Hashmasks Community Update
The Hashmasks came on the scene January 27th, 2021 with an industry shaping collectibles drop that re-ignited the concept of generative collectibles not seen since the legendary CryptoPunks came to market in 2017. There are currently over 4,600 unique Hashmasks owners and $66M in secondary sales to date. In the last 6 months we’ve seen an explosion of growth in not just the art collectibles space but across the board in terms of collectibles and the utility in how they were applied.
The unprecedented growth of NFT has been astounding and we are excited to be at the forefront of it. We have identified opportunities for furthering the Hashmasks community and will, in addition, kick off an extended version of our grant program to supercharge the community to build on, with or around Hashmasks. This version extends our scope and also the potential funding size to support larger scale projects.
Moving forward we believe that the space for collectibles has splintered into several categories and ideally an NFT collectibles project will address many of those categories in due time. Below we’ll share our plans for how we plan to cover these areas.
Avatars/pfp
The last 6 months have presented a rapid surge in the avatar utility. The social media circle we all have come to get accustomed to on Twitter, Discord, Instagram, Clubhouse and other places provides immediate and simple utility for avatar collectibles to meet the growing demand. Hashmasks originally were designed as art collectibles and while a Hashmask could be used as an avatar we realize that it is not ideal for that utility.
We are currently exploring ideas to create a pfp/avatar NFT for all Hashmask owners at no extra charge. The intent of these avatars will aim to have consistency in the Hashmasks artistic style while making needed aesthetic changes to reflect items(e.g. mirror, glyphs) and patterns in a thoughtful manner and proper proportions and ratios for a social media avatar. Existing metadata of a mask will drive the creation of the accompanying Hashmask avatar. The rarity and traits will be matched to your existing Hashmasks art collectible. The goal is to preserve rarity alignment between your avatar and art.
Digital Prints Status
As stated in previous articles, the capability for official digital prints is in progress. We’ve heard the community and are exploring adding the ability to turn the naming of digital prints on/off, along with enabling each mask owner the ability to turn creation of additional prints on/off.
Super Charged Community Grants
The team, along with inputs from the community, have recognized some potential ideas. The rest of the article formulates some of these ideas. We encourage the community to apply for a grant if any of these ideas resonate with you or aligns with something you are already building. More importantly, we are also opening the grant program to fund ‘public goods’ for the NFT space. So, applications not directly tied to Hashmasks will also be considered.
Art & Media
Sharing and flexing your art is a very important component of the NFT space. Web 2.0 platforms such as Twitter and Instagram have very fixed and formatted shapes and ratios for display. Your Hashmasks do not properly display, especially if you want to include the important name component. We will fund a grant for a social media and meme kit designed by artists and properly fitted to display your Hashmask art on social media in an ideal way including display of the chosen name. No more cropping and fitting concerns for display.
There’s also another special feature we’re in development of specifically for Hashmasks owners. We don’t want to share it until we enable it in the coming months as it is unique.
Metaverse/Virtual Worlds
The Hashmask team has acquired or will acquire plots in the 4 major virtual worlds:
- Sandbox
- CryptoVoxels
- Decentraland
- Somnium Space
Sandbox
The land in Sandbox will be used for showing off Hashmasks, other art works and games which will be developed around the Hashmasks universe.
CryptoVoxels
We will acquire a very large plot in CryptoVoxels to create a massive gallery for exhibition of art collectibles which will include Hashmasks as well. The intent here is to ensure that there is a place where anyone can access and appreciate art anywhere in the world with a smartphone and internet connection. A grant has been dispatched to MaskDAO allowing them to commission a voxel architect along with an artist to create a Hashmask museum.
Decentraland
The land in Decentraland will be built on to show Hashmasks that are winners of the most recent contests from the Hashmasks and MaskDAO. The land is in a prime location on a street and corner close to all the action in that metaverse.
Somnium
Somnium Space is an impressive project which is innovating in the virtual reality scene and we believe that they will be an important player in the coming metaverse, which is why we have secured some land and created a gallery in it. In the coming future this gallery can be seen as a monument to Hashmasks.
Games
Hashmasks plan to fund a large grant to release at least one game featuring Hashmasks based characters and elements. Creating a game has many variables and finding a developer partner to handle the delivery and ideation is critical. The goal of any game for Hashmasks will at its core be a play to earn/win model. We understand that today users have thousands of free game options and the proper economic incentives must be in place for longevity. We will share more on this as specifics take shape and we identify a fantastic grant applicant.
Story/Lore
The variety of masks and traits presented in Hashmasks leaves a big opportunity for the community to create an expanded backstory, characters and new tales. We would like to fund the creation of a rich and in-depth story/lore tied to Hashmasks by working directly with the MaskDAO. If you have ideas or skill set to accomplish this please apply for a community grant through the MaskDAO.
Partnerships
Maddies Co.
The Hashmasks team has decided to enter into an exclusive partnership with Maddies Co. for the purpose of producing high quality merchandise from Hashmasks owners. The Maddies platform ensures owners can verify ownership and permit their Hashmasks to be used for merchandising and share in the revenue of sales.
Generative Art
We are currently exploring a few options which would enable Hashmasks owners to be able to mint (sometimes free) new generative art works from known code artists in the space. Input data could be metadata, Hashmask name, transaction IDs or a host of other variables the artists’ decide to design into the art. The goal here is to give Hashmasks owners an exclusive option to mint unique on-chain generative art.
MaskDAO Support
The Hashmasks team is in the early stages of empowering the MaskDAO to handle more of the community and exposure matters of Hashmasks moving forward. In order to accomplish this, The Hashmasks team would be supporting the MaskDAO with on-going grants, implementing a 2.5% on all Hashmasks secondary sales via OpenSea with 100% going to the MaskDAO.
NCT Utilization
We’ve had 2 other NFT collectible projects adopt NCT and the naming pattern via a smart contract to name their NFTs. We’re currently in discussions with multiple other projects to utilize NCT as well for similar naming utilities. Only Hashmasks produce NCTs so there is a focus on driving adoption of NCT by other projects to increase utilization of NCT in the NFT space.
Hashmask Team
The Hashmask team initially consisted of the founders who did all the development, coordination, and production of the Hashmasks up to the point of launch. The day before minting started for Hashmasks, 3 of the first people in the Discord were added to the team initially as moderators for the Discord server, and with time 2 of them as full team members.
Those people are:
- Pajke (https://twitter.com/robslasagna)
- Allen Hena (https://twitter.com/RealAllenHena)
In addition to the team members, Adidust is an early adopter, an advocate of The Hashmasks with extensive knowledge of the project, and a valuable community member serving as a moderator and consultant.
- Adidust (https://twitter.com/dustdust213)
Join our Discord for the latest updates: https://discord.gg/hashmasks
