Friend.tech is an invite‑only, crypto-native social networking app built on Coinbase’s Base Layer 2 that launched on August 10, 2023, and rapidly attracted significant user activity and trading volume. The platform allows users to buy and sell “keys” (originally called shares) linked to X/Twitter accounts, with key prices set by a bonding-curve mechanism so that prices rise as more keys are bought and fall as they are sold. Holding a key grants access to a private chatroom with that account and other keyholders, effectively turning a creator’s social reach into a tradeable on-chain asset. The app runs as a progressive web app/mobile-only experience, where new users must obtain an invite code, link their Twitter account, and fund an automatically created self-custodial wallet before they can trade keys. At launch and in the early days, friend.tech operated on an invite-only basis and leaned heavily on Crypto Twitter influencers and referrals to drive growth, including figures such as Cobie and other well-known traders and personalities whose keys quickly became some of the most actively traded. Trading activity on friend.tech generated protocol fees that were split between the platform and the creators whose keys were being traded, creating a revenue-sharing model that rewarded both the app’s developers and popular accounts. Analytics dashboards on Dune recorded thousands of ETH in cumulative trading volume and several hundred ETH in fees within days of launch, with referrer-based growth and an access-code system helping the app become one of the top dApps on Base by fees and usage. The fee distribution to top referrers such as Cobie, Racer, Zhu Su, Gainzy, and Sisyphus reflects how central influential crypto personalities and invite mechanics were to the platform’s early traction and economic dynamics.

AI-generated background, compiled from web sources — not editorial content.

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