Decentology is building the Hyperverse, an open, blockchain-agnostic, decentralized, marketplace for composable smart contracts.
Decentology is building the Hyperverse, an open, blockchain-agnostic, decentralized, marketplace for composable smart contracts. We’ll launch the Hyperverse in beta by year-end starting with Flow, Algorand and Ethereum blockchains. We are also creating innovative solutions for smart contract development, security, monetization and discoverability that work cross-chain on the Hyperverse resulting in the most comprehensive marketplace for smart contracts ever created.
In addition, we are transitioning the company to a community-driven DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) that will manage the future ecosystem growth and development of the Hyperverse, while onboarding the next 10 million Web2 developers to Web3. To make our vision a reality, we have raised $4.3 million in seed funding from top crypto investors now, and are planning a token sale in the near future.
That’s a lot of information to digest, so let’s break it down:
Smart Contract Composability
Hyperverse
Community-driven DAO
Ecosystem Growth
Funding
Timeline
Smart Contract Composability
Composability can drive Web3 growth as it did for Web2. The single most important factor in the success of Web2 has been composability. Developers can easily wire-up different APIs to create a range of applications that would otherwise be time-consuming and cost-prohibitive to create. Web3 brings us the alluring promise of such composability through blockchain smart contracts.
Composability Challenges
Web3 is missing foundational elements of composability. With a few notable exceptions such as Uniswap, this promise remains largely unfulfilled. Unlike Web2, there aren’t search engines for discovering smart contracts based on your app requirements, there’s no way to tell if a smart contract can be trusted, and there’s certainly no billing form for pay-as-you-go usage for smart contract developers to monetize their work. Since there are no registries or package managers like NPM, Nuget or RubyGems, developers have no standard way to access metadata, documentation, unit tests, user interface harnesses and the myriad of other things that are necessary for smart contract composability at scale. And finally, there isn’t a standard for smart contract multi-tenant architecture and as a result your application’s data may be spread across many third-party smart contracts with all of the associated risks.
Monolithic smart contracts are risky. Due to the shortcomings from lacking foundational elements, developers today largely build monolithic smart contracts with significant waste of on-chain storage from code duplication. Longer smart contracts also mean more potential bugs and vulnerabilities in an environment where code is immutable.
Achieving smart contract composability at scale isn’t easy. In addition to being blockchain-agnostic, a solution for smart contract composability also has the higher bar of needing to be decentralized both for infrastructure and governance. At Decentology, we’ve given this problem a lot of thought. An analysis of thousands of projects created with DappStarter, our blockchain-agnostic code generation platform, has given us unique insights into what is required in order to make smart contract composability work at scale.
Our solution is the Hyperverse.
The Hyperverse
The Hyperverse is an open, blockchain-agnostic, decentralized, marketplace for composable smart contracts. It is a solution specifically architected for decentralized composability at scale, and focuses on four capabilities:
Development
Security
Discoverability
Monetization
Development
In order for the Hyperverse to be useful, it needs to have smart contracts that can be composed by developers building decentralized applications. But in a circular way, it’s also developers who will create these composable smart contracts. We refer to them as “Hyperverse Developers” and the entities they create “Smart Modules.”
Smart Modules implement blockchain application primitives. A Smart Module is a package that contains at minimum a smart contract, metadata, unit tests and documentation. It can optionally include a user interface test harness and sample code. The smart contract will typically implement a blockchain application primitive — one feature that provides discrete functionality. For example, a Subscription Smart Module makes it simple for an application to check if the calling account is an active subscriber for a certain feature.
Smart Modules are multi-tenant. An important characteristic of Smart Modules is their multi-tenancy. This models SaaS applications in Web2 that are typically single applications serving many different users. Smart Modules do this by separating the smart contract logic (which resides on-chain in the Hyperverse-deployed smart contract) from the associated data (which also resides on-chain, but in the account of the calling smart contract). This is a unique feature of Hyperverse Smart Modules and is designed to address a multitude of scenarios where it is necessary for calling applications to use composable smart contract rules, but store data in their own account space.
Security
In order for developers to trust a Smart Module and use it in their applications, they’ll need to trust the developer who built it, and have a high degree of confidence in the Smart Module’s code.
Web3 audits are broken. In Web2, centralized organizations like Apple and Google, use a combination of automated and manual analysis and audits to ensure that developer-submitted code is high-quality, trustworthy and defect-free. In Web3, the closest equivalent to this is code audits performed by security experts on smart contracts. This audit model is fundamentally broken. Audits are very expensive ranging from $100-500K, but the auditors have no accountability if they miss a defect or vulnerability in the audit. Hyperverse fixes this with an innovative review and audit model.
Hyperverse audits are an insurance layer for smart contracts. When a Smart Module is first submitted to the Hyperverse, multiple Registrars review the module package for completeness and to ensure that the module does not contain any malware. Next, multiple auditors audit the Smart Module’s code prior to deployment on-chain. If they trust the code, they can signal this by staking tokens. The staked tokens make the auditor eligible for a pro-rata portion of future revenue from the Smart Module. The aggregate staked tokens on a Smart Module by auditors also act as an insurance layer. If a defect or vulnerability in the Smart Module code causes loss of data or ey, the staked tokens are slashed based on predefined rules, s holding the auditor wholly or partially accountable.
Discoverability
The biggest challenge for developers building applications with composable smart contracts is knowing what contracts are available, their on-chain address, how to interact with the contract, who created the contracts and whether they can be trusted.
Hyperverse solves the discoverability problem with metadata. Each Smart Module has on-chain and off-chain metadata, and its usage is tracked via a Hyperverse Registry contract. The metadata, coupled with the usage data adds discoverability and analytics capabilities for Smart Modules.
Hyperverse will provide a default, web-based search and discovery experience. But since the Smart Modules are decentralized, anyone in the community can create a custom search experience. In addition to finding Smart Modules, the metadata can also be used by recommendation engines and over time will provide reputation data for developers, registrars and auditors functioning as an on-chain resume.
Monetization
Even the most successful open source projects struggle with long-term developer retention. They ultimately realize that experienced developers are in high demand and don’t have the bandwidth to devote significant time for volunteering on projects. The centralized solution for this is to add a commercial variant of the project, or use sponsorships to pay the most dedicated and hard-working contributors. But these approaches fall apart in a decentralized environment.
Hyperverse provides a decentralized path to monetization for contributors. Smart Modules can optionally enable transaction-level fees — flat or percentage based on the monetary value of a transaction. These fees are captured on-chain, from where they flow into the DAO Treasury and distributed to developers, auditors, registrars and the DAO based on predefined rules.
As long as Hyperverse Developers continue to innovate and build useful Smart Modules, other developers can compose applications with them with zero up-front cost and an on-chain pay-per-use model. This can scale up to thousands of Smart Modules being used in hundreds of thousands of decentralized applications unlocking the Web3 promise of composability.
Non-fungible tokens unlock a futures market for software. On the Hyperverse, each Smart Module is viewed as an asset represented by an NFT. All of the Smart Module contributors are issued NFTs representing their share of fractional ownership of future revenues of that Smart Module. This is a huge unlock for open source software.
If you contribute to, or stake on, a fee-based Hyperverse Smart Module in any capacity, you can sell or collateralize your future income represented by an NFT.
Community-driven DAO
Decentology is transitioning to a community-driven DAO that will manage the future ecosystem growth and development of the Hyperverse while onboarding the next 10 million Web2 developers to Web3.
Developer tooling owned by the community. Web3 is only as strong as the foundational tools that make it possible. While the ethos behind open source has always been community ownership on some level, this model has not scaled ‒ until now. The rise of DAOs and tokenized communities represent a shift towards collective ownership and sustainable community-owned software. Contributors within communities can collectively contribute to products, drive growth, and sustain these activities with on-chain revenues.
Decentralized governance. Hyperverse cannot succeed under ownership of a single, centralized company. Such a model would be antithetical to the most fundamental ideas of decentralization. For the Hyperverse to exist and thrive, its governance must also be decentralized. By transitioning Decentology to a DAO, we’re making this possible. We’ll get it started in collaboration with the community, ensure the major elements are in place, ensure there is a funding runway, and then transition into an advisory capacity.
Gender balance. We’re going the extra mile to ensure that our community is as diverse and gender balanced as possible. We realize that the crypto ecosystem to-date has not been very welcoming to women and we’re intent on changing that. We’ll start with our company and carry this over to the DAO. Today, the Decentology team consists of nine women and seven men. We like this balance — it makes us a better company today, and will make us a stronger, more vibrant community in the future.
Inception anyone? While we are building our DAO, we’ll use third-party tools and create our own. If we determine that a particular tool can be useful to other DAOs, we’ll add it to the Hyperverse and make it available to everyone. Over time, we believe we will have every tool that is needed by any DAO available on the Hyperverse.
Ecosystem Growth
As Decentology transitions to a DAO, we’re focused on building out the Hyperverse while nurturing our community. The long-term success of our DAO is predicated on our ability to go beyond software and community, and expand into a vibrant ecosystem with partner organizations, additional blockchains, token holders, other DAOs and lots of other stakeholders. We’ve mapped a path to this ecosystem starting with two vectors:
Hyperverse Academy
Hyperverse Projects
Hyperverse Academy
The Hyperverse Academy will be a DAO-led entity focused on the task of onboarding Web2 developers to Web3 in large numbers. In addition, the Academy will provide incentives for developers to build Hyperverse Smart Modules. The Academy will achieve its goals through the following channels:
Webinars, Bootcamps and Conferences: By organizing online and offline events of various sizes, we will target Web2 developers and help them grow their talent stack with Web3 skills.
Educational Institutions: We’ll partner with educational institutions and co-develop curriculum to help Web2 and Web3 developers learn decentralized app development.
DappStarter:DappStarter is Decentology’s flagship decentralized application development platform. It’s a blockchain-agnostic platform that makes it simple for any developer to get started with their first decentralized application in five minutes or less. We are enhancing DappStarter with Hyperverse Smart Module discovery and integration capabilities so developers can easily build and deploy Hyperverse-based decentralized applications. This makes DappStarter a great platform for developers to learn Web3 development, and once they’re ready, it helps them build and ship their Hyperverse-based applications.
Hyperverse Toolkit, Hackathons and Bounties: While many developers will use DappStarter to build their own decentralized applications, some of them will have ideas for Hyperverse Smart Modules. For them, we’ll have the Hyperverse Toolkit, a specialized development environment where they can build, test, package, deploy and manage their Hyperverse Smart Modules. To encourage Smart Module development, we’ll organize Hackathons with etary prizes and also offer Bounties for developers to build specific Smart Modules.
Hyperverse Projects
As we build out the Hyperverse, it’s important that we validate every aspect of the Hyperverse architecture with real-world projects. To that end, Decentology will collaborate with teams that have a vision for a decentralized application and help them make it a reality on the Hyperverse. This is a win-win for both Decentology and the project team. We get valuable insights into use-cases for Hyperverse Smart Modules, and the project team gets access to a world class engineering team that will help them ship their product using composable architecture.
If your organization has a vision for a decentralized application, please let us know. We’ll evaluate your project, and if it’s a good fit for the Hyperverse, we’ll help you build the decentralized portion at low or no cost.
Hyperverse Growth Flywheel
We think of the Decentology DAO ecosystem’s growth like a flywheel. As we onboard more Web2 developers to learn how to develop on the Hyperverse, some of them will build Hyperverse Smart Modules. Other developers will discover these Smart Modules, and compose them into decentralized applications. Some of the users experiencing these decentralized applications will want to learn how to build them, starting the cycle over and accelerating the flywheel.
As the flywheel continues to accelerate, the Decentology DAO ecosystem will grow and help us realize our vision of onboarding 10 million Web2 developers to Web3.
Funding
In order to make our vision for the Hyperverse a reality, we have raised $4.3 million in seed funding from a global syndicate of top crypto investors led by Dapper Labs, Borderless Capital, Good News Ventures, Berezka Ventures, Synaps, Animal Ventures, and Kosmos Capital.
Also participating in this round were x21 Digital, NOIA, Manta Network, Autonomy, Ascensive Assets, Mayu Ventures, Meld Ventures, Portico Ventures, SevenX Ventures and Unanimous Capital. Angel investors include Sanjay Poonen (ex-VMWare), Scott Moore (Gitcoin), David Phelps and Kae Huynh.
As we transition Decentology to a DAO, we’ll collaborate with these investors to develop our tokenomics strategy with a goal to have a token sale in the near future. In addition to capital, these investors provide us with valuable guidance and collaboration opportunities with their portfolio companies. We are grateful for their support.
Here’s what some of them had to say about Decentology’s vision:
“We’ve long believed composability between dapps will be the multiplier effect for innovation to compound at a rate never seen before. It’s very exciting to see amazing applications on Flow like the Hyperverse bring a new wave of mainstream developers into our space through a new incentive model.”
— Mickey Maher, SVP of Partnerships at Dapper Labs.
“Composability of smart contract features along with decentralized security auditing is the next frontier of blockchain development. We are excited to welcome the Hyperverse platform to the Algorand ecosystem.”
— David Garcia, CEO and Managing Partner of Borderless Capital.
“At Good News Ventures, we look to support passionate entrepreneurs like the founders of Decentology solving big problems. They are passionately creating accessibility on the rapidly growing and complex blockchain ecosystems. Their novel method of introducing monetization for developers of decentralized apps we believe is a game changer for the adoption of blockchain and have conviction that the team at Decentology is poised to win.”
— Marat Mukhamedyarov, Managing Partner of Good News Ventures.
"Decentology has the right team and tools to unlock web3 development for millions of new developers all over the world."
— Tom Serres, Managing Partner of Animal Ventures.
Timeline
The Decentology team started building the Hyperverse almost three ths ago. Developers participating in our FastFLOWard Bootcamp had the opportunity to build composable Smart Modules using early versions of the software, and its architecture continues to evolve. Our initial timeline for the core Hyperverse is below. This timeline will evolve as our community teams get more organized.
Conclusion
Decentology has a bold vision and an ambitious timeline for building out the Hyperverse. Now, it’s all about execution and on that front we are firing on all cylinders. We are also transitioning the company to a DAO, and growing our community by helping 10 million Web2 developers to start with Web3 using DappStarter, our dapp development platform, and Hyperverse Academy, our developer learning and engagement solution.
The Decentology team consists of highly motivated and experienced blockchain enthusiasts spread across the world with the sole purpose of making this vision a reality. Our community is growing fast. We have great blockchain partners in Flow and Algorand, and more are being onboarded. Our investors are global, crypto-native and highly supportive. There are already a growing number of projects slated to be early adopters of the Hyperverse. All the elements are in place, and we’re moving at warp speed.