As the SOFI fad kicks into high gear the problems with it just seem to stream in on a daily basis. Scrolling for a while on crypto Twitter reveals that Friend.Tech itself is most likely a dead or at least dying platform after the initial 1-month hype phase has ended. More importantly: many users are reporting their accounts being SIM-swap hacked and losing access to everything.
Obviously if accounts on Friend.Tech are only secured by SMS 2FA they are clearly centralized hunks of garbage. That is just such bad infrastructure on every level. These platforms are clearly WEB2.5 and don't even deserve to use the WEB3 moniker, but they will carry on claiming to be WEB3 or even WEB5 regardless. Marketers gonna market.
Maybe Stars Arena really is superior to Friend.Tech
I never made a FT account because I didn't want to download the app to my phone. I also didn't want to play with Coinbase's layer 2. Stars Arena was different because it's accessible via browser and it's build on Avalanche, which is considered a gaming network. That makes it a lot more appealing to me.
We can see here that on SA I have both a public key (presumably AVAX hotwallet) and a private key that I can export. I don't even see an option for any kind of 2FA, only private key security. That alone makes it WAY better than FT. But are there perhaps other things to worry about?
COUNTERPARTY RISK
It seems there is trouble in paradise within the Arena as well today. Apparently there is a flaw in the code that allows one to sell 0 tickets for a non-zero price. There's a comment in that thread that states selling 0 tickets only extracts 3 cents worth of AVAX and the operation fee is currently 15 cents, so this may get patched quickly and have no affect on the protocol.
But that's not the point.
The point is that even if these WEB2.5 ecosystems were truly decentralized and actually WEB3: THEY ARE NEW. The code is completely untested. There are attack vectors everywhere that nobody even knows about; Unknown unknowns around every corner. Users often act like these risks are zero until they get slammed into the wall by them. This is the cost of pioneering new technology. It's so easy to get sucked in, overextend, and then get cut off and completely wrecked. This is something we need to remember as we head into 2024: The Year of the New Narratives. Nothing is as it seems.
Okay that's pretty funny.
I've only posted my referral link one time when 0xNifty asked for it in LEO discord (unsolicited). Apparently 5 Hive users signed up through that one single link? kek
Speculation on markets
- Stocks are fucked
- Bonds are fucked
- National debt is fucked
- Dollar milkshake theory is fucked
- Japan's currency is fucked
- Europe is fucked
- Banks are fucked
- Real estate is fucked
- Oil is fucked.
- Inflation is fucked.
But Bitcoin is just holding steady.
It is wild to see this level of decoupling and still watch crypto Twitter lose their minds on every 1% dip. Remember the last banking crisis when 3 crypto-banks went under and Bitcoin number still went up? It seems like we are sitting in another one of those moments. Bitcoin may be one of the most risk-off assets out there at the moment considering the current spot-price.
The logarithmic trendline, if it is to be trusted, confirms this. That's why I went long even though the rest of the economy appears to be in shambles. How much longer until the FED makes printer go brrr again? They say they're going to raise interest rates again this year. I'm not buying it. Even if they do Bitcoin seems to be in a position to outlast everything else at the moment. Good times.
Oh wow
The gauntlet has been thrown. Stars Arena is officially accusing Friend.Tech of money attacking the platform at a huge loss simply to drain the TVL. I mean let's be honest this is the only narrative that makes sense. Why would you spend $5 to get $1 for any other reason but to discredit a competitor?
This means that not only did FT spend money on the attack itself... but also heavily implies that they paid at least one dev to look for an exploit like this as well. I mean of course it's possible that it didn't go down like this but it's also possible that it did. Really goes to show you what greed and PvP capitalism can do to people. Disappointing to say the least.
Conclusion
Expect these WEB2.5 platforms to gain popularity until they inevitably implode into a blackhole of unsustainability. Friend.Tech is on the decline, and none of the Stars Arena moonboys seem to realize that their business model is almost exactly the same. Stars Arena will thrive for a month or two at maximum. During that time everyone will be shilling it as God's gift to crypto. Good thing the Swarm knows better.
Return from Social Finance is not Decentralized to edicted's Web3 Blog
