Hashtag Protocol Project Update #1

Successes, Challenges & Potentials

Welcome to the first official project update for Hashtag Protocol.  A ton has happened since we launched on Mainnet this March, so I’ll just summarize with bullet points using the old “rose, thorn & bud” model for getting kids to talk about their day.

In the future, I hope to make these updates a bit more regular — probably monthly.

Our Vision & Mission

If you’ve been away for a while, a quick reminder, Hashtag Protocol is a new, experimental protocol that enables social content tagging for the decentralized web.

Our vision is a paradigm shift where hashtags are mediated by a decentralized crypto-economic network rather than a few central authorities.

To achieve this, we are developing a simple toolkit for developers to tokenize hashtag strings as non-fungible tokens (NFTs), link them with various online media and surface this data for use in networks, platforms and applications.

Stitched into this functionality are crypto-economic incentive mechanisms that reward participants to drive positive network growth.

Head over to the Protocol Overview for more technical details.

The Roses

• Registered U.S. Provisional Utility Patent for the technology

• Successful launch on Mainnet
  A big thank you (again) Andy, James & Vince from BlockRocket for getting us off the ground.

• Establishing our OpenSea Collection
  Including dynamically generated token images.

• Partial proof of concept validation
  Over 150 HASHTAG tokens minted since launch (see full list below), the majority minted by anonymous users. Content tagging is another story; see the Thorns.

• Polygon Developer Support Grant
  Met with the folks at Polygon and was awarded a Polygon Developer Support Grant to support our roadmap of migrating to the Polygon network. Obviously this is a real validation of our vision and work to date. Thank you Ishan, Hari & Shreyansh.

• Expanded the Core Dev Team by two members

• Expanded the Hashtag Council by one member

• Two completed Gitcoin bounties

• Treasury Partnership with BasketDAO

The Thorns

• High gas prices on Ethereum Mainnet
  We could have (and should have) anticipated this, but since march minting HASHTAG tokens ranges from $10-50 and tagging content ranges from $15-60. While quite a few HASHTAG tokens have been minted, tagging has been non-existent. This effectively killed our proof-of-concept. On the bright side, the learnings were invaluable, and have guided our next steps. See The Buds below.

The Buds 

• Migrating to Polygon.
  The high prices of Ethereum Mainnet guided our decision to migrate to Polygon in search of low transaction costs and scalability. We anticipate both minting and tagging to be sub-penny, giving us tons of latitude to test our use-cases and find our product-market fit. Migration is under way and will continue to report on the progress in all our channels.

• Multi-chain tagging
  The long-term vision for Hashtag Protocol is for HASHTAG tokens to maintain function and provenance across chains and for virtually any digital content or asset to be taggable with them. A milestone along that path is to enable tagging of NFTs living on various chains and are in the process of refactoring our V1 tagging contract to support this.

• Partnership with NFTPort
  We have partnered with Henry, Johannes and the Dev Team at NFTPort to begin integrating their NFT index api into our demonstration dApp. This will enable us to source target NFTs as well as access their metadata in a more scalable manner.

The first one fifty three

Because I love them all, here’s all the HASHTAG tokens to date:

#TokenizeEverything, #NHL, #Dali, #CopaAmerica, #Presidency, #Billionaire, #Anonymous, #JackDorsey, #LarryEllison, #Hashtags, #hashtag, #HashtagProtocol, #Business, #cryptopunker, #FLAMINGODAO, #matrix, #meme, #tiktok, #conspiracy, #cashless, #bank, #earth, #Mars, #Mortgage, #space, #decentralised, #Christie, #loveit, #photooftheday, #fashionblogger, #laith, #cannabis, #cryptocurrency, #hemp, #Loan, #marijuana, #ganja, #weed, #poker, #blogger, #lol, #model, #foodporn, #photography, #amazing, #Bitcoin, #life, #travel, #style, #happy, #bankless, #zpunks, #banksy, #Pranksy, #BitClout, #car, #Ethereum, #nature, #doyourownresearch, #SpikeLee, #usa, #Blockchain, #Chase, #GoldmanSachs, #WellsFargo, #CryptoPunks, #Citi, #MorganStanley, #jpmorgan, #cryptoart, #LinkedIn, #Instagram, #Facebook, #Trump, #Microsoft, #nft, #Twitter, #SNL, #scifi, #GenerativeArt, #love, #ClimateChange, #RogerFederer, #digitalart, #DragoNate, #NFT42, #Avastars, #Tesla, #NSFW, #Whale, #beeple, #VRart, #art, #collectible, #MarkCuban, #DallasMavericks, #ThisJody, #TYCHO, #ElonMusk, #CoinGecko, #AlgoStablecoin, #VanLife, #theta, #Yankees, #superfarm, #UniswapV3, #mothersday, #video, #audio, #RealEstate, #stayhome, #covid19, #home, #greece, #mykonos, #FED, #Dogecoin, #CBDCs, #CBDC, #METOO, #NFL, #Pride, #sex, #Olympics, #TOKIO, #Iphone, #mask, #3dprint, #guns, #Metaverse, #allien, #NBA, #Spain, #vaccine, #Hollywood, #Oscars, #Crash, #Elections, #kanamanazhia, #Brasil, #France, #Europe, #MLB, #Italy, #America, #California, #LosAngeles, #Singapore, #Ronaldo, #Barca, #Beckham, #BillGates, #Picasso

Thank you!

Well that’s it for now. If you’ve made it this far, then thank you. We greatly appreciate your interest and support of the Hashtag Protocol. Feel free to reach out by email (michael@hashtag-protocol.or) or any social channel if I can be of assistance. Also, please help us keep the party going by…

• Following us on Twitter at @HashtagProtoHQ and liking or retweeting our posts.

• Joining our Discord with technical questions, feedback or just saying “Hi!”

• Minting a HASHTAG token or tagging some content and tell your friends about it.

Until next time,
Michael Paler, Founder