Friend.Tech Roundtable Summary

Author | AMBERBELLA

Compilation | Wu Blockchain

This article is based on a discussion about Friend.Tech conducted at 21:00 GMT+8 on 8/23 in Twitter Space, WuBlockchain has compiled part of the content.The original link is: https://amberbella.substack.com/p/friendtech

Preface

Friend.Tech is undoubtedly a phenomenal product in the Web3, offering new paradigms and inspirations for the creator economy, defi (decentralized finance), etc.

Especially in this discussion, the perspective on Token issuance that was brought up is quite interesting. Whether or not it’s true, it’s a fascinating viewpoint, both in terms of the potential legal clashes that the widespread issuance of Tokens brought by this product may cause and the design of defi (decentralized finance) product incentive mechanisms, all of which are enlightening.

From the perspective of the “creator economy”, if Friend.Tech wants to truly benefit from it, there is still a long way to go in product development. Whether it’s the product’s performance that’s already lagging with just text, or the design of the bonding curve (the more people buy, the more expensive it gets, and it’s much more expensive), it naturally sets a higher entry threshold, hindering new users. There’s also the biggest issue that excessive hype will block or injure the users who are really here to consume content, thereby affecting the product’s sustainable development in the medium to long term.

I personally am more optimistic about the next Friend.Tech, just like ClubHouse’s appearance was fleeting, but Twitter Space has already become a regular place for people’s daily discussions.

This roundtable invited four insightful guests to discuss @Alvin0617 @_0xSea_ @nake13 @mrblocktw, and it can be said that the breadth and depth of the discussion exceeded my imagination.

Below are the highlights of the points, as well as the original text of the discussion, enjoy.

Exciting Points

Mr.Block

● Friend.Tech has made Token issuance fast and standardized. Issuing currency and Tokens are core elements in the cryptocurrency field. Friend.tech allows tens of thousands of people to “issue currency,” perhaps stimulating new legal collisions, enabling new legal ways to categorize issuance.

● In the DeFi (Decentralized Finance) and cryptocurrency field, although many projects have used reward mechanisms, only a few like Friend.Tech have explicitly used the referral system, incentivizing users to share and participate. It is worth considering and learning from for more Defi projects. Tokens are not only for financial transactions but can also be used as points or rewards, encouraging early participants. Projects can use different mechanism designs to define rewards and leaderboard mechanisms.

Zhixiong Pan

● Friend.Tech’s mechanism design allows ordinary people to become “market makers,” thus increasing liquidity. By speculating on KOL’s key, market makers can increase market value and earn transaction fees. Although more content forms may be introduced in the future, its primary market issuance design may limit user scale due to the rapid rise in Key prices. To meet different KOL and users, Friend.Tech needs to consider multiple Key price growth curves.

0xSea

● The Friend.tech project had a very excellent launch. Although the design is somewhat rough, it is overall a successful start. At first, I thought it was a social product, but then I realized that they were actually creating a low-threshold on-chain game, tokenizing and trading under the name of social.

● Problems with Friend.tech:

○ Content dissemination issue: All content is placed in the Room, and only paying users can see it. This makes it difficult for consumers to decide whether to pay, as they cannot assess whether the payment is worth it. Since there is no public content discovery and dissemination mechanism, the content’s reach is very niche and hard to discover. This leads to even if KOL shares excellent content in the Room, it’s hard for people to find.

○ Product positioning issue: Friend.Tech is not sincerely trying to produce quality content, but is greatly utilizing the hype mechanism, involving everyone in buying and selling the person itself.

Alvin

● Friend.Tech has achieved significant trading volume in a short time and successfully attracted a large number of users and key figures, despite privacy issues. Paradigm’s investment has further elevated its influence, and around its ecosystem, such as IM4X and Friend Index, several interesting derivative products have emerged.

● However, Friend.Tech also faces challenges. Due to the presence of many NFT (Non-Fungible Tokens) traders and bots, it has become difficult for ordinary users to make money. The rapid decline in the prices of Keys has led to a loss of user confidence, and if not addressed promptly, it may result in user attrition.

AmberBella

● Friend.Tech quickly accumulated high value with its simple product mechanism, but there are doubts about whether there was a pre-planned hype strategy behind it, as related derivative tools and aggregators appeared exceptionally quickly.

● Web3 products are often quickly hyped, which may rapidly attract public attention, but also may lead to significant market fluctuations. Many people enter this market in pursuit of quick wealth, but when the hype subsides, many people may be hurt. This reflects the problem of excessive amplification of financial leverage.