The Hypercerts Foundation pioneers open-source protocols to transparently fund and reward positive impact. Hypercerts are the web3 tools track impactful work, evaluate it and sell its impact.

Where are we headed

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.

What are hypercerts?

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:

• Who: Set of contributors
• What: Scope of work
• When: Time of work

Avoiding silos – interconnected funding system

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.

Selling impact – moving beyond donation

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 – open evaluation system

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.

Where do we go from here

Looking ahead, we aim to expand to more chains, enable evaluations with existing and new tools, enhance visualization with hyperboards, create marketplace tools, and collaborate for broader integration. With your support and a growing network, we're building a transparent interconnected funding ecosystem for positive impact.

The work so far

• We released our whitepaper (draft): https://hypercerts.org/docs/whitepaper/whitepaper-intro
• We have build the core protocol and released it on Optimism, Celo, Base as well as Sepolia (testnet)
• We have build out the marketplace functionalities to buy and sell hypercerts
• We have created the evaluation infrastructure for hypercerts based on EAS attestations
• We have created a frontend for anyone to create hypercerts – available at https://www.hypercerts.org/ --> A new release will be available in mid to end of July
• We have build an SDK for anyone to build on top of the protocol: https://www.npmjs.com/package/@hypercerts-org/sdk
• We have piloted hypercerts with the Gitcoin Rounds Alpha, Beta, and GR18 to show how they can be integrated into funding platforms – you can read more about it here: https://go.gitcoin.co/blog/hypercerts-for-public-goods-funding
• We have piloted hypercerts with the pop-up city Zuzalu, retroactively raising 21 ETH and ZuConnect Istanbul raising 16 ETH for contributors to these events
• We have created hyperboards to visualize the contributions from multiple hypercerts to a project and piloted this with the conference series Funding the Commons as well as the libp2p community
• We have a core community (TG group: https://t.me/+YF9AYb6zCv1mNDJi) with many projects and platforms exploring how to use hypercerts
• We ran a Gitcoin Community Round with 35 projects in the Hypercerts Ecosystem: https://gov.gitcoin.co/t/retrospective-of-the-hypercerts-ecosystem-round-during-gg20/18908

The work ahead

• Release the core protocol on additional EVM-compatible chains
• Enable further evaluations and supplementary information for specific impact domains
• Build out hyperboards, such that any project and event can create them directly
• Implement hypercerts for use cases; we are exploring AI Safety Research, Nature Regeneration, Events and Open Source Software
• Cooperate with funding platforms and projects to integrate hypercerts and build new applications like prize competitions with hypercerts

Testimonials

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.

See the announcement of the Hypercerts Foundation