On May 26, 2024, the price of the Web3 social network platform Friend.tech’s token FRIEND fell more than 20% after its co-founder, known by the pseudonym Racer, expressed a desire to leave Base. Wu Blockchain, a well-known Chinese reporter in the crypto industry, posted on X about Racer’s desire to leave Base, an Ethereum layer 2 platform created by Coinbase.
Racer’s System Design Bounty
Racer on X (Twitter) platform announced a system design bounty, offering $200K to anyone who can help figure out a way to migrate Friend.tech off the Base platform. Furthermore, the solution must avoid causing any significant issues for users and be effective enough for adaptation.
Strained Relations with Base and Farcaster Investors
In a post, Racer mentioned the strained relationship between the Friend.tech team and Base. In another post, Racer said the project had a fallout with the Farcaster investors, who misunderstood what they were doing at the time of launch, leading to strained relations and isolation within the Base community.
Farcaster investors went apeshit smearing us when we launched because they misunderstood what we were doing. Pushed it really hard on their team and users, and the relationship has been downhill since then, with us getting ostracized from anything that is for the ‘Base community
Jesse Pollak Response
Jesse Pollak, creator of Base and the Head of Protocols at Coinbase, responded to Racer’s comments by offering a diplomatic post of his own. He acknowledged that the Friend.tech team had felt isolated and disconnected from certain parts of the Base and Ethereum ecosystems. Additionally, he added that he would be sad if the team decided to leave Base, but at the same time, he respects and unconditionally supports whichever path they have chosen.
