Bankless reviews the emerging social app friend.tech: Blockchain is ready for mainstream applications

Recently, friend.tech not only took over Crypto Twitter, but also live streamers and even well-known athletes have joined the platform. Cryptocurrency media Bankless also pointed out that even if you are not playing friend.tech, it is important to understand the appeal of this application, as friend.tech demonstrates how to attract a large audience beyond native cryptocurrency users in a short period of time.

The Soaring Popularity of friend.tech

David Hoffman, co-founder of Bankless, mentioned in an article several phenomena surrounding friend.tech, indicating its continued popularity.

According to Dune Analytics, in the past 10 days, 80,000 independent users have joined, surpassing a total of 120,000 users.

Non-crypto KOLs Joining friend.tech

David Hoffman noted that many influential figures have joined friend.tech, and their follower counts are on a completely different scale compared to crypto KOLs, underscoring how small the blockchain community is.

These celebrities include:

• Gracie Hartie: OnlyFans

• Grayson Allen: NBA Bucks player

• FaZe Rain: YouTuber with 5.34 million subscribers

• FaZe Banks: YouTuber with 5.04 million subscribers

• Nadeshot: Founder of the esports team 100 Thieves

Even Garry Tan, the CEO of renowned startup accelerator Y Combinator, has joined friend.tech.

What Potential Does friend.tech Hold? Fans Currently Only Able to Chat by Paying?

On August 19th, friend.tech announced the completion of its seed funding round, with investment from Paradigm, as reported in a tweet. David Hoffman pointed out that with users and funding in place, the question now is whether friend.tech can offer more features to incentivize users to share it with more friends.

Currently, the only practical function of friend.tech is for users to converse with the corresponding account that holds Keys, formerly known as Shares.

Twitter users suggest that once image functionality is integrated, friend.tech will undergo significant changes.

The friendstech meta gonna vastly change once they add pictures

— Sisyphus (@0xSisyphus) August 21, 2023

Is friend.tech Just a Flash in the Pan Ponzi Game?

David Hoffman does not deny that the lifecycle of friend.tech may be less than a week; he does not have the answer. However, the emergence of friend.tech has made him realize that the underlying public chain is ready for mainstream applications:

One of my biggest takeaways from the Ethereum community conference EthCC was realizing that while the protocol layer needs improvement, it is mature enough to support most of the apps we desire. One month after I made this point, friend.tech emerged.

Epilogue: Is friend.tech Ultimately Just a Plaything of the Crypto World?

Although David Hoffman mentioned that friend.tech has attracted non-crypto influencers, data from Dune shows that Cobie, a crypto KOL, has recently posted less frequently but still ranks first in trading volume, earning a profit of 82.8 ETH.

FaZe Banks, mentioned earlier, ranks fourth.