Friend.tech look-alike ‘Alpha’ emerges on Bitcoin network

The Bitcoin network got its own community-based social token ecosystem after a new project called Alpha emerged overnight. 

As a decentralized social network protocol, Alpha is similar to the widely-known Ethereum-based platform Friend.tech. It allows users to monetize their online persona and content creation via its social tokens.

️Alpha α is officially here

More than the @friendtech of Bitcoin, Alpha is set out to be one of the leading SocialFi dApps

Built on BitcoinFully decentralized & permissionlessOptimized UX for Key trading & alpha calls sharing

Get Alpha Now: https://t.co/V7GX7UReQ4 pic.twitter.com/q6j4IrGic7

— New Bitcoin City (@NewBitcoinCity) September 16, 2023

However, unlike Friend.tech, Alpha has a different makeup. The finality is anchored on the Bitcoin blockchain, while the Polygon blockchain is used for data storage, with Trustless Computer being the project’s own scaling network for Bitcoin. 

One of the co-founders of the project is a pseudonymous user dubbed Punk3700, who is quoted describing the makeup of Alpha as “a rollup that rolls up to another rollup that rolls up to Bitcoin.” 

Cointelegraph spoke with Punk3700 to better understand the developments behind the launch of the new Bitcoin-based social token network.

“Alpha implies a layered architecture that includes NOS-TC. Trustless Computer (TC) is an optimistic rollup layer that centers directly on the Bitcoin blockchain. NOS is implemented as another optimistic product of layers to provide additional scalability on Bitcoin.”

He said the optimistic rollup layers “work in tandem” to provide security and efficiency for the environment to deploy decentralized applications.

“NOS is configured with a hybrid design that uses Bitcoin for data validity,” he said, “and then uses Polygon for data storage — in the end, we settle on Bitcoin.”

“​​This will allow for flexibility with data storage for different needs because the fee on Bitcoin is insanely expensive. We believe that for those kinds of actions, we shouldn’t pay a lot.”

He said building up Alpha in this way helps benefit the users in terms of lowering transaction fees. According to Punk3700, users and the community are the main drive for the creators of the Alpha platform, who developed and launched in only 48 hours.

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“Alpha has a strong community-driven development approach,” Punk3700 said. He mentioned a new referral program currently being built, which will allow users to earn 1% of their friends’ trading volume.

“This will encourage users to invite their friends into the platform and also will inspire content creators to create more valuable content.”

Alpha works by users purchasing tokens connected to content creators themselves, which are used to access exclusive content.

While Alpha is quickly amassing new users since its launch, Friend.tech recently posted on X (formerly Twitter) about its decision to punish users who use forks of copycat versions of its platform.

“To make sure loyal users are rewarded fairly during our beta, users moving to forks and copies will automatically opt out of earning Points and forfeit existing points,” it posted. 

That came shortly after critics announced the platform as “dead” after a slump in key metrics, including user activity, inflows and volume. It also struggled with rumors of a data leak — refuted by Friend.tech — of over 100,000 of its user’s personal data being breached.

Completed with additional reporting by  Tom Mitchelhill

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