Friend.tech Unveils Plan for Native Friendchain

Friend.tech, a prominent player in the web3 social networking sphere, has announced plans to collaborate with Conduit, a leading crypto infrastructure service provider, to develop its native blockchain.

Following the news, the platform’s native FRIEND token surged by approximately 15% to reach $0.96 as of press time.

FRIEND to Play Central Role on Friendchain

On June 8, Friend.tech revealed plans for Friendchain, a proprietary blockchain set to leverage the FRIEND token as a fully transferable gas token. The platform, however, failed to provide a specific launch timeline for the project.

“We’re pleased to be working with Conduit on Friendchain, our own blockchain that uses $FRIEND as a fully transferable gas token. We’ll keep you up-to-date with all the info you need over the coming months as we build out this exciting new chapter,” the platform stated.

Read more: What is Friend.Tech? A Deep Dive Into The Web3 Social Media App

Meanwhile, this decision isn’t a surprise, considering recent statements from the project’s co-founder, Racer. In May, Racer discussed potentially departing from the Coinbase-backed Ethereum layer-2 network Base because of feelings of alienation from the ecosystem. At the time, he offered a $200,000 reward for any developer capable of smoothly migrating the platform from Base without major disruptions.

Yet, the project’s recent announcement has sparked varied reactions within the community. Some analysts perceive it as a natural progression, suggesting that successful decentralized applications would eventually evolve into independent chains. Others, however, caution that this move might impede growth.

A prominent FriendTech advocate, known as The Giver on social media platform X, described the decision as “short-term bullish and mid-term bearish” for the crypto venture. According to the analyst, FriendTech should prioritize maximizing user acquisition to establish a solid user base, ideally by leveraging connections through the Base and Solana blockchains.

“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 [that is] the Web3 portal for monetized social media. Friend.tech trying to capture the value accrual to-chain today is too hedonistic. The disconnect between v1 (where value is actually generated) and v2 (clubs, re hypothecating FP) still needs to be solved,” he added.

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Since its launch in August 2023, Friend.tech has emerged as one of the leading SocialFI decentralized applications (dApps) on the Base network. At its peak, the platform was generating a daily transaction volume of more than 500,000, but that has drastically plummeted to record lows of less than 1000 recently, according to a Dune Analytics dashboard.