Friend.tech driving Base transaction spike, Coinbase CEO reveals
Brian Armstrong, Coinbase CEO, highlighted how Friend.tech, a decentralized social application, is helping to fuel the growth and adoption of his exchange-backed Ethereum (ETH) layer-2 network, Base.
In an Aug. 23 post on X (formerly Twitter), Armstrong, while responding to a post from Coinbase Head of Protocols Jesse Pollack, noted that Base hit an average of 16 transactions per second (TPS) on Aug. 21, surpassing Ethereum’s transaction count for the same timeframe.
According to the Coinbase CEO, the large volume of transactions could be tied to the growth and hype surrounding the Friend.tech platform.
Friend.tech’s stunning growth
Friend.tech is a decentralized social application that has gained wide adoption and usage from the crypto community in less than two weeks of its launch.
The application enables users to purchase and trade “Keys” associated with their friends’ social media profiles. These “Keys” grant exclusive access to the user’s private in-app chatrooms and a stake in the user’s token’s value.
Friend.tech has swiftly accumulated a total volume of 43,064.8 ETH, equivalent to over $70 million, through 1.8 million transactions since its inception, according to Dune Analytics data.
Additional insights from DeFillama underscore its remarkable standing as one of the crypto industry’s top 5 fee generators, raking in a substantial $5 million in the last week. Notably, this places it ahead of well-established DeFi protocols like MakerDao and even layer1 blockchain networks like Bitcoin.
While Friend.tech has enjoyed some initial success, Evan Van Ness, a prominent researcher in the Ethereum community, has pointed out a growing issue. He observed that the application was experiencing an increasing presence of bots and spammers, making it difficult for individuals without substantial social media acumen to generate income from the platform.
The decentralized application is already enjoying usage by NBA stars, several crypto influencers and has also drawn investment from venture capital firm Paradigm.
