Creators of Friendsies NFT Deny Rug Pull Allegations

Following a “rug pull” rumor, the team behind the non-fungible token collection Friendsies has denied claims that they are “abandoning” the NFT project. They said: 

“To be very clear, we are not abandoning fRiENDSiES.”

The NFT project’s creators informed their Twitter followers on February 21 that they were temporarily pausing Friendsies and “all future digital goods” due to market difficulties.

The project’s developer, Friendswithyou, made their account private and after sometime the Twitter account was removed, which led to speculation that the creators of the NFT project had “rugged” for $5 million.

Founders Deny Rug Pulling the NFT Project

The founders strongly deny “abandoning” the NFT project, and the project’s Twitter account has since been reinstated. However, the account of the founders is still personal.

According to the founders, the original announcement focused more on postponing social interaction “until further notice.”  It explained : 

“That was not intended to mean we are pausing building and seeking opportunities, those efforts remain on-going,” 

Currently, 3,323 people are the owners of Friendsies NFTs. Data from OpenSea shows that 3,775 ETH have been traded for the collection.

Friendsies stated in the initial announcement that it had been “very difficult to move this project forward in a way we can be proud of” due to the “volatility and challenges of the market.”

The NFT project’s creators acknowledged that they were “overwhelmed” by hatred and threats in the follow-up Twitter thread, which started about 17 hours after the pause announcement which stated, “We were overwhelmed with hate and threats & both our Twitter and website were attacked […] We are sorry if we let you down today with our communication, but we are not going anywhere.”

Satvik Sethi, a former NFT product lead for Mastercard, has even offered to take over the Friendsies NFT initiative. He declared: “I’ll install a new team and take the project forward with a different vision.”

Notably, Sethi left Mastercard  just this month. The firm is demonstrating its presence in the realm of cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and the metaverse, like many other companies.