HypeDAO is a community of artists and developers making art and tools on NEAR Protocol and $HYPE. We are a dynamic and international community with many talents and interests. As our community grows, so do our plans. Here’s our December 2021 update as we look forward to 2022.
HypeDAO is on track with the website roadmap to update our website. We are building out the ability to have a database of HypeDAO member artist profiles. This new feature will allow HypeDAO to feature and promote our artists. The artist profiles will integrate with Mintbase.io to make it easy to sell NFTs. After this feature is finished there are plans for collector profiles so that collectors can be more involved in the community and show off their collections. 2022 will be the year that the HypeDAO website comes to life.
The most popular campaign currently is the HYPE Battle. This is a friendly competition where the artists take inspiration from the provided picture and create a new image. The contest runs for two weeks on the NEAR governance forums, so that artists can get involved with the forums and forum members can see the artists’ work. Any forum member can vote on their favorite submission, but the HypeDAO council has the final say in the winner to monitor attempts to influence the decision with bots, fake accounts, or other suspicious activity. HypeBattle started in September and ran weekly until November when it switched to bi-weekly to give artists more time to create higher quality work.
All participants in the HypeBattles receive 25 $HYPE tokens, which indicate membership in the DAO, and the top three winners receive a 10, 7, or 3 $NEAR prize. This is a fun creative exercise for HypeDAO artists to help them exercise their creative talents, learn new creative skills, evolve their creative practice with spontaneity, experience the greater NEAR ecosystem through the governance forums, and stay active in the HypeDAO organization. We look forward to many more fun Hype Battles in 2022.
A new, and long-awaited campaign is the HypeDAO NFT collection. We are collecting NFTs to support NEAR artists and showcase NFTs. Each week people can submit NFTs for consideration on a Twitter thread on the HypeDAO Twitter. The NFTs much be under 20 NEAR, single editions, and link to a specific art piece rather than a collection or artist page. HypeDAO is collecting a variety of NFTs that represent the global community and many different styles and cultures in the NFT art scene. There has been discussion about the potential for showing the art in a special gallery show and using the collection as an investment as it grows. So far we have only had two rounds of collecting and expect this project to continue to develop in 2022.
HypeDAO’s Saturday morning NEAR NFT community Twitter Spaces continue to be incredibly popular, with 30–55 people in the Space at one time. The Spaces run for 3–5 hours. HypeDAO can onboard new members to the DAO, promote the Hype Battle and the collection program, share information about how to promote your art and succeed as an artist, onboard people who are new to NEAR, connect to other parts of the NEAR Ecosystem, and get NFTs in the wallets of collectors. Feedback from artists and collectors has been overwhelming, heartwarming, and positive. The community will continue to gather together with HypeDAO in 2022 in more Twitter Spaces.
What do we foresee for the future? HypeDAO is projecting collaborative projects, a collective Mintbase.io store, and opportunities to use $HYPE tokens on the HypeDAO website. The council is hard at work behind the scenes making 2022 the best year yet for NEAR NFT artists. We are all growing as individuals, as artists, and as a community. HypeDAO will continue to be here for the growing NEAR NFT artist and collector community.
