Solana-Based Social-Fi Protocol Tribe.Run Takes Off

Social-Fi continues to regain mindshare in the crypto markets as activity on Tribe.Run picked up over the weekend.

Tribe, a project that was incubated by the prestigious crypto accelerator Alliance DAO, is a blockchain-based social media platform on the Solana network. The platform functions similarly to FriendTech, as users can buy and sell tokens in exchange for access to gated chatrooms.

The anonymous founder of Tribe known as Billzh shared that the protocol started processing record traffic between Jan. 23 and Jan. 26. There is no public data available at this time, but according to Billzh Tribe passed 3,000 unique users on Jan.25, compared to roughly 1,400 in December.

The platform touts a retro PC-style interface, reminiscent of the late 1990’s and early 2000’s internet era. Early access to the dApp launched in October 2024, and began ramping up its invite allowance in November. A referral from an existing Tribe user is required to gain access to the platform.

Tribe offers creators more customization than FriendTech. Creators can set limits to the number of social tokens people must own to gain access to their chatroom. Creators also have the option to buy as many of their own tokens as they’d like prior to their public launch.

One of the criticisms FriendTech faced was that influential creators were forced to adopt third-party sniping services to obtain a desired amount of their own keys.

Tribe also includes a generous referral system, which grants referees 150 social tokens of users they refer. The most expensive social token on the platform belongs to Billzh, who is priced at 0.9 SOL, or $210 per token.

Prior to the launch, Billzh reached out to 5,000 ex-FriendTech users to gather insight on user-experience, according to Billzh and Qiao Wang of Alliance .

The protocol exploded with activity over the last few days after social-fi was thrust back in the limelight with the launch of another Alliance-backed project, Clout.