Criticism of Friend.tech for being highly speculative, Ethereum founder optimistic about Farcaster, Lens can last a year

Venture capital firm Dragonfly Capital partner Haseeb Qureshi recently tweeted that social app Friend.tech FT went from boom to bust in just four months, sparking a response from Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin.

friend.tech Punishes Users, Founder Collapses: "Sorry, I've been very scared and don't want to disappoint everyone"

Dragonfly Partner: Social Finance FT a Flash in the Pan

Haseeb Qureshi raised doubts, believing that the pricing curve seems to be the reason for FT's flameout. The pricing curve caused a rapid increase in the Key of all Room Owners, but the spiral upward also brought about a spiral downward. How did the FT team design it in the first place? And what did everyone learn from it?

DeFi researcher Ignas, in response to Haseeb Qureshi's tweet, pointed out that the narrative of Social Finance (SocialFi) rose in prominence in August and September last year and gradually disappeared, similar to the hype around Bitcoin ETF which faded away after its official launch. This shows that the transition of "crypto narratives" is very rapid.

This discussion also prompted a response from Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin.

Understanding the friend.tech economic model with mathematics: Finding the optimal solution for the SocialFi price curve

1/2 Crypto narratives change quickly.

SocialFi hype soared in Aug-Sept, then faded away.

ETF hype hit its peak just two weeks ago.

Now, the dominant narratives are AI, ETF, GameFi, L2 & ZK. The full list is in the next tweet ↓ pic.twitter.com/iE8VFke2fL

— Ignas | DeFi Research (@DefiIgnas) February 3, 2024

Vitalik: Lousy GameFi Being Replaced by Speculation Instead of Gaming Fun

Vitalik responded:

Lousy GameFi projects are replacing gaming fun with financial speculation. Blockchain games need to be as fun as traditional games. I've said it many times, and I believe similar situations also occur in crypto social applications.

Vitalik also predicted that decentralized social protocols like Farcaster and Lens Protocol will definitely not disappear in four months like FT did, and may even last for up to a year.

Decentralized community platform Lens Protocol V2 launched with added post payment feature

"Bad gamefi is using financial speculation as a substitute for fun. Blockchain games need to be fun as games" – approx quote I've said many times

I believe a similar thing for crypto social.

Registering a prediction: farcaster and lens will NOT be deserted in 4 months, or 1 yr.

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) February 5, 2024

Haseeb Qureshi replied to Vitalik, agreeing with his views, but he believes that apart from "social + financial speculation = lousy," there are many lessons to be learned from this. He also questioned whether it is too early to dismiss social concepts related to financial speculation, as most ideas require multiple attempts before they can be realized.