Machi Big Brother Withdraws $1M Bid After Friend.tech Rally
Machi Big Brother offered $1 million for Friend.tech on Aug. 27, lifting the FRIEND token about 1,500%, then withdrew the bid nine days later and accused Paradigm of blocking it.
Investor Machi Big Brother, whose legal name is Jeffrey Huang, posted a $1 million offer to buy parts of Friend.tech on Aug. 27 and said the bid covered the project’s X account and web address only, not its smart contracts. The announcement coincided with a sharp rally in the FRIEND token.
Nine days later Huang withdrew the proposal and wrote that he believed venture firm Paradigm was blocking the sale. He also urged Friend.tech co-founder Racer to rebuild the app on Robinhood Chain and offered support. Huang’s post included the lines: “I’m guessing my offer is being blocked by Paradigm. I rescind my offer. Racer relaunch Friendtech on Robinhood chain, I will support.”
Friend.tech launched on Base in 2023 as a Web3 social app that lets users buy and sell shares in other users. Paradigm led the startup’s seed round that year. The original Friend.tech team relinquished control of the project’s smart contracts in September 2024, creating uncertainty about what a buyer of social handles and the domain would actually acquire.
Market activity around the FRIEND token was volatile during the episode. The token spiked roughly 1,500% during the surge tied to Huang’s initial offer. It now trades near $0.0069, up about 5% over the past 24 hours, with an estimated market value of roughly $659,000, down from a peak market cap near $4.89 million reached during the August rally. Over a 90-day period the token shows a gain of about 382%.
Huang holds a prior large position in FRIEND. He bought about 11 million tokens for around 5,200 ETH; that holding later declined in value by more than $16 million. The reversal of his buyout proposal left unresolved questions about ownership rights and what elements of the project are transferable.
Robinhood Chain, an Arbitrum-based layer-2 network that went live on July 1, has seen heavy trading on decentralized exchanges and large flows into meme tokens since launch. Some market observers have raised concerns that heavy meme-coin activity on the chain could conflict with efforts to support tokenized stock products.
Racer had not posted a public response as of Saturday afternoon. Whether Friend.tech returns in any form will depend on decisions by the co-founder and on the unclear legal and technical status of the project’s smart contracts.
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