The post Web3 Watch: Friend.tech team steps back, relinquishing control of platform appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com.

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…

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Filed under: News - @ September 14, 2024 2:26 pm