Decentralized social media app Friend.tech is surging

Friend.tech has drawn the interest of over 100,000 users in less than a month of launching.

Users, who all seem to have something to say about it, are now parsing the possibilities of the fast-growing on-chain social app, which sells “shares” of social media profiles and employs social tokens.

In a sign of its popularity, the new on-chain social app has banked $1.42 million in fees in the past 24 hours, according to DeFiLama. This figure makes it the third-most profitable crypto platform, behind the liquid staking protocol Lido and the Ethereum blockchain itself.

Friend.tech launched on Base, Coinbase’s layer-2 network, on Aug. 10. So far, Friend.tech has seen over 1.3 million transactions, earning over $2 billion in revenue derived from fees.

More broadly, the platform builds on the concept of so-called social tokens. 

Token-powered social media apps have existed for some time, with such tokens providing some kind of incentive or benefit to the holder, as is the case with fan tokens. Some of those platforms have struggled alongside other token projects, however. 

Friend.tech, however, stands out for its viral moment this weekend and the apparent speed at which it has attracted activity. 

When a Friend.tech user signs up, they grant consent to the app to create shares on a smart contract that is tied to their account on X, formerly known as Twitter. The project, according to its website, does not yet have a privacy policy. 

Other users can purchase shares (or social tokens) of user profiles, enabling them to join group chats and message that particular user. Every time a person’s share is purchased, that user will receive a “subject fee.”

The product also enables participants to spot up-and-coming users by listing trending trades and sharing an activity feed for shares owned within a given network. 

Currently, users can only sign up to Friend.tech with a referral code. Crypto influencers on X have jumped at the opportunity to share personal referral codes to earn “points,” which bring about airdrops every Friday. 

As of Aug. 21, there were over 80,000 unique buyers on Friend.tech, and over 30,000 unique sellers, according to Dune Analytics data. 

However, it is unclear how many of those users are trading bots. 

Jim Chang, the co-founder of Catalyst AMM, said in a post on X that MEV bots began speculating on his shares immediately after joining the app. 

“It gives me dopamine immediately upon joining, which is what all social networks strive to do,” Chang told Blockworks. “I don’t know if the Friend.tech team did that on purpose, but it’s a great byproduct of being on-chain.”

Wrapped versions of Friend.tech shares are also available as ERC-20 tokens on Base — and users can track the value of their favorite crypto influencers.

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