Dragonfly Capital partner Haseeb Qureshi recently tweeted about the rise and fall of the social application Friend.tech (FT) in just four months, sparking a response from Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin.
Dragonfly Partner: Social Finance (FT) a Flash in the Pan
Haseeb Qureshi expressed his confusion, suggesting that the pricing curve seemed to be the reason for FT’s downfall. The pricing curve caused the rapid increase of all Room Owner’s Keys, but it also led to a downward spiral. How did the FT team design this, and what can we learn from it?
DeFi researcher Ignas commented below Haseeb Qureshi’s tweet, pointing out that the narrative of Social Finance (SocialFi) rose and gradually disappeared in August and September last year, just as the hype around Bitcoin ETF faded after its official launch. This shows how quickly the “crypto narrative” can change.
This issue also elicited a response from Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin.
Understanding the Friend.tech Economic Model through Mathematics: Finding the Optimal Price Curve for SocialFi
Vitalik: Crappy GameFi is Being Replaced by Speculation, Taking Away the Fun of Gaming
Vitalik responded, stating that crappy GameFi projects are replacing the fun of gaming with financial speculation. Blockchain games should be as fun as traditional games. I have said this many times, and I believe similar situations have occurred with crypto social applications.
Vitalik also predicted that decentralized social protocols like Farcaster and Lens Protocol will not disappear like FT did in just four months, and they may even last for a year.
Lens Protocol V2, a decentralized community platform, has been launched with the addition of a paid post feature.
Haseeb Qureshi replied to Vitalik, agreeing with his perspective but also noting that there are many lessons to be learned besides the equation of “social + financial speculation = crappy.” He questioned whether it is too early to dismiss social concepts related to financial speculation, as most ideas require multiple attempts to be realized.
Dragonfly
Friend.tech
GameFi
Haseeb Qureshi
SocialFi