Less than three weeks after its launch, the decentralized social network Friend Tech, which has already been declared “dead” by critics following a significant drop in key metrics such as activity, entries, and volume. Friend Tech has experienced a major decline in revenue, with a decrease of approximately 90.5% on August 27th compared to its peak on August 21st, resulting in only $1.6 million in revenue.
Concerning Platform Data
Friend Tech made a beta launch on Coinbase’s Layer-2 network Base on August 11th. A week later, on August 19th, it surpassed Uniswap and Bitcoin networks by generating over $1 million in fees within 24 hours, but since then, fees have decreased. According to DefiLlama, daily fees reached $1.7 million on August 21st but dropped by more than 87% to approximately $215,000 on August 26th.
According to Dune Analytics data compiled by Crypto Koryo, transactions on Friend Tech also experienced a decrease of over 90% from the peak of approximately 525,000 on August 21st to just over 51,000 on August 27th, leading many individuals on the network to express condolences.
Friend Tech Predictions Come True
Friend Tech focuses on the trading of “keys” that allow buyers to send private messages to sellers, taking a 5% commission from these transactions. It has attracted the interest of crypto and non-crypto influencers such as UpOnly podcast host Cobie, YouTuber Faze Banks, and a Russian protest music group. Lisandro Rodriguez, Coinbase’s Risk Payments Manager, stated in an X post on August 27th that the platform had “died” due to “greed and bad practices.”
In addition to the decrease in fees, the number of buyers and sellers also declined. On August 21st, there were over 58,000 buyers and 27,000 sellers at the peak, compared to approximately 10,000 buyers and 7,800 sellers on August 27th.
According to blockchain data analysis company Dune, the decrease in revenue from approximately $16.8 million, the highest level on August 21st, to approximately $1.6 million on August 27th indicates a decrease of around 90.5%.
Before the recent decline, some community members had already shared predictions of a downturn for the platform. Crypto analyst Yazan explained the factors that led him to believe Friend Tech had six to eight weeks before experiencing a decline in user key prices and activity. Yazan stated that the price increases of user keys were unsustainable and questioned why so many people would pay more than 1 Ethereum to “see a private conversation.” The platform also drew parallels with the 2021 DeSo application BitCloud, and fake Web3 marketer Legendary said that Friend Tech believed it would “crash like BitClout.”
