Social finance protocols Tomo and New Bitcoin City now have more than $1 million locked in each of their smart contracts, a figure known as the total value locked, according to DefiLlama.
Both protocols are similar projects to Base-based FriendTech, the pioneer in an emerging space that uses a specific mix of social media with a financial twist. FriendTech has popularized the idea of gated communities where users must pay for so-called keys to access group chats, with the price of the keys becoming more expensive each time one is purchased.
Innovating with new social financing ideas
Tomo runs on the Linea platform and offers some different things than FriendTech, such as the ability to message someone directly. But the main aspect that makes Tomo different is that users can bet on the value of people’s keys if they were to join the platform. For example, Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s keys are currently valued at 0.478 ETH ($743), which is the price they would start trading at if he were to join the platform.
Based on the Bitcoin Layer 2 network NOS, New Bitcoin City takes a slightly different approach than most social finance platforms by attempting to be more of a social layer, allowing users of other protocols like FriendTech to use their keys on the app.
New Bitcoin City has added a number of customization levels, including the ability to set the fee a group chat owner charges for the purchase of their keys (between 0-8%) and the number of keys needed to access their group chat. It also allows users to purchase each other’s keys for a period of 30 days, a process referred to as (3,3).
These two projects are currently the only social finance platforms with more than $1 million in TVL, aside from FriendTech, which still dominates with $43.7 million. Avalanche-based StarsArena had over $1 million in TVL before it was hacked. The business will reopen today and trading will begin at a later date.