friend.tech Token Plummets After Team Relinquishes Smart Contract Control

The token for crypto social media platform friend.tech has plummeted after its team transferred the admin and ownership of its smart contracts to Ethereum's null address

Crypto social media platform friend.tech has burned its admin and ownership rights over its smart contracts after transferring them to Ethereum’s null address on Sept. 8.

The move was made to “prevent any changes to their fees or functionality in the future,” friend.tech said on its X account on the same day.

However, the transfer effectively burned the platform’s governance token, FRIEND, with the platform’s token price dropping by nearly 26% in the last 24 hours to reach $0.067, according to CoinGecko.

The platform’s token price had earlier surged by over 1,200% in the span of two months following its launch in May.

The null address on Ethereum is a burn address used for the intentional destruction of tokens, with anything sent to it being burned and irrevocably lost. There is no way to recover or reuse tokens that are sent to the address.

Serpin Taxt, a builder behind blockchain reputation protocol Ethos, posted to X that friend.tech's move was the “end of an era” and “not at all how I saw it playing out.”

The smart contract change comes three months after friend.tech announced it would build its own blockchain, dubbed “Friendchain,” which left its community scratching their heads over the protocol's future direction.

Friend.tech's X account also deleted its announcement post at a later stage, adding to the confusion.

Friction between friend.tech's team and its users also worsened when many reported issues claiming the much-hyped FRIEND airdrop in early May.

The token managed to amass a $233.6 million market cap within the first four days of its launch, which has now dwindled to $6.3 million.

The total value locked on friend.tech has also plummeted from an all-time high of $52 million in early October 2023 to less than $3.5 million at present, according to DefiLlama.

Collectively, daily fees earned from the protocol have remained below $1,000 since late July, while FRIEND trading volume has also seen a similar decline.

Friend.tech is native to Ethereum layer 2 Base and enables creators to monetize their content through tokenized shares or “keys.” Its rival platforms include Theta Network, Hive and Decentralized Social.