Down Arrow Button Icon

The crypto world is buzzing about a new app called Friend.tech that proudly touts itself as “the marketplace for your friends.” It offers a social media forum where you can buy shares in other people on the platform and in exchange receive the right to enter a private chat forum with the person and others who own them.

Prices rise and fall in response to the person’s popularity. I signed up and am currently trading for 0.02 ETH, or around $33 a share. I didn’t want to shell out a full ETH (around $1,700) to buy access to one of the cool influencer types on Friend.tech so I settled for buying some guy named William R. for $9.

If this makes your skin crawl, you’re not alone. There is something repulsive about turning humans into commodities, and if you know even the first thing about U.S. history, you can see why advertising a “marketplace” for people is objectionable. The app claiming the people you buy are “friends” doesn’t make it any better.

Friend.tech is hardly the first to try something like this. In 2015, a startup called Klout launched a platform that billed itself as “Yelp for people” that was met with widespread disgust. And in 2021, a crypto bro launched the notorious BitClout, which scraped people’s Twitter profiles without permission to create a social media platform—and then charged you Bitcoin to control your own image. The BitClout app was short-lived and likely under SEC investigation.

You won’t be surprised to learn that Friend.tech lacks a privacy policy and that its legal status is murky at best. A few days ago, the company changed the name of what it is selling from “shares” in a person to “keys,” but it’s hard to imagine that will do much to reassure securities regulators. Meanwhile, there is chatter about a potential “airdrop” that would involve Friend.tech dropping a token that users could flip.

In short, Friend.tech is terrible. It takes the worst attributes of social media and crypto and combines them in an app that likely holds little appeal for ordinary people. I explained it to my wife, and she actually recoiled.

While Friend.tech is shaping up to be another crypto horror show that will likely blow away in a few weeks when the current speculative frenzy abates, the app does have one thing going for it: It’s easy to join and to use. You can join simply by connecting your X (formerly Twitter) account, and the only money you need is Ethereum. And once you’re on, the interface is fairly smooth and intuitive.

This is a big step forward from BitClout and earlier crypto-based social media services. Now, if Friend.tech could only find a use case that doesn’t involve buying and selling people.

Jeff John Roberts
jeff.roberts@fortune.com
@jeffjohnroberts

DECENTRALIZED NEWS

The Justice Department charged the creators of Ethereum mixer Tornado Cash with conspiracy related to sanctions violations and money laundering that took place on the open-source platform. (The Verge)

New court filings suggest Sam Bankman-Fried will claim he followed the advice of legal counsel as part of his defense to fraud charges. (WSJ)

Bitcoin jumped back above $26,000, enjoying its biggest one-day gain in six weeks. (Bloomberg)

XRP has given up nearly all its gains since the price nearly doubled in mid-July after a favorable ruling in the SEC v. Ripple case. (Fortune)

The FBI warned that North Korea’s Lazarus hacker group will attempt to cash out $40 million in Bitcoin, and asked crypto firms to be vigilant in screening for transactions. (The Block)