Decentralized social media platform Friend.tech plans to migrate from Coinbase’s layer 2 network Base to its own blockchain, Friendchain. This move marks a significant shift in the platform’s strategy, utilizing FRIEND as a fully transferable gas token.

The Announcement

On June 8, the Friend.tech team announced on X that they have partnered with crypto infrastructure platform Conduit to build their own network, dubbed Friendchain. The team stated, “We’ll keep you up-to-date with all the info you need over the coming months as we build out this exciting new chapter.”

Following the announcement, the price of FRIEND rallied over 60% to a high of $1.34 within 30 minutes but later declined. At the time of writing, the token was trading at around $0.70, down 20% in the last 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap.

Community Reactions

The decision to build a separate blockchain sparked mixed reactions from the community. Some users questioned the necessity of a social-focused chain, arguing that gas costs paid in FRIEND could be higher than average levels on Base. A pseudonymous user, “@lazyvillager1,” commented that while the move might be short-term bullish, it could be mid-term bearish for the project. “The ultimate long-term vision is for backers/investors to continue clipping protocol fees and to exit at a SaaS multiple to a Web2 company on being the Web3 portal for monetized social media. FT [Friend.tech] trying to capture the value accrual to-chain today is too hedonistic,” said the user.

Historical Context

The move to migrate from Base isn’t entirely unexpected. Last month, Friend.tech’s pseudonymous founder Racer had commented on the potential for migration. “System design bounty: If you can figure out a way to migrate friendtech off of Base without causing major issues for users, and it works well enough that we decide to use it, we will pay you $200K,” Racer said in an X post, which has since been deleted.

Jesse Pollak, Base creator, acknowledged the situation in an X post, noting that Friend.tech was “incorrectly culturally labelled as ‘negatively speculative’ by certain parts of the broader ecosystem across Base and Ethereum, which made the team feel isolated and disconnected early on.” He added, “I’ll be sad if the team decides to leave Base, but I also respect and will support whatever path — that’s the beauty of the decentralized, onchain, economy!”