The highly anticipated social media decentralized app (dApp), Friend.Tech, experienced a rapid decline in network activity and key metrics, causing many industry experts to label it a failed venture. Although it made a big splash when it was launched on Coinbase’s layer-2 Base, the platform’s performance declined significantly in a short period of time. Here are the details…
Friend.Tech had attracted many
As we reported on cryptokoin.com, Friend.Tech has managed to attract both crypto and non-crypto influencers after its beta launch on August 11, including names like UpOnly podcast host Cobie, YouTuber Faze Banks, and even Russian protest group Pussy Riot. . The unique concept of the platform revolved around buying and selling “keys” that allowed buyers to send private messages to sellers. Friend.Tech reportedly received a 5% share of each transaction.
In the first days following its launch, Friend.Tech showed promising signs, eclipsing established players like Uniswap and the Bitcoin network, with fees exceeding $1 million in a single day on August 19. However, this momentum was short-lived as the platform’s fees fell sharply. As reported by DefiLlama, daily fees, which peaked at $1.7 million on August 21, fell by over 87% to around $215,000 by August 26.
Transaction volumes dropped
Trading volumes on the platform followed a similar downtrend. According to Dune Analytics data compiled by Crypto Koryo, after peaking at around 525,000 transactions on August 21, the transaction count dropped by over 90% on August 27 to just over 51,000. In addition to this, there has also been a significant drop in the platform’s user base. The number of buyers and sellers on Friend.Tech dropped from more than 58,000 buyers and 27,000 sellers at its peak on August 21 to nearly 10,000 buyers and 7,800 sellers on August 27, according to Dune data.
These performance metrics paint a bleak picture for Friend.Tech and spark widespread criticism within the cryptocurrency community. Lisandro Rodriguez, Coinbase’s payments risk manager, declared the platform “dead”, attributing its collapse to “greed and bad practice.” Industry-leaders have drawn parallels between Friend.Tech and previous startups such as BitCloud, the 2021 DeSo app, and some have predicted a collapse for Friend.Tech similar to that experienced by BitCloud. As the platform’s network activity continues to decline and its core metrics drop, questions arise about the sustainability of its model and the challenges it faces in maintaining user interest. Although Friend.Tech started out with high hopes, its rapid decline is a lesson in itself.
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