On Feb. 21, Friendsies, a non-fungible token (NFT) series that had recently raised around $5 million, unexpectedly announced that it was “pausing” its roadmap, sparking rumors in the community that could pull the rug.
According to the Friendsies team, "volatility and challenges in the market" complicated the progress of the project, so they decided to put it on hold while the space continued to mature. They added that the team will "wait and wait for the right time and opportunity" to resurface and realize their full vision, thanking everyone who believed in and supported the project from the beginning.
However, the developer’s decision was not welcomed by the community, as many said they faced the possibility of being pulled from one of the most promising NFT projects in the ecosystem. That's probably because the project's account disappeared -- at least temporarily.
Samuel Borkson and Arturo Sandoval III offer The Friendsies collection in April 2022 via a Dutch auction starting at 3.33 ETH ($5,510). The project was eventually able to raise a total of $5.3 million from the minting of 10,000 NFTs, according to Twitter user ZachXBT, who said he had no idea “how those funds might be used.” According to ZachXBT, the developers stated in their roadmap that "1.25% of all royalties (approximately 47 ETH) should be distributed to holders," but this never happened, and they did so by removing the roadmap from Discord.
For their part, NFT investor Tmagled argued that, a year after he came under fire for speaking poorly about the project, the carpet pull he was so vehemently opposed to finally materialized. Satvik Sethi, CEO of Joincircle, a Web3-focused social app, and former head of NFT product at Mastercard, took to Twitter to open up his offer to Friends, proposing to take over the project and partner with the new Together the team drives it forward. Sethi has yet to hear a response from the Friendsies developers, but many members of the NFT community expressed support for continuing the project.
It's worth mentioning that rug pulls (or rumors) can be very bad for investors. If such an incident happened, they could lose their funds quickly, and it would be very difficult to pursue legal accountability for a decentralized project. On the other hand, if the rumor spreads and gains enough strength, the lack of trust could be at odds with any possible plans the team has to move forward. Both of these situations have happened before.
The Friendsies team later posted a tweet reassuring their fan base that they had no intention of soliciting investors, likely in response to the massive outpouring of hate they received. There are many uncertainties in society at present. Will Friendsies be the first NFT rug pull in 2023, will it move on after a "misunderstanding", or will it accept Sethi's offer to save the project? For now, only the developers know the answer, and they've been keeping quiet.
