Friend.tech Token Plummets after Launch, Airdrop Falls Far Below Expectations
The decentralized social platform Friend.Tech, based on Base, became a hot topic during the May Day holiday. On May 3rd, it launched its V2 version and also conducted an airdrop of its native token, FRIEND.
The announcement of the airdrop was expected to generate excitement and goodwill for the project, but instead, it sparked mockery from the crypto community. According to DexScreener data, FRIEND plummeted nearly 98% after going live, dropping rapidly from around $169 to around $3.26. According to CMC data, it even hit a low of $0.8 before rebounding and currently sits at around $2.53. This article will take you through the ups and downs of the Friend.Tech airdrop event.
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Airdrop returns fall far below expectations, with distribution being too “concentrated”
After FRIEND went live and conducted the airdrop, some analysts criticized the distribution mechanism, claiming that creators received a larger share of the tokens compared to retail investors. Hitesh Malviya, the founder of the crypto analysis platform DYOR, stated that this distribution was a case of “concentrated airdrop.”
“Most users received 10 times less in the airdrop than they expected, so many of them didn’t even bother claiming it because the amount was less than $200 for most retail investors. At the same time, very few people ended up profiting significantly, so this is a very concentrated airdrop case.”
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Largest airdrop recipient quickly sells off, some users unable to claim tokens
The largest recipient of the airdrop on Friend.Tech sold off all their tokens within a few hours of the airdrop, causing concerns in the market. Blockchain data shows that the largest whale, “Murphys1d,” sold over 55,000 FRIEND tokens shortly after the airdrop went live, causing the price to initially drop by around 50%. The whale’s sell-off triggered panic selling in the market, leading to further decline.
During this period, some users complained about API failures, preventing them from claiming the tokens while the price was dropping. Crypto trader Luke Martin stated on X platform, “I kept refreshing the page trying to claim, but I watched the value of my airdrop drop from a seven-digit number to a five-digit number within two hours, and I couldn’t claim it.”
Researcher 0xCygaar pointed out that the surge in traffic overloaded Friend.Tech’s backend, and it apparently did not take any scaling measures. The proof-of-stake mechanism for checking user eligibility also experienced failures, and some tutorials even emerged on how to manually claim the airdrop from the contract using the browser-based tool BaseScan.
Even those who successfully claimed the tokens had complaints, as the price plummeted by 46% from $2.78 to $1.49 in less than four hours. The community believes that besides trading on BunnySwap, FRIEND’s lack of transferability and the developers’ addition of only $0.01 of liquidity were the main factors contributing to the rapid price drop.
Club feature also questioned
Friend.Tech was initially launched in August 2023, offering only an invitation service with a reward points system. The V2 version introduced new features such as Money Club and a new points system. Money Club provides users with an exclusive space for financial discussions and interactions, while the new points system rewards users for their contributions and interactions on the platform.
However, the Club feature also received criticism from some users. On one hand, in order to drive traffic to the Club feature, the airdrop design only allowed users to directly claim 10% of the airdrop, with the full amount requiring joining the “Money Club” and following 10 users on v2. There were also some bugs in the software, with users reporting that newly created Clubs were not being displayed. Additionally, Friend.Tech quietly integrated its own exchange (RabbitRouter + BunnySwap) into the app, charging a 1.5% transaction fee, as pointed out by Ethereum investor @eric.eth.
According to Dune data, since the release of V2 on May 4th, there have been 112,346 Clubs created, with a total transaction volume of 16,899,404 FRIEND, and Club fees amounting to 252,651 FRIEND.
It is worth mentioning that despite the “poor” performance of the Friend.Tech token after going live, there are still whales making profits. According to Lookonchain monitoring on May 5th, the top 5 buyers of FRIEND have accumulated a cumulative profit of $2.89 million.
Additionally, according to The Data Nerd, three days ago, a savvy investor with the address 0xA26 spent $1.18 million, accumulating 732,000 FRIEND tokens at an average entry fee of $1.61, with unrealized profits currently amounting to approximately $807,000.
Despite the controversy, Friend.Tech remains an important player in the Web3 social media field, and it remains to be seen whether it can continue to lead the SocialFi revolution in the future.