Friend.Tech team renounces control of smart contracts following stagnant growth

Friend.Tech, the Web3 social network that saw users trade tokens for 'keys' to the feeds of influential individuals, has been effectively shuttered barely one year after its initial and successful launch. 

Friend.Tech's developers called a function on the platform's smart contracts early on September 8 which transferred their control to Ethereum's null address, effectively locking the current system in place and preventing further changes. "No fees from either smart contracts or [the website] currently go to the friend.tech dev team multisig," the team clarified in its announcement post on X. 

Launched on the Coinbase-backed Layer 2 network Base last August, Friend.Tech was a quick hit with the crypto community. By September 15, 2023, the protocol's daily earnings exceeded that of Ethereum itself and its top key, which unlocks the feed of Friend.Tech's pseudonymous co-founder Racer, sold for 8.9 eth, or $14,500, at the time. The protocol raised a seed round from crypto VC firm Paradigm, though the amount was undisclosed. 

However, after the initial surge died down (and after the platform's developers raked in at least $20 million in fees ), the platform struggled to maintain trading activity, according to data from The Block .

Following its launch last May alongside Version 2 (v2) of the protocol, the price of Friend.Tech's native token dropped sharply after Racer publicly expressed their desire to leave the Base blockchain , though plans for a FriendChain were later axed when the protocol's developers decided to stay on Base . 

While V2's launch and the token airdrop brought a few users back to the platform, protocol fees began to stagnate shortly after; the protocol has only made about $60,000 in protocol fees since June, according to The Block's data . A revival of the platform now seems unlikely as the contract ownership revocation prevents its takeover by a new team interested in adding features to the social platform.