Friend.tech crosses $50 mln in TVL – Here’s why the move matters

• Friend.tech’s TVL recently rallied above $50 million.
• The last month has seen a decline in new demand for the protocol. 

Decentralized social network Friend.tech reached a major milestone on 1 October, crossing $50 million in total value locked (TVL), data from Dune Analytics showed. 

While TVL has since dropped by $2 million, the rapid growth in the platform’s asset base since it launched showed that Friend.tech continues to see increased usage. At press time, the protocol’s TVL was $48.21 million.

Source: Dune Analytics

State of Friend.tech

According to data from Dune Analytics, Friend.tech has a cumulative user count of 315,858 that have at least completed one trade on the decentralized social network since it went live on Base on 10 August. 

Each time a creator’s key is minted or redeemed on the protocol, a 10% fee is levied. Since genesis, the cumulative fees generated from user activity on Friend.tech have exceeded $35 million. 

With increased minting and redeeming activities in the last month, Friend.tech has generated an average daily fee of $1.1 million since 8 September. In fact, by 14 September, fees generated climbed to an all-time high of $2 million. 

Source: Dune Analytics

Friend.tech takes half of these fees as revenue, generating 11,000 ETH ($18 million) in protocol revenue since it was launched.

Interestingly, the revenue has so far been sent to an externally owned account (EOA), from which no spending has since been recorded, data from Dune Analytics showed. 

Source: Dune Analytics

New demand craters?

While Friend.tech has enjoyed increased adoption since it went live in August, it has yet to attract new users in the last month.

Data sourced from Dune Analytics showed that the daily count of new users who visited the protocol and completed at least one trade has plummeted since 19 September.

For context, as of 3 October, the decentralized social network gained 5,619 new users. On 19 September, it saw a new user count of 17,000, representing a 67% decline in new demand in the past three weeks. 

With a fall in new users on the platform, the minting of new keys has slowed as well. This has decreased by 63% since 13 September. 

Moreover, daily trading volume across the protocol embarked on a descent on the same day and has since dropped by 10%. Likewise, the daily number of traders on Friend.tech has fallen by 48% since 18 September.

Source: Dune Analytics

While daily user activity on Friend.tech has trended downward since mid-September, there has yet to be a notable increase in the daily redemption of keys.

This suggests that, despite users minting fewer keys in the past three weeks, they are holding onto their existing keys, anticipating greater profits in the future.

Source: Dune Analytics