Friend.tech’s potential $500m airdrop sees users rush back in ahead of V2

Friend.tech, a socialfi platform, saw over $7.4 million deposited into the platform yesterday — the largest single day of deposits since October 25 — as the protocol prepares for the launch of V2 alongside its highly anticipated airdrop.

Friend.tech lets users buy keys to chatrooms of other users. There is a 10% fee when purchasing a key, with 5% going to the key owner and 5% going to the friend.tech team.

Socialfi is short for social finance, a new trend in Web3 that blends social media networks with financialization.

Friend.tech announced on March 22, on X, formerly known as Twitter, that the entire supply of friend.tech tokens will be distributed to its users.

This is significantly more than what might be considered standard for airdrops; for example, the recent airdrop from Wormhole on April 3 saw 17% airdropped to users at launch.

In friend.tech V1, users accumulated points every Friday, primarily influenced by the volume of Ether they deposited into the platform. Some 90 million points were distributed to users in V1 with another 10 million slated for distribution in V2.

This system favoured large account holders, enabling them to amass substantial quantities of points, often reaching into the hundreds of thousands.

As of recent transactions on Whales Market — a secondary platform for peer-to-peer point sales — these points have surged in value, now selling for over $5 each, up from their pre-March 22 valuation of $1 to $3 on the same market.

With the upcoming launch of V2, the large account holders are now inherently motivated to promote and support friend.tech, given the potential for returns.

The success of V2, however, ultimately hinges on its ability to introduce compelling new features, especially considering the previous user feedback about the platform’s limited functionality.

The platform’s founder, 0xracer, shared previews in their friend.tech chatroom, highlighting upcoming additions in V2. These include a native decentralised exchange, tradable collectibles, and enhancements to the chatroom user experience, among others.

Still, users seem to be front-running the release of V2 later this month.

Total transactions, USD deposits, and protocol fees all made yearly highs yesterday.

This surge put friend.tech in the 11th spot for fees generated in the last 24 hours according to data from DefiLlama.

Ryan Celaj is a data correspondent at DL News. Got a tip? Email him at ryan@dlnews.com.