- Founders put NFT project on hold, deleted Twitter account
- Ex-NFT product lead at MasterCard offered to take the project over
The creators of NFT collection Friendsies refuted allegations that they were abandoning the project after a purported rug pull, CoinTelegraph reported. The founders tweeted on February 21 that they were putting the NFT project and other digital asset projects on hold, citing market volatility as the reason.
Twitter account was deleted
Their account was deleted less than an hour later. However, the account of project developer Friendswithyou was set to “private,” causing rumors to surface that the creators had made away with about $5 million.
The founders restored the project’s Twitter account thereafter and denied they were giving up. Their own account remains private.
What is Friendsies?
Friendsies is a collection of 10,000 NFTs based on Ethereum, which was introduced in March 2022. Its creators claimed to give holders a personalized digital companion they could use in art installations, real life, and the metaverse. Eventually, there would be a play-to-earn game featuring the companion. More than 3,000 people own Friendsies NFTs at the moment.
In their first announcement, the team commented:
The volatility and challenges of the market have made it very difficult to move this project forward in a way we can be proud of.
The next day, they wrote in a follow-up Twitter thread that they had received overwhelming threats and hate:
New horizons for the project
Satvik Sethi, formerly NFT product lead at MasterCard, has offered to take the project over. He handed in a highly publicized resignation letter earlier in February, accusing MasterCard of mistreatment and even launching the letter as an NFT. He pledged:
I’ll install a new team and take the project forward with a different vision. The IP has so much potential and the holders deserve better. We just cannot keep letting stuff like this slide because it really is hurting the space.
