On September 8, 2024, the development team behind friend.tech, a SocialFi platform operating on Ethereum layer-2 Base, shocked the community by deciding to transfer control of its smart contract to Ethereum’s “null” address, essentially abandoning the project.
The null address (0x0000…0000) on Ethereum is a special address that cannot be accessed or recovered once data has been transferred there. According to the friend.tech team, this move was made to ensure the system could not be tampered with. However, many investors believe this decision is equivalent to “abandoning” the project since no one can make any changes or upgrades to it moving forward.
Previously, friend.tech had caused a sensation in the market by allowing users to trade “keys” of various influencers (KOLs) for profit. At its launch, the platform’s daily revenue even surpassed that of Ethereum. The development team also collected at least $20 million in transaction fees. However, friend.tech’s activity gradually declined, with both trading volume and user numbers dropping sharply.
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The FRIEND token, which once reached a market cap of $233.6 million just four days after its launch, has now fallen to just over $5 million. According to DefiLlama, the platform’s Total Value Locked (TVL) plummeted from $52 million in October 2023 to under $3.5 million.
This controversial move by friend.tech seems to have marked the end of a once-promising project, raising concerns about the future of similar platforms in the crypto space.
Most recently, the ZKX protocol on Starknet also announced it was ceasing operations due to insufficient funds.
