- Coinbase-based Layer 2 Base chain hosts social network Friend.Tech.
- The developers’ move toward decentralization was not well received by the FRIEND community.
- Machi Big Brother, aka ApeCoin Whale, Spent $16.7 Million and Has Less Than $1 Million Left
Friend.Tech, a popular Web3 social networking platform, recently decided to abandon smart contracts and make their network completely decentralized. By moving the contract to a null address on Ethereum (ETH), the developers completely gave up their administrative powers.
Decentralization movement takes a dark turn
This has caused considerable anxiety among platform users. While this move ensures that nothing on the platform will change, it also raises questions about the responsibility for its maintenance. The social network’s native FRIEND token fell 30.7% following the news.
Friend.Tech, which was trading at $0.21 on August 13, 2024, has plummeted to $0.05748 today, hitting a significant all-time low. FRIEND, which has recovered to $0.079 by the time of writing, has a market cap of $7,909,702 and a trading volume of less than $1 million in 24 hours.
FRIEND token disconnects from Whale wallet.
With crypto bears not taking a friendly approach to the token, Machi Big Brother, known as the ApeCoin (APE) whale and digital art enthusiast, has fallen victim to FRIEND’s downward spiral. With 83,583 holders at Base, this altcoin has quickly gained popularity as it is used for monetization on the Friend.Tech network.
Hosting 220,000 users, the native cryptocurrency has crashed by over 97% since its all-time high of $3.26 on May 3, 2024. Machi Big Brother invested $16.7 million in FRIEND, investing 11.1 million FRIEND tokens, which are now worth less than $700,000.
The significant losses at Machi Big Brother came after several attempts to breathe life into APE. After the NFT craze died down, the Bored Ape Yacht Club-inspired token fell to an all-time low.
Big Brother also launched its own meme coin, BOBAOPPA, which was launched on Solana (SOL) and raised $39 million.
Meanwhile, ApeCoin, a primate-themed project, is focusing on the development of ApeChain, which will utilize the meme coin of the BAYC community in various roles in Web3 apps and games.
Recently, ApeChain launched The Blueprint, a master plan to simplify user navigation and make it easier for talented developers to bring new decentralized applications (dApps) to the platform. At the time of writing, APE is trading at $0.73, according to CoinGecko.
On the other side
- ApeCoin (APE) hit an all-time low of $0.482 on August 5, 2024, crashing from its all-time high of $26.70.
- Friend.Tech’s developer team still has access to a separate web client that operates under the “friend.tech” domain.
Why this matters
Decentralization puts control in the hands of the community, but it also imposes several limitations, as making changes to Web3 applications can be cumbersome.
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