The at times wildly popular social app Friend.tech got a mixed reaction to news that it's leaving Base to launch its own network, Friendchain, with infrastructure platform Conduit.
Launched in August 2023 on the Base Ethereum L2 network developed by Coinbase, Friend.tech quickly gained traction within the crypto community due to its approach to social interaction and monetization. But it drew skepticism and ire for exactly the same reasons—that its monetization strategy put the project at risk of drawing ire from regulators.
The announcement was followed up with a call for users to secure a spot on the Friendchain testnet, which would qualify participants for a $FRIEND airdrop snapshot. But some members of the community seemed weary at the thought of another chain.
One pseudonymous Friend.tech user, The Giver, wrote on Twitter that it's too soon for Friend.tech to be trying to migrate its project and userbase onto a new network.
Another bridge? pic.twitter.com/zJm8NDsFAh
— lil bubble (@TheCryptoBubble) June 8, 2024
Friend.tech should be trying to capture the maximum number of users before trying to launch its own chain, the user wrote.
"The ultimate long term vision is for backers/investors to continue clipping protocol fees and to exit at a SaaS multiple to a Web2 company on being the Web3 portal for monetized social media," they said.
The decision to leave Base isn't a complete surprise. In May, pseudonymous Friend.tech co-founder Racer hinted at it in a post on Twitter.
"System design bounty: If you can figure out a way to migrate friendtech off of Base without causing major issues for users, and it works well enough that we decide to use it, we will pay you $200K," the co-founder wrote at the time.
But since then the post and the Twitter account have both been deleted.
Meanwhile, the FRIEND token saw a brief spike to $1.29 on Sunday, but has otherwise seen its price take a beating over the weekend.
At the time of writing, FRIEND is trading for $0.78 after having dropped 20% in the past day. It's now 60% lower than it was this time last month, according to CoinGecko data. The current price is just 1.8% higher than the token's all-time low, which it saw on Friday.
In late April, hype was building for the project's 100% airdrop. The token began trading on May 3 for $3.00, dropped almost immediately, but surged back two days later to set its all-time high of $3.26.