What innovations and optimizations have made Friend.tech clones Tomo and New Bitcoin City popular?
The TVL of the imitation platforms has each exceeded 1 million USD, showing a momentum to surpass Friend.Tech.Author: Felix, PANews
Last month, the rise of Friend.Tech ignited the SocialFi narrative, popularizing the idea of having closed communities where users need to pay for so-called keys to access group chats. Each time a key is purchased, its price becomes more expensive. Following the emergence of Friend.Tech, the market saw many similar clones, including Stars Arena on the Avalanche chain, HUB3 and Friendzy on the Solana chain, and Post.Tech on the Arbitrum chain.
Recently, two other clones, Tomo and New Bitcoin City, have emerged strongly. Currently, Tomo's TVL has reached $1.46 million, while New Bitcoin City's TVL has reached $1.07 million, showing a momentum to surpass Friend.Tech. This article provides a quick overview of the optimizations and innovations in the models and functional designs of Tomo and New Bitcoin City.
Tomo: Trade Without Joining
Tomo is based on the Linea protocol, with early players including the founders of Polychain, Ankr, and Galex. The crypto community once believed that this project was launched by the Ankr team, but this has not been confirmed.
In terms of gameplay, Tomo, like Friend.Tech, has introduced Keys. The difference is that Tomo has also introduced Votes, which are the terms used before KOLs join Tomo. Therefore, even if they have not yet joined, Votes can still be traded. Users can trade Votes to bet on whether a KOL will join; once the KOL joins, Votes will convert to Keys. For example, Musk's Vote is currently valued at 0.478 ETH (approximately $743). If Musk joins, 0.478 ETH will be the starting trading price for his Key.
Tomo's revenue mechanism starts operating when users make purchases. When users buy a Key (or Vote), there is a 10% tax: 5% goes to the platform, and 5% goes to the KOL. If the KOL does not join, this 5% tax will be deposited into a pool as unclaimed value. As users continue to buy, the trading volume of Votes increases, and the funds in the pool will grow, gradually enhancing the attractiveness for KOLs to join. If the KOL does not join for an extended period, after six months, the funds in the pool will be distributed to Vote holders.
In addition to its financial attributes, Tomo's app highlights social features and adds a private chat function. It is worth noting that the project code is currently not open source.
New Bitcoin City: Meeting Customization Needs for Trading
On September 16, the Bitcoin ecosystem development team New Bitcoin City launched the Alpha application. Alpha, as a decentralized social network protocol, is similar to Friend.Tech, working on the principle that users purchase tokens related to content creators, which are used to access exclusive content.
A member of New Bitcoin City and the founder of Alpha (pseudonym Punk3700) stated that Alpha is based on the Bitcoin Layer 2 network NOS, which employs a hybrid design using the Bitcoin network for data validation. However, the Alpha tech stack is not entirely based on Bitcoin; it also uses Polygon for data storage and Trustless Computer technology. Trustless Computer is a low-cost Layer 2 infrastructure that can support applications such as DEX, DAO, or NFT markets on Bitcoin. Punk3700 indicated that building Alpha in this way helps reduce transaction fees, benefiting users.
Users and the community are the main driving forces behind the Alpha platform's creators, with the development and launch taking only 48 hours. Unlike most SocialFi platforms, Alpha tends to become a social layer, allowing users from other protocols like Friend.tech to use their keys on its application. Alpha meets users' personalized needs, including setting the fee for Key transactions (0-8%) and the number of keys required to access group chats. Alpha supports users buying each other's keys that have been used for a month, a process referred to as "(3,3)".
Since its launch, Friend.Tech has faced criticism. This is not only due to its lack of decentralization and privacy protection, failing to embody the spirit of crypto, but also because of suspicions of riding on the popularity of Base. Whether the emergence of clones Tomo and New Bitcoin City can shake Friend.Tech's market position remains to be seen. In the future, whether these copies can surpass the original or if new copies will emerge to keep the SocialFi narrative alive is still uncertain.
