Crypto investor Jeffrey Huang, known as Machi Big Brother, has withdrawn his $1 million bid to acquire Friend.tech, reversing course just nine days after making the original offer on August 27. The withdrawal sent the FRIEND token up more than 1,500% before Huang's reversal.
Huang's buyout proposal sought only the project's X account and web address. Friend.tech, which launched on Base in 2023, allows users to trade shares with each other. Venture firm Paradigm led a seed round into the startup that same year.
In a post on social media, Huang suggested that Paradigm was blocking the deal, though he offered no evidence for the claim. He stated: "I'm guessing my offer is being blocked by Paradigm. I rescind my offer." Huang has a history with the token, having purchased 11 million FRIEND for roughly 5,200 ETH—a position that later lost over $16 million in value.
The original Friend.tech team surrendered control of the smart contracts in September 2024, leaving unclear what a potential buyer would actually own.
Pivot to Robinhood Chain
Instead of pursuing the acquisition, Huang urged Friend.tech co-founder Racer to relaunch the Web3 social app on Robinhood Chain, promising his support for such a move. Robinhood Chain, an Arbitrum-based layer-2 network, went live on July 1 and has since surpassed Ethereum in volume on decentralized exchanges.
The token has attracted significant meme-coin activity since its launch. Some analysts have expressed concern that this focus could distract from Robinhood's broader ambitions around tokenized stocks.
The FRIEND token currently trades near $0.0069, up roughly 5% over the past 24 hours. Its market value of approximately $659,000 remains well below the $4.89 million peak reached during the August rally, though the token has gained 382% over the past 90 days. Racer had not publicly responded to Huang's proposal as of Saturday afternoon.
