Information on social media platform X (formerly Twitter) suggests that Friend.tech founders 0xRacerAlt and Shrimppepe have connections to a failed NFT project, Kosetto.
Kosetto NFTs
Kosetto is a tradable NFT wearables project that launched on Ethereum last December. The project, which consisted of 1,689 items, generated a lot of excitement, with users flooding social media platforms with posts about it. However, after it introduced a Chrome extension for its NFTs in January, the project was shut down in February after promising that “something big was coming”.
OpenSea’s data shows that the bottom price of the collection is currently 0.01 ETH, about $17. The last sale for the NFTs took place in February, with a total sales volume of just 5 ETH.
At the time of writing, Kosetto’s website was down and an Error 402 was displayed.
Justin Kalland, vice president of innovation at Horizen Labs Ventures, describes the sudden demise of the project:
“The whole thing just disappeared, the last update was in January that there was a Chrome extension available. No communication or warning to users.”
Link to the founders of Friend.tech
On X, several members of the crypto community have pointed out that the struggling NFT project was related to the founders of Friend.tech.
Kalland pointed out that a search of 0xRacerAlt’s tweet shows that they’ve removed several links to the NFT project, and that the Friend.tech founder was taking an official stance on Kosetto Discord.
CryptoStores confirmed that 0xRacerAlt and Shrimppepe play an active role in Kosetto’s Discord community.
Kalland added:
“The most compelling evidence is their reuse of the Kosetto[.com] domain for the FT API. The original use of this website can be verified through the X Profile, Chrome Web Store, Discord and other sources.
CryptoStores was also able to confirm that Friend.Tech’s website contains links to Kosetto. At the time of writing, the founders of the project had not yet responded Crypto Slates request for comment.
Friend.Tech collects interest from the community
Friend.Tech has received a lot of interest from the crypto community since its launch on August 10. The decentralized social platform allows personalities to spend shares, granting access to exclusive content and chat groups.
Yearn Finance developer Banteg tweeted that more than 100,000 people have accessed the platform since its launch.
This has resulted in high transaction costs. Data from DeFiLlama shows that it has earned $1.42 million in fees in the past 24 hours, placing it behind only liquid staking protocol Lido (LDO) and Ethereum (ETH). The platform saw nearly $3 million in fees in the past seven days.
Last weekend, the protocol declared it would distribute 100 million points to users during its six-month beta period. The platform also revealed that venture capital firm Paradigm invested an undisclosed amount in “building tools for new online social interactions.”