There was a time when likes, follows, and comments were nothing more than digital applause. Nice for the ego, useless for the wallet. That era is fading fast. Enter SocialFi, short for Social Finance, a corner of crypto that blends social media with DeFi tools and asks a simple question: what if online engagement actually paid you?
At its core, SocialFi lets users own their content, their data, and their communities. Interactions can turn into tokens or NFTs, and everything runs on transparent blockchains instead of opaque platforms. In theory, it is the long-promised upgrade to social media economics.
In practice, results vary. A lot.
Let’s look at three of the biggest names in the space, Friend.tech, Lens Protocol, and CyberConnect, and see who is actually turning digital interactions into something sustainable.
Friend.tech: From crypto sensation to social relic
If you were anywhere near Crypto Twitter in 2023, you probably remember Friend.tech. It launched on Coinbase’s Base network in August and immediately became the hottest ticket in town. At its peak, it pulled in around 77,000 daily users. Everyone was buying “keys,” trading access, and watching fees pile up.
Then the music stopped.
Today, daily active users have collapsed to well under 100. Yes, really. The platform still boasts about $90 million in lifetime fees, with roughly $44 million going to founders, but daily fee revenue has sunk below $100. That is not a typo.
There are around 95 million FRIEND tokens in circulation, with no fixed maximum supply, and the price chart tells a brutal story. What once looked like a clever bonding curve experiment is now SocialFi’s favorite warning sign. Hype can move numbers fast, but it does not guarantee staying power. It can buy yachts, just not loyalty.
Lens Protocol: Rebuilding social from the ground up
Lens took a very different approach. Instead of chasing virality, it focused on infrastructure. On April 4, 2025, Lens made a bold move, migrating its entire ecosystem off Polygon and onto its own Lens Chain L2, built with zkSync and Avail.
That move carried serious weight: roughly 650,000 profiles, 12 million posts, and 28 million social connections came along for the ride. The result is a cleaner, faster, and cheaper social layer designed for builders and creators first.
Transactions now cost next to nothing thanks to sponsored actions and payments via Aave’s GHO stablecoin, cutting fees by more than 90 percent. Before the migration, daily active users hovered around 2,900. Post-migration, the community is openly talking about six-figure user counts.
Developers love Lens because it feels like a box of social building blocks. Users like it because it does not nickel-and-dime them. Speculators like it because, well, there is always an airdrop rumor somewhere. Think of Lens as digital homesteading, open land, shared tools, and room to build without asking permission.
CyberConnect: The quiet adult in the room
CyberConnect does not shout. It does not trend every week. It just works.
With more than 2 million users, over 20 million transactions, and a steady 50,000 daily active users, CyberConnect has quietly outperformed many flashier rivals. Its tokenomics are refreshingly disciplined, with a fixed supply of 100 million CYBER tokens, with only about 11 percent currently circulating.
Under the hood, it leans on ERC-4337 account abstraction to make the user experience smooth. Basic actions are gasless. Premium features like .cyber identities burn tokens, rewarding long-term holders rather than extractive middlemen. Cross-chain support and event tooling through Link3 keep users coming back.
CyberConnect’s philosophy is simple: build something useful, and growth will follow. No hype circus required.
The data reveals a telling trend: sustainable architecture and user-centric design outlast viral surges in SocialFi.
What actually matters in SocialFi
If you zoom out, the pattern is hard to ignore. Viral spikes make headlines, but solid architecture and user-first design keep platforms alive. SocialFi is not about how loud the launch is. It is about whether people still care six months later.
So where does that leave you?
If you want to explore crypto’s past mistakes, Friend.tech is a fascinating ghost town. If you want to experiment and build freely, Lens offers a playground with low friction and big ideas. If you want steady ground and proven traction, CyberConnect is quietly doing the work.
The lesson is simple: balance buzz with real utility. Otherwise, you may end up funding someone else’s yacht while you are still wondering why your coffee money disappeared.
Choose wisely. Meme responsibly. And may your engagement actually compound this time.
Please remember that this is for informational purposes only. They do not constitute financial advice. Altcoin Desk is not liable for any financial decisions you make.
