Machi Big Brother proposes $1 million buyout of Friend.tech

Jeffrey Huang, the entrepreneur known as Machi Big Brother, has proposed a $1 million buyout of the SocialFi platform Friend.tech. The offer targets the project's co-founder Racer and the venture firm Paradigm to facilitate a “CTO relaunch” of the FRIEND token.

Following the proposal, the FRIEND token experienced extreme volatility. Trading volume surged nearly 95,000% within a 24-hour period, and the token's price saw massive spikes, at one point increasing over 1,600% as traders reacted to the potential takeover. Despite these gains, the token remains significantly down from its initial trading highs.

The buyout attempt is complicated by the current technical state of the project. The Friend.tech development team previously transferred ownership of its trading contracts to an Ethereum null address, meaning the core code cannot be easily changed or redirected. Huang noted that his primary interest lies in acquiring the X account and the domain URL.

The proposal also brings renewed attention to Huang's previous involvement with the token. Records indicate he previously acquired approximately 11 million FRIEND tokens at a cost of roughly $16.7 million, which later fell to a value of approximately $500,000.