Friend.tech’s imitation of Tomo and New Bitcoin City has become popular! Let’s take a look at the project’s model and functional design.

Friend.tech's replication of Tomo and New Bitcoin City gains widespread popularity! Let's explore the project's model and functional design.

Last month, Friend.Tech’s popularity sparked the rise of SocialFi narratives. FriendTech popularized the idea of having closed communities, where users need to pay for so-called keys to access group chats. Each time a key is purchased, its price becomes even more expensive. After the emergence of Friend.Tech, many similar imitations appeared in the market, including Avalanche chain Stars Arena, Solana chain HUB3, Friendzy, Arbitrum chain Post.Tech, and more.

Recently, two other imitations, Tomo and New Bitcoin City, have emerged and are gaining momentum. Currently, Tomo has a Total Value Locked (TVL) of 1.46 million US dollars, while New Bitcoin City has a TVL of 1.07 million US dollars, showing signs of surpassing Friend.Tech. In this article, we will take a quick look at the models, features, optimizations, and innovations of Tomo and New Bitcoin City.

Tomo: Tradable Without Residency

Tomo is based on the Linea protocol. Early participants in the project include the founders of Polychain, Ankr, and Galex. The crypto community even believed that this project was introduced by the Ankr team, although it has not been officially confirmed.

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In terms of gameplay, Tomo, like Friend.Tech, has introduced Keys. However, Tomo also introduced Votes, which were the term used for KOLs (Key Opinion Leaders) before they officially join Tomo. Therefore, even if they have not joined yet, Votes can still be traded. This allows users to bet on whether a certain KOL will join. Once the KOL joins, Votes will convert to Keys. For example, Elon Musk’s Vote currently has a value of 0.478 ETH (approximately $743). If Musk joins, the initial trading price for his Key will be 0.478 ETH.

Tomo’s revenue mechanism mainly operates from the user’s purchase of Keys (or Votes). When a user buys a Key (or Vote), there is a 10% tax, with 5% allocated to the platform and 5% allocated to the KOL. If the KOL does not join, the 5% tax will be stored in a pool as unrealized value. As users continue to buy, the trading volume of Votes increases, and the funds in the pool will gradually grow, making it more attractive for KOLs to join. If the KOL still does not join after six months, the funds in the pool will be distributed to Vote holders.

In addition to its financial attributes, Tomo’s APP highlights its social features, including the addition of private messaging. It is important to note that the project’s code has not been open-sourced yet.

New Bitcoin City: Meeting Customized Trading Needs

On September 16th, the Bitcoin ecological development team, New Bitcoin City, introduced the Alpha application. Alpha, as a decentralized social networking protocol, is similar to Friend.Tech. Its working principle is that users purchase tokens related to the content creators themselves, which are used to access exclusive content.

The members of New Bitcoin City, including the founder of Alpha (codename Punk3700), stated that Alpha is based on the Bitcoin Layer 2 network NOS. NOS adopts a hybrid design and uses the Bitcoin network for data verification. However, the Alpha technology stack is not entirely based on Bitcoin. It also uses Polygon for data storage and Trustless Computer technology. Trustless Computer is a low-cost Layer 2 infrastructure that can support applications such as DEX, DAO, or NFT markets on Bitcoin. Punk3700 mentioned that building Alpha in this way helps to reduce transaction costs and benefit users.

Users and communities are the main driving force behind the creators of the Alpha platform, which was developed and launched in just 48 hours. Unlike most SocialFi platforms, Alpha is more inclined to be a social layer, allowing users from other protocols such as Friend.tech to use their keys on its application. Alpha caters to the personalized needs of its users, including setting the transaction fee for keys (0-8%) and the number of keys required to access group chats. Alpha also supports the purchase of keys from other users who have used them for a month, a process known as “(3,3)”.

Friend.Tech has been heavily criticized since its launch. Not only because it lacks decentralization and privacy protection, failing to embody the spirit of encryption, but also because there are suspicions of riding on the popularity of the Base. Will the emergence of imitations like Tomo and New Bitcoin City shake Friend.Tech’s market position? Can future versions surpass the original, or will new versions emerge to keep the SocialFi narrative alive? LianGuaiNews will continue to follow.

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