
The debut of a new SocialFi application has led to a significant increase in both transactions on the Avalanche network and the price of AVAX. Notably, Stars Arena, a novel social media platform developed on the Avalanche blockchain, has spearheaded this growth. Recent statistics from DeFiLlama revealed that transactions on the Avalanche network surged to 585,000 on October 2nd, marking the highest level since May and soaring above the previous day's count of 254,000. CoinGecko data at 11am New York time indicated that the price of the Avalanche token, AVAX, rose by 4% over the past 24 hours, registering the most substantial gain among all Layer 1 chains.
The surge in network activity primarily stems from the blockchain-based social media app Stars Arena, which follows a similar model to friend.tech. Stars Arena allows users to acquire shares from one another, which grants access to private chats. Friend.tech, on the other hand, emerged in the cryptocurrency scene approximately two months ago, amassing more than 235,000 ETH in trading volume and attracting over 300,000 unique traders, as outlined by data from Dune Analytics. The popularity of friend.tech has fueled optimism regarding increased crypto adoption within the SocialFi sector, a narrative that appears to be strengthened further by the successful launch of Stars Arena.
According to DeFiLlama, Stars Arena's total value locked (TVL) surpassed the $1 million milestone on Thursday, having escalated from less than $35,000 in just one week. However, it is important to note that Stars Arena's TVL still lags behind friend.tech's TVL, which stands at $46 million based on DeFiLlama data.
The rise of Stars Arena coincides with a series of SIM swap attacks that resulted in the unauthorized withdrawal of tens of thousands of dollars in ETH from users' accounts on friend.tech. These security breaches have sparked concerns regarding the safety of user funds on the platform.
Nevertheless, even Stars Arena encountered a hacking incident on Thursday. The team promptly addressed the situation and announced on Twitter/X that they had successfully fixed the exploit.