The Friendsies collection of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) has refuted claims that it is “giving up” on its NFT project following a tsunami of “tinkering” allegations against its founders.
On February 21, the founders of the NFT project told their Twitter followers that they were putting a “pause” on friendship and “all future digital goods” for now, citing market concerns.
After about 40 minutes, the Twitter account was deleted, and the Friendswithyou account that developed the project was deleted. did private – giving rise to rumors that the founders “earned” about $5 million.
With $5.3 million @friendsies_ai hard carpet earlier today it remains unclear how the funds could have been spent.
There have been no announcements, no community treasury, no P2E game since September.
The team blames “market volatility” for this. pic.twitter.com/FM8ytum4Ur
— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) February 21, 2023
The project’s Twitter account has since been reinstated, with the founders vehemently denying that this is a “project abandonment”. However, the Founders account is still private.
“It is understandable that we have upset many of you with the nature of our announcement and we may not have handled it in the best possible way,” they said, adding:
“To be perfectly clear, we are not giving up on FRIENDSHIP.”
The founders said the initial announcement was more about suspending social interaction “until further notice.”
“This did not mean that we are suspending construction and looking for opportunities, these efforts are ongoing,” he added.
Friendies is a set of 10,000 Ethereum-based NFTs that launched in March 2022. He envisioned giving each owner a custom-made “digital companion” that could be used in the Metaverse, real events, art installations, and in the end a tomogachi style game where you have to earn money.
According to OpenSea, there are currently 3,323 NFT Friends holders with a minimum price of 0.012 Ether (ETH) (approximately $20) and a trading volume of 3,775 ETH.
In the initial announcement, the Friendies stated that “The volatility and challenges of the market make it very difficult to move this project forward in a way that we can be proud of.”
˙ᵕ˙ – Hello friends! We wanted to reach out directly to the community with an important update. As the founders of the project, we decided that it was better to pause for @fRiENDSiES_Ai and all future digital goods at the moment. We had the best of intentions to make
— FRIENDS (@fRiENDSiES_Ai) February 21, 2023
In a follow-up Twitter thread about 17 hours after the pause was announced, the founders of the project admitted to being “overwhelmed” with hate and threats over the announcement:
“We were filled with hate and threats and our Twitter and website were attacked. […] We’re sorry if we let you down today with our communication, but we’re not going anywhere,” he wrote.
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Make a public offer to acquire Friendies. I will assemble a new team and promote the project with a different vision
The IP has so much potential and the owners deserve better. We just can’t let things like that slide around because it really hurts the space.
— Satvik Sethi (@sxtvik) February 21, 2023
Former Mastercard head of NFT products Satvik Sethi, who stepped down in spectacular fashion earlier this month, even made an offer to take over the Friendsies NFT project.
“I will put together a new team and move forward with a different vision,” he said.
“[Friendswithyou] if you care about your holders, as you have always claimed, do the right thing. Don’t abandon people who have trusted you despite all the noise. Hit me, let’s talk.”
Credit : cointelegraph.com
