Social-fi app friend.tech has taken a NSFW turn after enabling a new image sharing feature, attracting OnlyFans creators.
Friend.tech, a buzzy new decentralised social app that’s taken Web3 by storm over the past two weeks, launched a new image sharing feature on August 25.
Since then, OnlyFans creators have jumped on the opportunity to gain exposure and capitalise on their explicit content through the app.
Friend.tech launched just two weeks ago on Base, Coinbase’s Ethereum L2. The app has been so successful that its creator, known only by the pseudonymous name Racer, said he needs to ‘catch [his] breath a bit’.
Read more: Friends for sale: Understanding friend.tech, the viral new ‘marketplace for your friends’
The app markets itself as a ‘marketplace for your friends’. It lets users tokenise their online personalities into ‘keys’ (formerly called ‘shares’) to sell to anyone willing to invest. Those who purchase said keys gain access to a private, Telegram-like channel, which now supports image sharing.
A number of OnlyFans creators wound up on friend.tech’s trending list this morning, and balances indicate that the platform is more lucrative than OnlyFans.
One user, ‘JenfoxxUwU’, whose OnlyFans subscription costs $3.75, currently brings in around 0.87 Ether ($1,435) for her friend.tech keys, reported Decrypt.
“Imagine buying content like this on a public ledger,” one user wrote on the /cryptocurrency Reddit thread.
Others in the thread pointed out that the move was ‘totally expected’, adding ‘if there’s a corner of the internet where sex can enter, it will’.
A difference between OnlyFans and friend.tech is that OnlyFans creators set their price, while the value of friend.tech keys varies depending on supply and demand.
“Every buy/sell of a share of a person results in that person making ETH – the ‘subject fee,” wrote Coinbase software engineer Yuga Cohler on X, adding, “I have made ~0.05 ETH to date, doing absolutely nothing. This results in extremely strong network effects. The more trading and speculation on you, the more money you make.”
Influencers are top the friend.tech leaderboard
A CoinGecko report shows that Cobie, a popular crypto influencer, has earned the highest royalty earnings on the app to date, bringing in $144,000 in Ether.
HsakaTrades is a close second, bringing in over $100,000.
On August 22, friend.tech raked in $1.68m in fees, surpassing Bitcoin, Tron and Lido (DeFi Llama). Despite being invite-only and in beta, more than 100,000 users have already signed up for the app.
At the time of writing, the app boasts $45.78 million in annualised revenue, alongside $87.55 in annualised fees, according to DeFi Llama.
“Please be careful putting too much money into it”, some have warned.
Friend.tech’s monumental launch has been exciting, but there are some red flags – namely the unknown identity of the person behind the project. Little is known about the team, other than that its lead developer goes by the name ‘Racer’.
Racer developed the now devolved TweetDAO, but when CryptoPlug searched for its social pages, the TweetDAO X page appears to have been taken down.
Evidence noted by the crypto community also suggests that the team behind friends.tech also launched NFT project Kosetto back in 2022.
The Kosetto project allegedly spammed users with referral codes to hype and pump the value of the project, only to disappear with no communication or warning to users in January 2023.
“Please be careful putting too much money into it,” Nix.eth, VP of Innovation at Horizen Labs Ventures, wrote on X.
TheChartGuys, a popular community of traders on X, also wrote, “If someone can please fill me in, how is #friendTech not a clear as day Ponzi? You buy and if more people buy that group it goes up. The only way to appreciate is more people coming in, with the inevitability of a load of bag holders. What am I missing?”
Disclaimer: CryptoPlug does not recommend that any cryptocurrency should be bought, sold, or held by you. Do conduct your own due diligence and consult your financial advisor before making any investment decisions.
