Experience the Tu Dog hype type SocialFi platform friend.tech it may be boring and even ridiculous at times, but it has unlimited potential.

Experience the Tu Dog hype type SocialFi platform friend.tech - potentially boring and ridiculous, yet with unlimited potential.

Original Author | Cryptocurrency Researcher Ann

Original Translation | BaiZe Research Institute

Waking up in the morning, there’s nothing better than taking out a new wallet and getting involved in the hype on the Web3 social application friend.tech.

Currently, the discussion about friend.tech is all hype. Although it has sparked the ecosystem of Base, I didn’t want to get involved. However, in order to get the application screenshots required for Web3 news coverage, I eventually compromised and used it. Now, not only do I have the screenshots I wanted, but I also have a lot to say about friend.tech.

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What is friend.tech?

friend.tech is a social DApp running on Coinbase’s new chain, Base.

• It was created by a popular crypto figure, 0xRacer. This person is a crypto developer with no history of rugs, which is a good sign.

• This is also why Crypto Twitter is still very tolerant of this application, despite it being quite privacy-invasive. (It will be discussed in detail later.)

• “Your friends’ market.” Each person’s profile is represented by tokens (“shares”). People can buy and sell these tokens.

• Holding someone’s tokens gives you access to that person’s chat room.

• There is a weekly airdrop, not of tokens, but of points.

How to make money on friend.tech?

After successfully registering and obtaining my own share (your first share is free), my first impression of this DApp was that some other people’s accounts seemed to automatically purchase my shares.

Within two minutes, my share increased from 0 ETH to 0.005 ETH (about $8).

Some people have been boasting about making a lot of money through this DApp. Now I understand what’s going on.

It’s no different from memecoins and Telegram Bots. You can look for those new crypto KOLs and buy their shares, and then sell them when the price rises, just like in memecoin hype.

To be honest, I really don’t know how to feel about this.

If you’re not keen on “gambling” with other people’s shares, then you can… earn transaction fees.

At the moment these bots purchase shares, thanks to them, I earned some ETH.

However, the only way to increase transaction fees is to become more popular, so that many users come to trade your shares. Therefore, the accounts on the top leaderboard are earning a lot of transaction fees.

Apart from the “crazy speculation” brought by friend.tech, I have more things to complain about.

About the drawbacks of friend.tech

friend.tech invades privacy and is unfriendly

I actually wanted to try friend.tech earlier, but one thing that hindered me was their privacy policy, which said “it doesn’t exist, it will be launched soon”.

During registration, friend.tech will ask you to link your Google account or Apple account. Then, to create a profile, it requires you to link your Twitter account. Perhaps the purpose of doing so is to prevent witch attacks (ensuring the authenticity of users), but this method hinders many privacy-conscious encrypted users.

So far, the temporary solution is to create a disposable email and use a non-KYC Twitter account. That’s what I did. I also created a new wallet and recharged ETH through CEX (to avoid wallet association). After registration, I immediately revoked the application permissions in the Twitter settings.

It becomes boring after a short period of time because there is nothing to do

I’m not even angry at friend.tech’s “gambling” activities themselves. My annoyance comes more from the fact that there is nothing else to do besides “gambling”.

You can chat with other users, but only if you have their shares (or they have yours). The Explore page shows recent transaction activities, and the Airdrop page shows the points you have obtained and invitation codes. Apart from that, there are no more interesting activities to do.

Most importantly, friend.tech is a web application, so it is not as smooth as a native application.

Hopefully, this situation is temporary. Because…

The potential I see

The core concept of friend.tech is fundamentally quite foolish. If the developers decide to elevate this DApp to a new level, perhaps I will see immense potential:

• It is best to improve the basic functions of a social platform first, such as editing profiles (profile pictures, personal introductions).

• If it wants to become a more mature on-chain social platform, it must have the ability to add external website links (OpenSea profiles, ENS).

• Add posting functionality so that users can share their thoughts on the platform, just like using Twitter; add DeFi reward mechanisms, similar to what DeBank does in their DeBank Stream; distribute value to participants (whether they are creators or not)—this is exactly what Web2 social media lacks.

• There is also huge potential to become a content creator platform. When ordinary content creators and influencers bring their audience into it, friend.tech will become the gateway for Web3 mass adoption.

• Collaborate with other crypto social projects. In my opinion, this is faster than trying to create new features on their own.

It sounds like a lot of work, especially for independent developers. But the good news is that they have received investment from LianGuairadigm. Hopefully, they can make full use of the seed funding, hire more developers, and add more features (please fix the user experience first!).

Currently, friend.tech is gaining strong momentum. As the project continues to release major events and progress, they should know how to maintain momentum, further grow and expand. Hopefully, friend.tech will not fall into the same predicament as SocialFi, where the fans’ tokens lose their value.

How to use friend.tech?

First, bridge some ETH to Base. Because I am cross-chaining from other Layer2 networks, I use Orbiter Finance. You can also use the official cross-chain bridge of Base at https://bridge.base.org/deposit.

Access https://www.friend.tech/ through a mobile browser and download the application to the main screen of your phone.

Developers choose this installation method to bypass the rules of the App Store and Google Play Store.

Then, follow the instructions until you are finally prompted to receive your shares. Based on my experience, if you have enough funds, immediately buy more shares before the bots sniper your shares and raise the price.

Access to the application is by invitation only, so you need an invitation code from other users, which can be found on Twitter.

Conclusion

The idea behind friend.tech is undoubtedly cool, although it has some less-than-perfect choices in functionality (anyway, the application is still in the testing phase). I hope they hire more developers, and even a legal team, to fix the privacy policy (and release it through app stores).

Overall, perhaps we can all agree that friend.tech is an interesting project worth paying attention to.

Risk Warning:

According to the “Notice on Further Preventing and Handling Risks of Virtual Currency Trading Speculation” issued by the central bank and other departments, the content of this article is only for information sharing and does not promote or endorse any business or investment activities. Readers are strictly required to comply with local laws and regulations and not to participate in any illegal financial activities.

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