FRIEND.TECH CASE | $50M TVL AND 150K FOLLOWERS IN A DEEP BEAR MARKET

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16.10.2023

Vlad Svitanko

7 min

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Launching a project that reached $50 million in TVL and 150,000 subscribers during a deep market downturn might sound like pure fantasy, right? Well, what makes this story so captivating is that the team achieved all of this without big budgets on influencers, incentive campaigns, or PR advertising.

Yeah, we are talking about friend.tech. With 1 million fees generated in a mere 24 hours, they left big players like Uniswap and the Bitcoin Network in the dust.

Timing – everyone knows how crucial it can be, and in this story, it played a pivotal role.

Friend.tech went against all the rules by launching a project during dull and weak market sentiment.

They took a big risk and win because nothing was happening in the information space at all, people were thirsty for something exciting, so they immediately raised the hype around the event.

Analyzing the state of the market, most projects would postpone the launch until better times, but the core team realized going against the bets - is a chance.

First off, let's get this straight – Friend.tech didn't promise any free tokens or giveaways. Their focus was on the product itself.

But what really got people buzzing was their cool idea of turning things like Twitter accounts into tokens. And that's where FOMO (Fear of Missing Out), comes into play. It's the excitement that gets everyone talking about the project.

Plus, a bunch of influencers spreading the word about it helps the project grow fast. Why? Because it's a win-win for them. It boosts the value of their accounts. The more people they attract, the more cash they make.

And it's not just crypto influencers; even big shots from the Web2 world like Instagram celebs and NBA players are into it. That's what makes this project go crazy viral.

0xRacerAlt is known for making some cool stuff in the SoFi community.

He's behind projects like Kossetols Kawaii, Stealcam, and tweetDAO.

With this track record, folks had big hopes and were really excited to see what he'd come up with next.

It was a moment of "could this be the next big thing or the next big scam?"

Despite this, influential connections also help to move forward and get more and more benefits.

For example: there is such a talented person - Fred Ehrsam. He was the co-founder of Coinbase, after which he created and became the co-founder of one inconspicuous fund - Paradigm. That is, most likely these events are closely related to friend.tech.

All the factors we've talked about here attract a ton of people, investors, and money. But when you throw in a mega-sized Airdrop, the excitement level goes through the roof. Everyone loves the idea of making money without breaking a sweat.

So why are people expecting an airdrop from friend.tech?

Well, there are a few good reasons:

1. Every account is racking up valuable points that could be a big deal for Airdrop.
2. Big funds are taking a keen interest, and there's a lot of buzz around the project.
3. Friend.tech is following in the footsteps of Blur, one of the biggest airdrops ever, worth hundreds of millions. That says something.

Friend.tech is a SocialFi application that allows people to invest in the “stocks” of opinion leaders, gaining access to privileges. Now, for example, “followers” see non-public posts of their key opinion leader (KOL).

In other words, you can find a promising KOL early on and support him in the hopes of growing his popularity and influence.

It's like OnlyFans in the Web3 world. Here, money gets you shares and access to the account owner. Every user becomes a social token you can buy, sell, or keep, and their value depends on their reputation.

This idea has gained immense popularity and is reaching new heights.

Let’s dive into some aspects which helped friend.tech to achieve the desired success:

First of all, friend.tech decided to do things a bit differently. Instead of bombarding everyone with a massive data room like most startups, they simply dropped a small FAQ. This created an aura of uncertainty around their launch.

Summary

Another critical factor that playing a pivotal role in capturing the initial audience, is the backing from the new Base ecosystem.

Base is a decentralized L2 solution from Coinbase, and much of its success comes from having such a strong baker. Base is conceived as an extension of Coinbase, with the mission of serving as the on-chain hub for Coinbase products, users, and assets. And this is more than $130 BILLION under management.

What is Base aimed at? It's secure, low-cost, and developer-friendly Ethereum L2, designed to attract the next billion users to the chain.

In other words, Base is focused on mass adoption, and similar SocialFi applications are its logical content. So, they found each other.

Here we won't be talking about unstable price appreciation of shares/keys, troubles with the law, and ponzy mechanics a bit of there.

Let's break it down from a marketing perspective and outline a playbook.

Well, how does the price mechanism work?

The price of keys follows the concept of the bonding curve, which often leads to exponential price surges.

More buying power = more price per share.

More exit liquidity = unequally lower price per share.

Likes, social activities, comments, impressions also increase the price.

Friend.tech got a big investments from Paradigm, a major player in the Web3 world. This made more people see the project as valuable, which led to more attention and money.

When top investors like Paradigm give their approval, it usually attracts other investors too, giving the project a green light for success.

How to be valuable?

Friend.tech found an extremely simple answer to this question. They have achieved high demand while maintaining limited supply.

Feeling that access is limited, most people want to enter friend.tech, they start looking for any opportunities. They start following the friend.tech account because at any moment there may be a new feature, a new opportunity to enter the project.

This definitely helps the community grow several times over.

It is extremely important for every crypto-entrepreneur to be attentive to such examples. Friend.tech didn't pour massive sums into marketing, and they boldly faced market challenges without fear. Imagine what such projects could achieve during a bull market.

Want to make your project go crazy viral and achieve rockstar status? We'll make it happen!

Many times, other apps tried to tokenize social media accounts, but it didn't really catch on. Some had broken API keys, others launched tokens too early and found no takers, and some just faced various development issues.

But the multi $Trillion narrative still rolls out. People were well-prepared for being in this environment and were fully ready to meet new A-players here.

Friend.tech came in extremely simply. They started by tokenizing KOLs’ accounts in real-time. Then, they kept adding more cool features, which got people even more interested.

So, because people were really into this story, and friend.tech delivered on their promises, it gave the project a great kickstart.