Recently, Friend.tech – the SocialFi project in crypto has attracted a lot of attention of X users for providing the opportunity to make money based on their social relationships. However, along with the benefits that Friend.tech brings, there are also concerns in the community.
So what is Friend.tech? How does this project work? How to register an account and use the Friend.tech app? What makes Friend.tech so hot?
What is Friend.tech?
Friend.tech is a decentralized social networking application built on the Base blockchain, allowing creators such as users, KOLs, celebrities … Connect with their friends and audience through a social token* called “Key”.
Users can register Friend.tech using X account (old Twitter). However, as of the time of writing (September 14, 2023), Friend.tech only supports beta testing on phones and not yet on computer browsers.
Accessing Friend.tech beta test on phone
How does Friend.tech works?
Friend.tech gives each person a key and a closed group chat similar to that on Telegram. If you want to participate in any group chat, you need to purchase the key of the creator who owns the group chat. Each key is a form of social token tied to the creator’s identity, so the key price will increase or decrease depending on the strength of the community. Users can:
- Trade keys in the short term to make a profit.
- Hold the key if you believe in the growth potential of the community and the ability of the key to increase in price.
In addition, users who purchase creator keys will also have access to closed chat rooms to chat, view exclusive content, and many other benefits depending on the creator. If you want to leave the group, you only need to sell the key as a form of liquidation.
The key price is flexibly adjusted based on the circulating supply of the key and can be determined by the bonding curve formula as follows:
y = (x^2) / 16000
With:
- y: Key price, in units of ETH.
- x: The total circulating supply of the key (x increases when there are buyers, decreases when there are sellers).
The key price is directly proportional to the square of circulating supply. To put it simply, Friend.tech is a platform that operates based on a game theory model. Because the more people buy keys, the supply increases and the price will also increase exponentially. Therefore, many people take advantage of key trading as an opportunity to speculate and make a profit.
Furthermore, the circulating supply of key (y) can also be easily determined using the square root function, since the price (x) is already known in advance (the app will display the price of each key just below the profile). Users can easily calculate that when they buy more keys, the price will increase and how much profit will be brought.
For example, in the case of the Racer account on Friend.tech, the key price is 7.78806 ETH, the current supply will be calculated using the formula: sqrt(7.78806 * 16000) = 352.
Thus, if the user buys 3 more Racer keys, the key price will be: (355^2) / 16000 = 7.87656 ETH.
This results in a profit of 7.87656 – 7.78806 = 0.0885 ETH.
Friend.tech displays the key price under each creator profile
When trading (buying or selling) keys, users will have to pay 10% of the fee:
- 5% for treasury of Friend.tech protocol.
- 5% for key issuers.
Features on Friend.tech
There are Friend.tech 4 main features:
- Home: A place to display notifications about the history of purchases related to your key and others. Here, users can also check their account profile, asset value, and earned fees.
- Chats: A place to aggregate chat rooms users have joined.
- Explore: A place to aggregate keys of other users.
- Airdrop: Where to calculate points, rank and 3 invite codes of users. Friend.tech has an airdrop program for users every Friday, although no explicit functionality has been announced, but the project says this point will have specific use cases in the future.
What makes Friend.tech so hot?
Friend.tech is not the only decentralized social networking application in the crypto market. However, the reason it has attracted attention is due to its ability to transform social networks into a money-making opportunity based on game theory.
Each user controls his or her own key and directly benefits from key growth. Accordingly, Friend.tech becomes more attractive to creators such as KOLs, celebrities, idols … because it gives them a new way to make money. Where:
- Creators join the Friend.tech, urging people who already follow them on X to use the platform and buy their keys. From there, enjoy the profit from the transaction fee that users have to pay.
- Followers join Friend.tech and buy keys to participate in conversations with their favorite creators. At the same time, get more profit when the key price increases.
In addition to the social aspect, Friend.tech also has an Airdrop section with a reward points system. Points are airdropped every 6th and will be used in the future. This attracts airdrop hunters, by becoming early users for a chance to receive airdrops when the mainnet project is reached.
Moreover, the fact that the Friend.tech is built on the Base blockchain and has the investment of Paradigm fund further increases the confidence of investors and users in the project.
Concerns related to Friend.tech
The biggest concern regarding Friend.tech is the privacy and security of personal information for users.
On August 21, 2023, The Block shared an article (here) about the database leak, which contained 101,000 user records Friend.tech linked to account X and their ETH wallet addresses. Although the project was quick to confirm that no leaks occurred. However, it raises concerns about whether this is likely to happen in the future.
Some factors make users concerned about privacy on Friend.tech:
- Ask users to provide a phone number, email, and link to account X to sign up for an account.
- The privacy policy has not been published, so it is impossible to have a clear idea of how the project uses and manages user data.
Therefore, users should be aware of the dangers of personal information leakage when using the platform and protect themselves by:
- Use a secondary email and private wallet address to link to the platform.
- After successful account registration, unlink Friend.tech to account X by following the steps: Setting → Security → Apps & Sessions → Connected apps → Friend.tech → Revoke app permissions.