- The creators of blockchain-based network Friend.tech have bailed on the project
- The team has already pocketed roughly $44 million in fees since the project’s inception
- They also prohibited further upgrades to the platform
The creators of blockchain-based and crypto-centric social media network Friend.tech have disclosed that they’re leaving the project. This comes four months after the project launched its own token, FRIEND, whose value has plummeted by over 95% from its peak. The team disclosed disclosed that they have transferred the project’s ownership to a null blockchain address to prevent further changes or upgrades, something that may effectively render Friend.tech dead.
$36 Million Transferred to Coinbase
In an X post, the team revealed that the social network’s web client “will continue to function as is,” adding that the team will no longer pocket the fees generated on the platform. So far, Friend.tech has generated approximately $90 million in fees with close to 50% of the amount going to the dev team.
Admin and ownership parameters have been set to 0x000…000 to prevent any changes to their fees or functionality in the future.
This change does not affect the separate web client operated at https://t.co/YOHabcBL3H which will continue to function as is. No fees from either…
— friend.tech (@friendtech) September 8, 2024
According to analytics platform Arkham Intelligence, Friend.tech dev team’s wallet currently holds around $195,000 in assorted tokens. The wallet has transferred $36 million to cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase within the last eight months.
Twitter accounts belonging to pseudonymous team members like Racer and Shrimp have either been deleted or made private. The Friend.tech team’s move has ignited a conversation within the crypto community with some equating the move to a complete shutdown of the project.
Acquisition Suggestion Ignored
Others viewed it as “a slow rug [pull] due to legal purposes.” Some think that the team would have opted for an acquisition instead of “removing the potential to generate revenue.”
Because the team has no interest in developing the platform, the best case scenario for users was an acquisition.
By removing the potential to generate revenue you’ve taken away this possibility.
Abandoning the project but keeping the servers on is no better than shutting it down— flippen (@flippen6485) September 9, 2024
Friend.tech’s move comes seven months after Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said that decentralized social media platform Farcaster has a superior operating model than Friend.tech, adding that Farcaster has a future.
Friend.tech’s popularity was shortlived and at one time the team threatened disloyal users in a bid to prop up its relevance after transactions dropped by 90%.
With the Friend.tech team transferring the project’s code to a null address, users are likely to shun the project making it obsolete.
