Friendsie’s NFT creators deny ‘abandoning’ project amid accusations of carpet pulling

Nonfungible token (NFT) collection Friendsies has refuted claims that it is “abandoning” its NFT project following a tsunami of “rug pull” accusations against its founders.

On February 21, the founders behind the NFT project told their Twitter followers that it was putting a “pause” on Friendsies and “all future digital goods” for the time being, citing market challenges.

Around 40 minutes later, the Twitter account was deleted, while the account of Friendswithyou, who developed the project, was made private – sparked rumors that the founders had “roughed it” for around $5 million.

The project’s Twitter account has since been restored, and the founders have strongly denied that it is “leaving” the project. However, the founders’ account is still private.

“It is clear that we have upset many of you with the nature of our announcement and perhaps we did not handle it in the best possible way,” they said, adding:

“To be very clear, we are not abandoning FRIENDS.”

The founders said the initial announcement was more about halting social engagement “for now.”

“It was not meant to mean that we are stopping construction and seeking opportunities, these efforts continue,” it added.

Friendsies is a collection of 10,000 Ethereum-based NFTs launched in March 2022. It claimed to provide each holder with a purpose-built “digital companion” that can be used in the Metaverse, real-life experiences, art installations and gradually a “Tomogatchi-like” game to earn money.

There are currently 3,323 owners of Friendsie’s NFTs, with a base price of 0.012 Ether (ETH) (about $20) and a trading volume of 3,775 ETH, according to data from OpenSea.

In the initial announcement, Friendsies said that “the volatility and challenges in the market have made it very difficult to move this project forward in a way that we can be proud of.”

In the follow-up Twitter thread some 17 hours after the hiatus announcement, the project’s founders admitted they were “overwhelmed” by the hate and threats over the announcement:

“We were overwhelmed with hate and threats, and both Twitter and our website were attacked […] We apologize if we failed you today with our communication, but we are not going anywhere,” it wrote.

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Mastercard’s former NFT product manager, Satvik Sethi, who resigned in spectacular fashion earlier this month, has even made an offer to take over Friendsie’s NFT project.

“I will install a new team and take the project forward with a different vision,” he said.

“[Friendswithyou] if you care at all about your holders as you have always claimed, do the right thing. Don’t abandon people who put their trust in you despite all the noise. Hit me up, let’s discuss it.”