Crypto Trader And Influencer Machi Big Brother Loses $16 Million Betting On Friend.Tech

Updated: 10 September 2024

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Pseudonymous crypto trader and influencer Machi Big Brother has lost $16 million investing in the SocialFi project Friend.Tech (FRIEND).

On-chain tracking platform Lookonchain highlighted the popular trader’s losses in a Sept. 9 post on X. In total, Machi Big Brother spent around 5.2K Ethereum (ETH) worth $16.7 million to purchase 11.1 million FRIEND tokens.

The total dollar purchase of this investment stood at $0.7 million at the time of the post, according to Lookonchain.

Machi Big Brother(@machibigbrother) spent ~5.2K $ETH($16.7M) to buy 11.1M $FRIEND, now worth only $0.7M!

He lost ~$16M on $FRIEND!https://t.co/j5UByo1LAf pic.twitter.com/4c5oQPNH62

— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) September 9, 2024

The token has soared over 61% in the past 24 hours, enbling Machi Big Brother to recover some of the losses from the bet on FRIEND. The token traded at $0.0986 as of 3:33 a.m. EST, pushing the dollar amount of the trader’s FRIEND position to over $1 million.

Despite soaring over 61% in the last 24 hours, the crypto is still in the red by more than 90% on the yearly time frame, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

FRIEND Plunges After Team Transfers Smart Control Control To Null Address

FRIEND’s price plummeted following a series of decisions from the project’s team. Most notably, it chose to abandon control of the token’s smart contract, which came within just a year of its launch.

On Sept. 8, the project’s management transferred control of their smart contract to the Ethereum null address. This has removed any possibility of the team regaining control of the contract to fix any bugs or introduce additional features on the platform in the future.

We hear your questions about https://t.co/YOHabcBL3H. Here's what you need to know:

1. We have no plans to shutter or discontinue the https://t.co/YOHabcBL3H web app.
2. The actions below guarantee that no future changes can be made to smart contracts deployed on Base which… https://t.co/FK9omMDG7X

— friend.tech (@friendtech) September 9, 2024

Following the transfer of the contract’s control, the Friend.Tech team attempted to reassure investors that it has no plans “to shutter or discontinue” the project’s web app. Instead, the team said that it transferred ownership to the null address so that the team can’t raise or create new fees in the future.