Nftnews Today Friendsies NFT creators deny ‘abandoning’ project amid rug pull allegations
The staff behind nonfungible token assortment Friendsies has refuted claims they’re “abandoning” the NFT mission following a tsunami of “rug pull” accusations.
On Feb. 21, the founders behind the NFT mission advised their Twitter followers that they werputting a “pause” on Friendsies and “all future digital items” in the interim, citing market challenges.
Round 40 minutes later, the Twitter account was deleted, whereas the account of Friendswithyou, who developed the mission, was made non-public — sparking rumors that the founders had “rugged” for about $5 million.
With the $5.3m @friendsies_ai onerous rug earlier at this time it stays unclear how the funds might’ve presumably been spent.
There have been no bulletins since September, no group treasury, and no P2E sport.
The staff blames “market volatility” as their rationale. pic.twitter.com/FM8ytum4Ur
— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) February 21, 2023
The mission’s Twitter account has since been reinstated with the founders vehemently denying they’re “abandoning” the mission. The founders’ account remains to be non-public, nevertheless.
“It’s clear that we now have upset a lot of you with the character of our announcement, and maybe we didn’t deal with that in the easiest way attainable,” they stated, including:
“To be very clear, we’re not abandoning fRiENDSiES.”
The founders stated the preliminary announcement was extra about pausing social engagement “till additional discover.”
“That was not meant to imply we’re pausing constructing and in search of alternatives, these efforts stay on-going,” it added.
Friendsies is a set of 10,000 Ethereum-based NFTs that launched final March. It purported to offer every holder a custom-built “digital companion” thatcould be used within the metaverse, real-life experiences, artwork installations, and eventually a “Tomogatchi-like” play-to-earn sport.
There are at the moment 3,323 homeowners of Friendsies NFTs. The gathering has a flooring value of 0.012 Ether (ETH) (roughly $20) and a buying and selling quantity of three,775 ETH, in line with information from OpenSea.
Within the preliminary announcement, Friendsies stated the “volatility and challenges of the market have made it very tough to maneuver this mission ahead in a method we could be happy with.”
˙ᵕ˙ – Hello pals! We needed to succeed in out on to the group with an vital replace. Because the mission founders, we now have determined that it might be greatest to place a pause on @fRiENDSiES_Ai and all future digital items in the interim. We had one of the best intentions to make a
— fRiENDSiES (@fRiENDSiES_Ai) February 21, 2023
Within the follow-up Twitter thread some 17 hours after the pause announcement, the mission’s founders admitted they had been “overwhelmed” with hate and threats over the announcement:
“We had been overwhelmed with hate and threats & each our Twitter and web site had been attacked […] We’re sorry if we allow you to down at this time with our communication, however we’re not going anyplace,” it wrote.
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Making a public supply to take over Friendsies. I’ll set up a brand new staff and take the mission ahead with a distinct imaginative and prescient
The IP has a lot potential and the holders deserve higher. We simply can’t maintain letting stuff like this slide as a result of it truly is hurting the area.
— Satvik Sethi (@sxtvik) February 21, 2023
Mastercard’s former NFT product lead, Satvik Sethi, who resigned in spectacular trend earlier this month, has even made a suggestion to take over the Friendsies NFT mission.
“I’ll set up a brand new staff and take the mission ahead with a distinct imaginative and prescient,” he stated.
“[Friendswithyou] if you happen to care in any respect about your holders such as you’ve all the time claimed, do the fitting factor. Don’t abandon individuals who put their belief in you regardless of all of the noise. Hit me up, let’s talk about it.”
The journalist is a writer and digital nomad. Loves thinking, learning, and writing about all things Web3, particularly its impact on major creative industries.
