The cryptocurrency industry’s latest sensation, Friend.tech, has achieved remarkable success on Coinbase’s layer two Base protocol, amassing over $35 million in sales within just a week after its early August launch.
However, the platform’s recent decision to rebrand its flagship feature from ‘shares’ to ‘keys’ due to concerns of unregistered securities has added to the intrigue. Even Coinbase’s CEO, Brian Armstrong, has acknowledged the surprising surge of users flocking to this high-risk venture.
A Closer Look at Friend.tech
Friend.tech operates on the premise of enabling users to purchase ‘keys’ (previously known as ‘shares’) of fellow user profiles using Ethereum. The primary utility of these ‘keys’ is to initiate conversations with the corresponding users.
Additionally, these ‘shares’ or ‘keys’ generate profits through trading fees. The creators of Friend.tech have a history tied to the controversial yet profitable crypto project, Stealcam. While their official startup name remains undisclosed, they have secured funding from the crypto venture capital firm, Paradigm.
Regulatory Concerns and User Skepticism
Given the tumultuous history of the crypto market, Friend.tech’s lack of a white paper, pricing plans, roadmap, and even a privacy policy raises significant concerns. U.S. regulators have been closely scrutinizing the cryptocurrency space this year, as demonstrated by actions against Celsius Network Ltd. and Ripple.
Moreover, Gary Gensler, the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), has notably classified everything except Bitcoin as a security. The recent Ripple ruling underscored the importance of transparently available information for determining securities registration.
The Risk of Regulatory Intervention
Friend.tech’s potential vulnerability lies in the SEC’s regulatory purview. While some users have reportedly earned substantial revenue, the lack of transparency in the platform’s pricing model and data usage practices could attract regulatory attention. Speculation suggests that Friend.tech follows a quadratic pricing model, although its developers neither confirm nor deny this.
Users are left in the dark about how their data is being utilized after signing up for Friend.tech, which mandates linking a Twitter account and an ETH wallet. Moreover, given the regulatory climate, it is improbable that the SEC would disregard a project that has already yielded significant profits for certain users.
Consequently, this situation could serve as a pivotal lesson for cryptocurrency participants: avoid exploiting friends as exit liquidity.
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