Web3 Watch: Friend.tech team steps back, relinquishing control of platform

The SocialFi network friend.tech has taken a significant step this week, and appears to have abandoned further development of its once-popular platform.

On Monday, friend.tech announced it was transferring the administrative and ownership rights of the platform’s code to a null address. This effectively makes any future changes to fee rates or functionalities impossible.

Though friend.tech will continue to exist on the Base blockchain, this move is being interpreted by community members on X as a lack of desire to continue maintaining the project.

The SocialFi platform first launched on Aug. 10, 2023. It subsequently undertook an unprecedented 100% community allocation of FRIEND tokens to users in May 2024, in contrast to most projects where a certain percentage of tokens are set aside for early investors. 

Post-airdrop, FRIEND reached a peak of $2.86 but has since cratered to $0.09. Even with the introduction of new features in a v2 update, including social clubs, the platform has struggled to revive trading volumes, which reached multi-million dollar figures last September.

Friend.tech has generated about $22.3 million in protocol fees, according to Dune.

Osmosis goes cross-chain with Polaris portal

Osmosis DEX unveiled its latest product on Wednesday: Polaris, a cross-chain DEX aggregator.

Polaris wants to address the persistent problem of liquidity fragmentation — or the “Great Chain Divide” as Osmosis co-founder Sunny Aggarwal calls it – by letting users trade any asset from any chain with their existing wallets.

Unlike liquidity aggregators, Polaris simplifies cross-chain trading by offering a streamlined interface powered by multiparty computation (MPC) technology. This interface handles complex processes like token conversion, bridging, approvals and gas token acquisition — all from users’ existing wallets.

“Osmosis is the foundation” and “our mission is to build the Interchain DEX,” Aggarwal tweeted.

This move marks a notable change in Osmosis’ longstanding strategic focus within the Cosmos ecosystem.

The product will be officially revealed next week at Solana Breakpoint 2024 in Singapore.

One interesting stat:

• Stablecoins volume make up about 70-80% of all value that is being settled on public blockchains in 2024, according to research from Artemis.

Also of note:

• In partnership with interoperability platform Wormhole, Worldcoin is bringing World ID integration to Solana.
• The Azuki NFT project is introducing Anime.com, where fans and creators can co-create and share in co-ownership of anime intellectual property on “AnimeChain.”
• ENS addresses are now supported on PayPal and Venmo for crypto payments.
• The L2 gaming chain Immutable is partnering with Web3 distribution platform Portal.
• Wrapped bitcoin players make big moves: Coinbase launched its own tokenized bitcoin cbBTC, and BitGo is taking its WBTC product cross-chain with LayerZero’s OmniChain Fungible Token (OFT) standard.
• Onchain voting for DAOs level up: Snapshot leveraged Starknet to launch its new onchain voting protocol Snapshot X, while Aragon leveraged ZKSync’s native account abstraction and LayerZero relays for its new cross-chain voting solution.

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