Friend.tech Calls Out Incorrect Reports Alleging Data Leak

• Friend.tech has called out a crypto news website that alleged that the platform’s database was leaked. 
• The Block previously reported that the details of over 100,000 friend.tech users had been leaked. 
• The social platform clarified that the user information was taken from its public API. 

Friend.tech, the web3 social platform recently launched on Coinbase’s layer 2 Base, has called out crypto news website The Block for incorrectly reporting a database leak. The website published an article earlier today, claiming that a data leak had revealed the ETH addresses of more than 100,000 friend.tech users. 

Friend.tech Says “Leaked” Addresses Were Publicly Available

Friend.tech took to X (formerly Twitter) earlier today to call out The Block for alleging a database leak that supposedly revealed information about 101,000 of its users, including wallet addresses on Base, X usernames, X name, etc. The news outlet cited a Github repository shared by Yearn Finance developer Banteng, which contained the user database in question.

Friend.tech clarified that the user information was gathered by scraping their public API, which reportedly shows the association between public wallet addresses and public Twitter usernames. “It’s like saying someone hacked you by looking at your public Twitter feed,” the social platform added. 

The news website has since altered its article and made corrections suggesting that the user data was publicly available and not obtained from a leak. However, the crypto community on X criticized the website for spreading FUD through inaccurate reports. The Block’s Director of Research got into a heated debate while defending the actions of his team. 

I think the debate goes into whether there was some public database (which should have been private) already linking the accounts and addresses that @bantg found and published or whether Bantg manually scraped and connected the accounts and addresses together.

The incident highlighted friend/tech’s popularity, given that it managed to accumulate more than 100,000 users since its launch on August 10, 2023. Data from DeFiLlama showed that the fees generated by the social platform exceeded $25 million. Data from Dune Analytics showed that the platform’s cumulative trading volume was nearly $56 million. The social platform has added more than 17,000 new users over the past 24 hours. 

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