Friend.tech’s FRIEND token tanks to record low as team abandons control of smart contracts

Friend.tech’s FRIEND token has reached a new all-time low, dropping over 30% to $0.059 in the past 24 hours, CoinGecko’s data shows. The drastic fall in value comes after the team abandoned its smart contract control, essentially ceasing operations just one year after its successful launch.

On September 8, the Friend.tech team transferred control of their smart contracts to the Ethereum null address, a known burn address, indicating a permanent cessation of their control over the contracts. The move effectively ended the platform’s ability to add features or fix bugs.

Friend.tech claimed they locked the platform’s smart contracts to “prevent any changes to their fees or functionality in the future.” No further statements have been issued following the move.

Launched in August last year on Base, Friend.tech is a SocialFi platform enabling users to buy and sell shares of social media profiles. The project quickly gained traction, attracting over 100,000 users and earning over $2 billion in revenue from fees shortly after its launch.

In June this year, the team announced its plans to develop its own blockchain, called “Friendchain.” The decision stirred confusion about its future and negatively impacted the FRIEND token’s value.

The project later removed its announcement of moving away from Base. The team said in early July that they would continue using the Base L2 network for the FRIEND token. With the announcement came more uncertainty, leading to a 25% drop in FRIEND’s value at the time, CoinGecko’s data shows.

FRIEND’s market cap has crashed from around $233 million at launch to $5.6 million at the time of reporting.

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