Change of mindset, friend.tech might be a community tool for NFT artists.

Original Article: "Friend.tech: The Newest Canvas for Crypto Artists"

Author: William Murphy

Translation: How does Oliday do it?

Recently, there has been a resurgence of discussions about friend.tech, with divergent views on its future development - some remain optimistic while others consider it a flash in the pan.

However, according to DefiLlama data on September 15th, friend.tech's protocol revenue reached 2.27 million dollars in the past 24 hours, surpassing Lido and ranking second only to Ethereum.

While protocol revenue may seem impressive, what is friend.tech's true purpose? What kind of gas can be injected into the bubble to slow down its burst? William Murphy from Bankless offers a new perspective: friend.tech can form a novel NFT sales solution.

Odaily has compiled the essence of their article as follows.

Imagine a world where artists can monetize their works, build a loyal fanbase, and even leverage their existing X (Twitter) followers to drive community engagement. In such a world, friend.tech would be a good choice.

Friend.tech introduces the following features by creating tradable Keys for individuals:

● Social tokens with built-in liquidity: 90% of the sales from each Key is used to provide liquidity, locked in the smart contract to ensure people can sell at any time. The remaining 10% is evenly distributed between friend.tech and the users selling the Keys.

● Chat room with threshold, where you can share text and images with your "Key holders". 

● Each "Key" has a self-adjusting market with pricing that increases along an incremental curve as more people buy, and decreases if more people sell. With this mechanism, you don't need to set individual prices for Keys.  

● Integration with X, allowing users to easily find and purchase one or more Keys to access your content. This enables a seamless import of existing X followers into friend.tech.

These features have their own benefits, which will be further discussed below: In an NFT market facing liquidity issues, artists struggle to monetize their work, friend.tech provides a disruptive alternative route for minting and selling artwork.

Current Issues with NFTs

Currently, the NFT market is facing significant challenges, particularly in the art sector. With decreasing liquidity, fewer collectors are willing to purchase editions or 1/1 artworks, and the budget of potential buyers is also decreasing.

Crypto art collectors can be divided into two categories: those who collect purely for the appreciation of specific artworks, and those who see potential investment opportunities. As the secondary market remains almost stagnant, many in the latter category have turned to other avenues for profit. While artists may have different opinions about these profit-seeking collectors exiting the market, it is clear that the decrease in capital inflow is hurting the crypto art community.

As shown in the following image, sales on Foundation have been decreasing monthly:

By analyzing the data of SuperRare, we can see similar trends as shown in the following figure:

Given the challenges faced by the encrypted art market, let's explore how friend.tech can become a viable solution for artists to sell NFTs, or at least provide a certain value as a supplement to their current marketing and selling methods.

Use Cases of friend.tech

friend.tech offers a novel alternative to directly selling art pieces as NFTs. One major advantage is the built-in liquidity pool that aggregates 90% of each Key sale. This ensures that anyone purchasing a Key can usually recover at least a portion of their investment unless the Key's value drops to zero.

In contrast, 1/1 NFT artworks or editions lack this liquidity. NFT sellers either have to wait patiently for the right buyers or drastically reduce prices, effectively creating a digital flea market for artists' works. This situation is disadvantageous for both artists and collectors. It undermines the perceived value of artists' works and forces collectors to accept lower resale prices.

The advantage of friend.tech as a platform lies in its flexible nature. Anyone sharing content with online audiences can fully leverage friend.tech, not just limited to the art field. For example, experienced traders can share their views on the market and current trades, musicians can share early links to unreleased music, and product founders can share updates with their most loyal users.

The best way to understand friend.tech, in my opinion, is to see it as a tokenized version of Patreon, where users can buy and sell memberships and have liquidity guarantees when they wish to sell. As an artist, you can auction off 1/1 art pieces, offering your supporters a chance to own unique works and providing liquidity for your creative process.

bsp;Key Holder creates a token gatekeeper version, shares a preview of art, talks about your new project, shares behind-the-scenes content, and so on.

Personally, I joined this app early on and so far have generated nearly 0.1 ETH in transaction fees from people entering and exiting my chat room. The price of my last 1/1 NFT sale also falls within this range, so because the income has reached an economically reasonable point, I held a lottery for my Key Holders for a 1/1 artwork. In addition, I share my life and behind-the-scenes content when I go out to take photos, and chat with Key Holders throughout the day.

While the 5% share from Key sales may generate less income than traditional NFT 1/1 and print sales, diversified sources of income are especially important in tough times. Any experienced artist understands the need for financial adaptability when one income source diminishes. I believe that when value is sincerely provided to Key Holders, friend.tech can serve as a relatively stable source of income, not solely reliant on direct art sales.

friend.tech Gameplay

friend.tech is a Progressive Web App (PWA). The joining process is very simple and intuitive.

Here is a guide to join friend.tech:

1. Add the app: Since friend.tech is a PWA, the registration process differs from downloading regular apps from the app store. Instead, open your mobile browser, navigate to friend.tech, and follow the instructions on the website to add it to your home screen. This will make the website appear as a functional app on your mobile device, just like any other app.

2. Register with phone or email:After adding and opening the application, the system will prompt you to register an account using your email or phone number. 3. Obtain a friend.tech invitation code: Currently, friend.tech is in the testing phase and is by invitation only, so you will need an access code. Here are a few options for you: - Get an invitation code from a friend on X: Many people have already joined the platform, and I bet if you post a request for an invitation code, someone will provide one soon. - Search on X: If you don't want to post such a request, you can use the search function on X to find people who have posted invitation codes. I just searched for "friendtech invitation code" and found many results. 4. Link your X account: The username system of friend.tech is supported by X, so before you can start using your account, you need to link your X account. For this, you will need to give friend.tech some permissions related to your X account, and you can choose to revoke these permissions later. 5. Transfer ETH to your friend.tech wallet: As mentioned above, in order to make transactions on friend.tech, you need to have some ETH on the BASE network, and then send them to your new friend.tech wallet, which is associated with your new account. 6. Purchase your first Key: First, you must purchase at least one Key of your own; the first Key only requires a small Gas Fee. Once this transaction is complete, people will be able to purchase...Buy and sell your Key to gain access to your chat room. 

7.  Start experiencing: Once your ETH transfer is complete and you have purchased your first Key, you can start trading and making new friends. You are now a member of the friend.tech community!

The Future of Art with Liquidity and Social Attributes

As the world of crypto art faces liquidity issues and artists strive to overcome survival challenges, friend.tech offers a novel alternative for minting and direct sales of artwork. friend.tech is more than just a platform, it is a comprehensive ecosystem consisting of a community, marketplace, and social network. Through built-in liquidity and a self-regulating Key market, friend.tech provides artists and collectors with an optimized market that brings a greater sense of stability and consistency in the volatile and illiquid world of crypto art.

Beyond financial gains, friend.tech is also a creative stage. Whether you are an artist, musician, or experienced trader, the platform allows you to share your creations and ideas with like-minded individuals. It is a space where you can not only sell artwork but also interact with the audience in a more intimate and meaningful way, in whatever way you see fit.

As someone who has delved deep into this platform, I can attest to its potential as a stable source of income. While the 5% share from Key sales may not replace the income from traditional art sales, it offers a level of stability that is hard to achieve in the volatile crypto market.

Therefore, if you are an artist looking for a new avenue to showcase your work, build a community, and earn some money, friend.tech is worth exploring further.

The future of art is not just digital, but also social, fun, and fluid, and this future may be unfolding on friend.tech.