👀Friend.tech "Rises From The Dead"

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Today’s selection:

• 🧟From FUD to FOMO

• 💰️Venture Mondays

• 📰Bite-Sized News

• 👌Selected Meme of The Day

FRIEND.TECH “RISES FROM THE ASHES”

The decentralized social media platform Friend.tech recently experienced an unexpected surge in its total value locked (TVL), surpassing $33 million in the past 7 days.

Launched on Coinbase’s Base, the CEX’s layer-2 solution, on August 11, Friend.tech has since raked in an astounding $21 million in transaction fees.

Just three weeks post-launch, the platform was declared "dead" due to a notable downturn in crucial metrics such as user activity, inflows, and trading volume—evident as of the end of August.

Nevertheless, Friend.tech has undergone a significant revival recently, once, recording $12.3 million in daily trading volume.

For context, at one point over the recent days, Base handled more transactions than Ethereum, Arbitrum, and Optimism, falling behind only Polygon and BSC.

Simultaneously, Friend.tech's trading volume eclipsed that of the entire NFT sector, encompassing all networks and NFTs.

The prevailing narrative for Friend.tech is simple yet telling: the platform will remain more or less popular until a token launch, anticipated in about five months. Although this story might echo that of Blur, an NFT marketplace, even Blur enjoys broader use.

Other competitors with similar offerings could throw a challenge for Friend.tech. Moreover, the platform has highlighted existing interest in social finance models; such platforms are quietly in development, leaving everyone to merely anticipate their arrival.

Another plausible reason for the recent resurgence in Friend.tech activity may well stem from an influx of non-crypto celebrities, including some high-profile YouTubers, who have recently joined the platform.

TL;DR: Despite being labeled as “dead,” the decentralized social media platform Friend.tech recently experienced an unexpected surge in its TVL surpassing $33 million in the past 7 days.

VENTURE MONDAYS

• Decentralized social media platform Pop Social raised $4M in a Seed funding round from Fundamental Labs, Ceras Ventures, Chainlink, Cointelegraph Acceleration, proMatrix Capital, Prysm Group.

  Is this a new competitor for Friend.tech in the making? We can only wait and see.

• Coming up next, we’ve got the fact that payment and treasury management solution for businesses Fipto raised $16M.

• Global payment platform Parallax raised $4.50M in a Seed funding round.

Both projects are similar in some ways: both employ blockchain technology to enable (swift) international transactions and are actively developing rapid fiat-to-crypto conversions. As it stands, these challenges continue to be pain points, especially for digital nomads and individuals transferring money to family members. But will it really help? Let’s see how it unfolds.

BITE-SIZED NEWS

• Binance CEO Clears the Air about Brian Shroder's Exit Amid Legal Challenges. Zhao claims Brian Shroder "accomplished what he set out to do when he joined two years ago."

• United States House Committee Takes Steps to Block Creation of CBDC. US legislators continue to search for ways to block the development of digital dollar.

• Billionaire Mark Cuban's Crypto Wallet Hacked, Lost Close to $900,000. Cuban becomes the latest victim of a substantial crypto hack.

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_{SELECTED MEME OF THE DAY}

Disclaimer: This newsletter is strictly educational. None of this information is intended to be financial advice. Always do your research and act responsibly with your profits.