In August 2023, Friend.tech launched the new L2 network of Base. Coinbase, one of the biggest exchanges, backs this L2 and Friend.tech. Within a short time frame, the Dapp went ballistic.
It’s a social network that allows users to tokenize themselves. You can buy and resell your ‘shares’ or ‘keys’. So, here’s a guide that gives you all the pros and cons of Friend.tech.
What Is Friend.tech?
Friend.tech is a decentralized social network. Creators can offer ‘Shares’ to their followers. However, the team renamed the ‘Shares’ to ‘Keys’. The app is in a Beta version. To join, you needed an invitation code. Each user gets three codes that they can give away. Currently, you can easily join with your phone.
A simple explanation of how @friendtech share pricing works (and other fun facts about friend tech's contract) : pic.twitter.com/wkZDuprVaY
— cygaar (@0xCygaar) August 19, 2023
The major attraction is that you can tokenize yourself. These are the Keys. Now you can sell your Keys to fans or followers. Holders of these Keys can now directly communicate with the creators. This saw an influx from famous sports people, OnlyFans- and Crypto Twitter accounts.
Holders of Keys can sell their Keys if they wish to do so. The more followers, the higher the price of a Key can be. This can offer them profits if their Keys appreciate in value. The Keys provide access to, for instance, gated chat rooms or special content by creators. There’s also no need to install the app from the Apple Store or Play Store. To make deposits, there’s no need to sign anything. You only need to enter the app. In other words, it makes the Web3 experience simple and easy.
During the first two weeks, daily transactions skyrocketed to over 300,000. However, these numbers also slumped quickly by 95%. Now they seem to have leveled out at around 120,000. During the first two weeks, the platform also made $25 million. You can check Cryptokoryos’ stats on Dune.
The platform announced seed funding by Paradigm in August. However, it seems the actual round took place three months earlier. This led to a $50 million valuation of the platform.
1/10 Paradigm's investment in Friend tech led to a surge in buyers purchasing shares.
Users are smelling opportunities from airdrops to a new narrative emerging in crypto.
A short pic.twitter.com/N3apU9P1il
— Ignas | DeFi Research (@DefiIgnas) August 18, 2023
Who Is Behind Friend.tech?
The team doxed to a degree. We only know their Twitter handles. These are oxRacerAlt and Shrimppepe. Both were also involved in Stealcam. Racer was also the founder of TweetDAO. Both projects Looked like they were Ponzi schemes.
It appears that Shrimp was also involved in PharmaBroDAO. This was supporting Martin Shkreli, who was guilty of securities fraud.
Kosetto is an NFT project that both are associated with. It appears they collected ETH and soon afterward rugged the project. So, to sum this part up, the owners’ background doesn’t fulfill one with confidence and trust.
So it looks like @0xRacerAlt and @shrimppepe who own @friendtech started an NFT project called @KosettoIsKawaii collected $eth then rugged their community.
It looks like maybe friendtech was the Kosetto ann but instead they rugged and raised from @paradigm under new co. https://t.co/RIzIAkRv4X pic.twitter.com/hLuTT51Uju
— Mr ParaBULLic (@iLiquidatebots) August 21, 2023
Are there any Concerns About Friend.tech?
There are two concerns that arise about Friend.tech. The concerns are about privacy and security.
- Privacy Concerns
You need to link your X account. However, X is a prime target for hackers. As a result, it’s better to disconnect your X account. You can do this under ‘Settings’ and ‘Security’. Friend.tech is primarily made for mobile phones. Another reason why you don’t want to run a new app from your phone. Your phone may have lots of sensitive information.
You can work around this by installing it on a PC and tweaking a few settings. Check the Tweet below for more details.
since everyone is getting on friend tech now, here's how to use @friendtech on your computer by changing user agent (you're welcome)https://t.co/1N9bpu5kzK
hit f12 to open dev tools
3 dots at the top right
more tools
network conditions
uncheck “use browser default”
select…
— IAN (@cryptoian) August 19, 2023
- Security Concerns
We already discussed the tainted background of the two founders. However, there’s more, X user Cygaar exposed more security concerns.
- The API of Friend.tech has Kosetto in its address: prod-api.kosettoo.com. That’s the rugged NFT project by both founders.
- The backend also doesn’t have any bot protection: This is a reason for concern when Key prices inflate. Somebody could employ bots for front-running purposes. This, in turn, could lead to future rug pulls.
- There’s also a custodial issue: Because all the keys are on Friend.tech servers. In the case of a hack, this may be an issue.
I reverse engineered @friendtech's backend to better understand how it works and to see the potential risk factors to both users and the app itself.
Here's the full breakdown : pic.twitter.com/wDaQZ3C1WG
— cygaar (@0xCygaar) August 21, 2023
But, once again, there’s more. There was no privacy policy in place until one month after launch.
Source: Frined.tech privacy policy
The Biggest Danger of All Using Friend.tech
All of these are legitimate concerns. And there’s one even more serious and dangerous for users. Especially American users.
SIM Swapping.
This is where someone (usually working with someone on the inside at the big phone companies like Verizon and AT&T) tries to swap your phone number to a SIM card they control. This lets them change all the passwords that require 2 factor authentication on your phone. It means they can drain wallets easily.
And why is this specifically a problem for Friend.tech?
Because you are at least partially doxxed with the link to your Twitter/X account. If you have your full name there or a phone number as part of your profile, then it’s very easy to use that info to SIM swap. It’s been happening often the last couple of weeks.
Here’s an example of someone who lost 22 ETH and got all his keys drained too.
I was just SIM swapped and robbed of 22 ETH via @friendtech
The 34 of my own keys that I owned were sold, rugging anyone who held my key, all the other keys I owned were sold, and the rest of the ETH in my wallet was drained.
If your Twitter account is doxxed to your real… pic.twitter.com/5wA86mjYEG
— daren (friend, friend) (@darengb) October 3, 2023
You need to be VERY careful when using this app to be sure this does not happen to you.
Conclusion
Friend.tech has a promising concept. A few creators made good money out of their Keys. However, there were many fads that whizzed through Web3. For example, nobody talks anymore about Pepe or Reddit NFTs. Nonetheless, the Keys pricing doesn’t look like it’s sustainable. There are various other concerns as well. Of those the SIM swap possibilities are the most serious. Consider them before jumping on this bandwagon.
Disclaimer
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