Friend.tech — Crypto Twitter's VIP lounge

Welcome to The Metadata. We’ve got a spicy issue today. But first..

🔔 The Alpha Assembly

We’re proud to announce that The Metadata is part of the Alpha Assembly: a central hub for all the crypto newsletters you will ever need.

• The Castle Chronicle

  A reflection of Castle's opinions (DeFi-focused, news, narratives, on-chain wallet sleuthing, macro & in-depth research)

• Sending Alpha

  News, alpha, and on-the-pulse content.

• The Aspiring Degen

  High-level on-chain capital movements.

Join the Alpha Assembly Telegram channel so you don’t miss it when a new article drops.

Today we cover:

• DeGods gets hit, falling almost 50%. What can we learn from this?

• Friend.tech is CT’s VIP lounge. We tell you what need to know about the latest social phenomenon

• What’s actually wrong with NFTs?

Market Update: DeGods Gets Hit

If there’s anything the past few months have taught us, it’s the golden rule: always sell-the-news on major NFT events. Remember Azuki? It led the charge, plummeting more than 70% after the Elementals mint.

Now, DeGods, hailed as one of the mightiest NFT communities of our time, has followed in Azuki's footsteps. It's taken a nosedive, falling almost 50% over the past week to a floor price of 4.8 ETH after the Season 3 launch.

What the heck is going on?

• Overleverage on Blend loans, with almost 400 outstanding loans prior to the S3 launch

• High levels of anticipation almost always lead to disappointment (art reveal not up to expectations, holders have to pay to participate in Season 3)

• Not enough buying interest in the NFT bear market. Many people have checked out.

Now, don't get me wrong. It's not that DeGods isn't doing anything interesting. In fact, they're cooking up some really cool stuff. But its a sign of the market conditions today. Buyers beware.

Friend.tech: CT’s VIP lounge

This week, we take a dive into the latest trend: friend.tech

Built on Base, friend.tech is like a VIP lounge for Twitter influencers looking to monetize their communities. You link your Twitter account to friend.tech, and voila! Your account turns into social tokens that others can buy shares of in ETH. It's like trading cards, but with a twist: these shares represent a stake in your popularity. The more shares bought, the higher the price.

Here's a quick snapshot of some jaw-dropping stats:

• 6,977 ETH in volume ($12.9M)

• 348.9 ETH in fees generated ($645K)

• 291,057 total transactions

Not bad for an app that's just 5 days old, right?

Peak transactions? Over 100K in the first 2 days! Since then, things have cooled down to around 20K transactions per day. There's still a steady buzz of activity. We’re keeping an eye on the D14 user retention rates – that's how many people are still hanging around 14 days after creating an account.

One silver lining: the number of active buyers still significantly outnumbers the number of active sellers. Always a good sign.

No shocker here: the top accounts are your favorite CT influencers. But here's the kicker: their numbers on friend.tech are just a drop in the bucket compared to their public Twitter following. None have hit the 100-holders mark yet. Why? Well, the price tag gets a bit steep as the number of shares goes up.

And speaking of prices, they've been on a rollercoaster ride. Cobie's at the top of the leaderboard with a floor price of 1.12 ETH, having soared to almost 2.5 ETH at one point.

🤑 Why it matters: Friend.tech is an experiment in the gamification and financialization of a social platform, enabled by crypto. We’ve seen something similar with Bitclout, a crypto celebrity network that launched in 2021 but faced a lot of controversy with the scraping of celebrity Twitter profiles and regulatory concerns.

The name of the game? Get in early, snag shares of top influencers when they join by watching the global activity feed like a hawk. It's a bargain if you're one of the first few holders. But once the party gets going, you'll need deep pockets to keep up.

There’s also a potential airdrop coming up so it might pay off to keep active on the app.

Will this be just a flash in the pan or an enduring platform? Only time will tell.

Our Favourite Tweets

🐥 What happens under the hood in DeGods Season 3: “Downgrade”

🐥 Spicy news: y00ts returns the $3M grant from Polygon and migrates to Ethereum. Floor prices has fallen almost 50% since last week.

🐥 Fingerprints DAO launches its NFT membership token. It’s also a cool piece of generative art.

🐥 More auction lots on Sotheby’s, including a Fidenza, Archetype, Ringer and CryptoPunk

🐥 Pixel Vault acquires Wolf Game. Guess who this deal was brokered by? Beanie

🐥 Zynga, a large web2 gaming platform, announces its 1st Web3 game

 🐥 Drip introduces creator rewards. Get paid for creating cool stuff.

🐥 An honest take on what’s wrong with NFTs. It’s been a wild ride.

New Projects / Mints

🍿 Palio: “your very own digital buddy! Your forever AI BFF for you to interact, discover and play with!”

🍿 Radder, an NFT Launchpad by Radbro Webring

🍿 YogaPetz: “Building a Web3 Wellness Ecosystem, APP & Platform”. Minting on 31 August

🍿 Mighty Labs Pioneers: “Multi-tier Wild West themed DAO accelerating community-driven web3 innovation”. Minting 24 - 27 August

That’s it, folks. Hope you enjoyed this edition and we’ll see you on Thursday.

Disclaimer: This newsletter is for educational purposes only. None of this is financial or investment advice. It is not a solicitation to buy or sell any assets. Minting and buying NFTs is risky. Please do your own research