Since its introduction in August, the team behind friend.tech has successfully generated close to $20 million in revenue.
Based on figures from DeFiLlama, friend.tech now stands as the top revenue-earning application on Base and holds the second-highest revenue spot in the broader cryptocurrency landscape.
If the platform maintains its current trajectory, it’s anticipated to produce an impressive annual revenue nearing $180 million.
To date, user fees generated by the platform amount to roughly $40 million. This revenue stems from levying a tax on approximately 10% of the trading volume associated with social tokens.
Of the collected fee, 50% is set aside as revenue for the development team of friend.tech, with the remaining 50% being distributed amongst users from whom the “keys” are traded.
Friend.tech functions as a unique platform allowing users to connect their Twitter profiles. It supports the purchase and sale of influencer-specific tokens, referred to as “keys,” utilizing ETH on the Layer 2 network supported by Coinbase, known as Base.
These “keys” provide users with an exclusive channel to communicate with influencers, ushering in a novel paradigm of social engagement.
Even with the appearance of numerous apps mirroring friend.tech’s model, the project maintains its lead in the SocialFi domain when considering daily transaction volume.
Yet, there’s been a noticeable dip in unique user numbers since the latter part of September.
Beyond the commendable revenue the platform has accumulated, its pseudonymous creator, ‘0xRacer,’ has reportedly garnered an individual income exceeding $440,000 from friend.tech, as evidenced by on-chain data sourced from Dune.
Hackers Continue to Target Friend.tech Users
Earlier in the week, a cybercriminal managed to purloin digital assets valued around $385,000 within a day by executing SIM-swapping assaults on friend.tech patrons.
As highlighted in reports, blockchain detective ZachXBT unearthed that the malefactor had illicitly acquired 234 ETH within a span of 24 hours by targeting four distinct friend.tech users through SIM-swapping.
Manifold Trading, an enterprise committed to crafting tools for the crypto sector, has indicated that out of the total $50 million locked value in friend.tech, a staggering $20 million remains vulnerable.
“In light of the estimation that 1/3 of FriendTech accounts are linked to phone numbers, there’s a potential risk of $20M due to sim-swaps,” Manifold Trading stated in a recent X post.
Additionally, they pointed out that the existing configuration of friend.tech “essentially permits a malicious developer to reassemble private keys using Shamir-Secret-Sharing shares extractable from user information in their database.” This implies that the total TVL (Total Value Locked) is potentially exposed.
To counteract this vulnerability, Manifold Trading suggests that friend.tech should bolster its account protection measures by incorporating two-factor authentication (2FA).