I think your friend are telling the truth. Nowadays, getting reward from bounty is too hard to think about even. I can't remember when people last say that they had got a chunk amount of money from bounty while in 2017, it was easy to get thousands of dollar as far as I know.
Everyone remembers only 2017 as a good year for earning bounty hunters. 2018 was a very bad year. That year, almost bounty hunters earned nothing and only incurred losses if they were forced to sell part of the earned tokens. This year, the earnings of the bounty hunters are really very small. Even if we receive large amounts of new tokens, it still does not mean anything. Most of them are either not traded on the exchange, or have a very low price, for which these tokens do not even make sense to sell. This year, we have not yet seen a good increase in the price of altcoins. Those who keep their earned tokens are doing it right. Their growth period should still be ahead.