Hypercerts are the web3 tools to track impactful work, evaluate it and sell its impact.
The Hypercerts Foundation pioneers open-source protocols to transparently fund and reward positive impact.
Imagine a world where positive impact was one of the most highly valued creations in our society; where entrepreneurs who pursued high-uncertainty, high-upside moonshots to radically improve society were rewarded directly for that impact; where becoming a patron of impactful causes was something people aspired to and displayed proudly; and where the methods used to evaluate impact were credible, transparent, and independently verifiable.
That world might seem a distance away, but it’s one we can build towards. Specifically we’d like to see more impact markets, retroactive funding and innovation in the way we fund public goods. In order for this to occur, we need protocols to track and fund impact.
A single hypercert is a semi-fungible token that accounts for work that’s intended to be impactful, and whose ownership can be fractionalized and even transferred under specific conditions. Each hypercert represents a unique impact claim capturing the following basic information:
As an extension of ERC 1155 semi-fungible tokens, hypercerts create a single, open, shared, and decentralized database for funding mechanisms. This database avoids the creation of new funding silos, as hypercerts can be integrated into any existing funding platform, thereby creating an interconnected funding ecosystem.
While hypercerts may be useful for any funding mechanism, they’re particularly valuable for retroactive funding as they provide baseline invariant guarantees that impact claims will not be forgotten. Projects create and sell impact, building financially sustainable and scalable revenue models. With hypercerts, we move beyond donations.
Certifying impact is a process, and it should be an open and dynamic one. Hence, with hypercerts we create the foundation for an open evaluation system for credible and transparent impact assessment. Every hypercert can receive multiple evaluations from different evaluators using a variety of methodologies. This creates incentives to innovate evaluation methodologies and builds trust.
Juan Benet (founder and CEO of Protocol Labs):
We are proud to be an early supporter of the Hypercerts Foundation, which will bring even greater focus and resources to this important area of innovation. The Hypercerts Foundation is helping build a more transparent and interoperable environment for funding public goods. We are excited to contribute to its mission in any way we can.
Kevin Owocki:
This is an exciting moment for the Hypercerts Foundation and for the future of impact funding. We are committed to advancing the development of decentralized protocols and novel coordination mechanisms.
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