of all issued friend.tech share purchase prices, then converting that value to USD C and dividing by 1 million. Given the high volatility and funding rates, users are reminded to pay attention to risks.
For project parties and KOLs, they can also explore the DeFi composability of friend.tech shares and community building.
It is important to note that friend.tech is currently in a speculative phase, has not released a white paper or documentation, and the page experience is very laggy, with significant price manipulation potential. Additionally, the privacy issues brought by friend.tech are worth pondering, as friend.tech is linked to Twitter, allowing anyone to directly access user addresses and their associated Twitter information. Therefore, a cautious attitude is still needed regarding the short- and medium-term development of friend.tech. friend.tech has ignited the social track, but it remains a significant test for the Web3 social track.
