Friend.tech: Social Profile Trades Surge with $1.42m Daily Fees
The latest decentralized application (DApp) to hit the crypto ecosystem by storm is friend.tech, launched on Coinbase’s recently released layer-2 blockchain, Base.
Friend.tech allows its users to "tokenize" their social networks and essentially sell "shares" of themselves. In the last 24 hours, the protocol has generated almost double the volume of fees on Uniswap, the most popular decentralized exchange
In this article, we’ll explore the concept of trading social profiles, understand its purpose, and explore how it's progressing.
At launch, friend.tech deployed an "exclusive access" model, whereby the application is invite-only, a popular approach seen by social platforms over the past few years, like the once popular clubhouse.
Despite this exclusive access model, the huge flow of new users proves the invite codes are liberally dispersed, friend.tech allows users to buy and sell shares of X (Twitter) social media profiles. Buying shares in your preferred social profile grants you a unique avenue for private communication, a feature often unavailable on X, where most personalities have their direct messages disabled.
Social influencers have already started to create exclusive content, including Telegram and Discord private-access groups for those holding their shares. One of the advantages for influencers is that they receive 50% of the fees collected from the buying and selling of their shares by users.
The app hit the crypto community by storm over the weekend, with 24-hour fee volume surpassing Uniswap and Tron with a total of $1.42 million generated, nearly half of that on Ethereum. The friend.tech launch has certainly helped propel the activity and exposure to Coinbase’s Base blockchain.
Leaked details have already occurred on GitHub, as Banteg posted details of 101,000 friend.tech users' twitter usernames and Base wallet addresses. Hackers and scammers have also hit X in masses, so prospective users should be cautious before clicking links and sharing information.
Friend.tech is not the first of its kind, having many similarities to the controversial BitClout, a platform that enabled investing in celebrities and influencers. Friend.tech is an interesting proposition and asserts a new area of speculation, but one that is unlikely to contribute to the mission of bringing a billion users to Web3.
Laurence Willows is head of business development for tastycrypto. @laurencewillows
Mike Martin, head of content for tastycrypto, has more than 15 years of experience in the investing and trading industry.
For live daily programming, market news and commentary, visit tastylive or the YouTube channels tastylive (for options traders), and tastyliveTrending for stocks, futures, forex & macro.
Trade with a better broker, open a tastytrade account today. tastylive, Inc. and tastytrade, Inc. are separate but affiliated companies.
Options involve risk and are not suitable for all investors. Please read Characteristics and Risks of Standardized Options before deciding to invest in options.