Remember when we were inundated with Matt Damon cryptocurrency commercials, major sports league endorsements, and monkey drawings? To those in the mainstream, cryptocurrency looks pretty much dead. However, the crypto community is still very much alive online. Investors, speculators, and scammers have held out during this long bear market, hoping that the next major crypto project will come along and turn their dimes into dollars.
Many think they have found this very project on Friend.tech, which has gone viral in the crypto community in recent days. A leaked database shows that more than 101,000 users have signed up since the app’s invite-only beta launched on August 10.
And of course, since these are cryptocurrencies, making money is the factor here – and Friend.tech is already raising millions. Second CoinDesk, in the past 24 hours alone, Friend.tech posted transaction fees of over $1.04 million, generating just over $709,000 in revenue. Since it launched less than two weeks ago, Friend.tech has come a long way 25 million dollars.
So what is Friend.tech?
Simply put, Friend.tech is a mobile-based social media platform with a cryptocurrency twist. The app bills itself as “the marketplace for your friends” on its website. Just like other beta unencrypted social media platforms, such as BlueSky, Friend.tech requires users to have an invite code from other users in order to register.
Friend.tech basically provides each user with their own Telegram-like chat group. For others to access a user’s private group chat, they must purchase that user’s shares. If and when they decide to leave the group chat, they will be able to sell those shares to other users.
Basically, Friend.tech is simplifying the old process where Twitter influencers sold their own personal memecoins to their followers by directly attaching them to their identity and providing a premium feature, in this case, access to a private chat channel. It also features all the other classic schemes usually attached to crypto projects, such as a commission sharing mechanism and airdrops to reward users.
So far, some cryptocurrency influencers have advertised that they have earned dozens in ether. One ether is worth approximately $1,670 at the time of this article’s publication.
What are some of the problems?
This is a crypto project, so know that at the heart of this is a product that encourages highly volatile speculation. Furthermore, while some will certainly profit from this, such as most products in the cryptocurrency industry, it is unlikely to be those outside the inner circles of crypto-influencers.
There are also other reasons for concern that some critics have pointed out.
The Friend.tech app requires users to link their Ethereum wallet to their account on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. This created two problems. For one, some users have noticed that this gave the Friend.tech account some permissions for their X account, such as the ability to post and retweet on their behalf. The second problem is, when was the Friend.tech database leakedits contents publicly linked an X account to the crypto wallet it signed up with, something the user may not have made public before.
The tweet may have been deleted
Friend.tech has been described as a decentralized social Web3 app, and with all those buzzwords combined, you can be sure there’s a lot of inorganic hype behind this one too. As with the vast majority of these crypto projects, it is probable coordination behind the scenes with various big names in the space on what to buy and when to sell, which gives them a significant edge over the average user.
It is a scam?
Well, again, this is a crypto project. According to many critics who have covered the industry, the entire crypto space is a scam.
The tweet may have been deleted
Scammers have already swooped on Friend.tech after seeing how quickly it exploded. There are multiple phishing campaigns already widespreadattempting to trick users into signing up for a fake airdrop scheme that would effectively drain their crypto wallets.
And then there’s the question of who is behind Friend.tech. The team is completely anonymous: the actual identity of whoever manages the app is unknown. It’s probably a good idea to know who exactly is behind a project if you want to invest a significant amount of money in it.
The tweet may have been deleted
However, some within the crypto community have already watched in the history of the well-known online pseudonyms behind Friend.tech and there are already warning signs. The team members behind Friend.tech are also reportedly behind a project called Kosetto, which sold wearable NFT stickers. Kosetto was similarly advertised in late 2022, encouraging users to spam their referral codes on social media to win NFTs and invest in their much larger idea to come in the future. Then suddenly, in early 2023, the project was abandoned, without warning to the users who had invested. Kosetto’s social media accounts haven’t been updated since January.
However, unlike when they were working on Kosetto, the Friend.tech team appears to have received some financial backing for their latest project. Friend.tech has received a round of seed funding from the cryptocurrency firm Paradigm, something that could bring peace of mind to users investing in the social media app.
Who else has Paradigm invested in? FTX, the failed cryptocurrency exchange founded by Sam Bankman-Fried who is currently in jail awaiting trial on multiple counts of wire fraud, securities fraud and money laundering. The crypto-focused VC fund invested $278 million in the exchange, which later told investors it was now worthless.
Themes
Social media cryptocurrency
