Mask Network Web3 Social Ecosystem Grant Round 1 Review
Mask Network has been consistently building a Web3 social ecosystem and supporting public goods.
The Mask Grant Program supports projects through funding by enriching their value in Web3 and Mask’s Ecosystem. With a history of product-building, a solid reputation, and broad connections, MaskDAO wants to share its resources and facilitate collaboration to accelerate the ecosystem’s growth.
Mask Network is excited to announce our first batch of Mask Grant winners and provide a donation of $10,000 equivalent $MASK tokens to each of the selected projects. After several rounds of review, 18 projects were selected for this round.
In the social track, we are pleased to see 9 selected projects from several different directions, including DID wallets, feed protocols, data analytics tools, platforms, and Web3 identities, which highlight the booming and diverse scene of the Web3 social track.
Apart from Web3 Social, Mask Grant places a high value on and continues to support the development of Web3 public goods, so 9 of the projects in this round of donations are on the social track and the other 9 projects are on the non-social track. Please note that we do not require projects on the non-social track to be related to the Mask Social Ecosystem.
In the Public Good (non-social) category, the 9 selected projects come from a broader spectrum, including authoring platforms, startup communities, Rollup, Web3 note-taking tools, security solutions, wallet tools, and decentralized science. Supporting these public goods reflects Mask’s ongoing commitment to building the entire Web3 world.
In terms of demographics, 18 selected projects came from China, the US, Russia, Japan, France, and Germany; this also shows the regional diversity of Mask Grant in actively supporting Web3 development.
More about Mask Grant and Mask Ecosystem
Web3 Social Category
1. Soul Wallet
Twitter: https://twitter.com/soulwallet_eth
Website: https://ethglobal.com/showcase/soul-wallet-5srye
Soul Wallet is the first smart contract wallet that supports ERC-4337, implements Ether abstract accounts via plugin extensions and mobile clients, and can enable: 1. create wallets via email, 2. receive funds without deploying contracts, 3. change signature keys via social recovery, 4. pay transactions with ERC-20 (e.g. $WETH, $DAI).
Soul Wallet fulfills the Ethereum community’s dream of account abstraction and social recovery, recovering your lost wallet in just minutes, and lowering the barriers to accessing Ethereum for billions of users. Soul Wallet won the First Place in the Account Abstraction category at ETHGlobal Bogota Hackathon.
2. Interface
Twitter: https://twitter.com/interfacedapp
Website: https://www.interface.social/
Interface is a social feed streaming application that turns on-chain interaction data into a user-readable, easy-to-read stream of information that developers can use to develop independent plug-ins, such as independent information recommendation algorithms engines.
In the future, Interface plans to realize the function that users can interact with on-chain contracts directly in the app’s feed, so that users can not only keep track of the latest on-chain activities of people they follow such as sending new NFT collections and listing new NFT in OpenSea. At the same time, users can also directly interact with activities in Interface, such as having direct NFTpurchase, participating in the bidding, etc., paying small transaction fees to Interface. Interface was also the first external project to integrate Mask and RSS3‘s social data.
3. Bfrenz
Twitter: https://twitter.com/bfre_nz
Website: https://bfre.nz/
Bfrenz dedicates to becoming the best crypto-native social media, which consists of two products, Bfrenz App and Bfrenz DAO.bfrenz app is an aggregation application focusing on Web3 news and on-chain data, discovering interesting new Web3 worlds through user likes and comments. Over the past two months, more than 1,000 users have participated in the closed beta of the iOS version and expressed their love.
Bfrenz DAO is a learning organization that advocates the dissemination of Web3 cutting-edge technologies. Currently, Bfrenz DAO has more than 5,000 active people, and goal to help over 100,000 users within one year. The founder of Bfrenz is the first product manager of WeChat, a super app in China with over 1bn users.
4. TwitterScan ｜ NNS
TwitterScan Website: https://twitterscan.io/
NNS Website: https://nft.space
TwitterScan Twitter: https://twitter.com/MetascanPro
NNS Twitter: https://twitter.com/nftnameservice
Discord: discord.gg/twitterscan
TwitterScan and NNS are working together to create a cross-chain name service network that will connect people, information, and assets.
TwitterScan is an open, user-driven, and collaborative information aggregation platform that provides data analysis of the crypto and NFT markets. By capturing Twitter information relating to crypto and NFT markets, TwitterScan, a one-stop platform, presents multi-dimensional key information, such as attention grabbed by projects, number of whales following projects, and project pricing, and helps to quickly locate hot projects, judge high-quality users, explore new projects and identify hot topics, greatly simplifying the process of user information acquisition and effectively helping users make investment decisions.
TwitterScan digitizes KOLs’ influence, and incentivize KOLs to build up their credential with high-quality content. TwitterScan serves as a bridge between project owners and KOLs. Leveraging KOLs’ influence, TwitterScan can assist projects to grow their user base and brand awareness.
TwitterScan’s API can help the Mask Network ecosystem to screen influencers with real influence to collaborate with when they are running their publicity/marketing campaigns. In addition, TwitterScan’s powerful traffic pool can help projects in the Mask Network’s ecosystem to direct and convert users, helping projects gain more users and market attention in their operational campaigns. It will also guide more web2 users to convert to Web3.
NNS (NFT Name Service), a decentralized identifier name service network based on ETH Blockchain (and will be based on multi-chain later), connects individuals, data, assets, and services in the crypto space in a secure approach. By enabling individuals to manage the connections between their personal information and their assets, the NNS aims to create a completely composable, decentralized social network.
5. Superfans
Twitter: https://twitter.com/trysuperfans
Website: https://spfns.xyz/
Superfans aims to build an infrastructure of user contribution data and a community data platform to accommodate the next billion volume of active Web3 contributors. superfans aggregates and monitors fans’ Web2 and Web3 on and off-chain activities, allowing companies to better understand their fans and reward fans for their contributions, and discover relevant partners.
Superfans will provide Mask Network and the entire Web3 ecosystem with a community manager-driven version of Etherscan, multi-chains, and extended with social data.
6. Port3 Network
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Port3Network
Website: https://www.port3.io/
Port3 is the fastest-growing Web3 gateway to Social Insights. Currently, it leverages a base of over 3.3 million users across Telegram, Twitter, and Discord with an average DAU of 11k. Port3 crawls and aggregates data from Telegram, Twitter, and Discord via bots (aggregating on-chain and off-chain data) to ultimately generate statistics and analytics.
So far, Port3 has covered 8 Layer1, mostly EVM-compatible ones. Furthermore, it has Social Dataset capacity for other Web2 Apps as well. Port3 is currently building a new product that will provide open and composable modules for use by a wide range of projects, including Mask Network.
7. Jolocom
Twitter: https://twitter.com/GETJolocom
Website: https://jolocom.io/
Jolocom has been supporting and driving the mission of Self-sovereign Identity since 2014. Jolocom is a founding member of DWeb, INATBA, and Bundesblock and also a long-time supporter and active member of DIF, the IIW, and W3C.
Jolocom is committed to upholding the principles of SSI and has developed a fully open-source tech stack to that end, consisting of a library, an SDK, and Smart Wallet for end users. During the infancy of digital identity, this has brought us to the forefront of development houses in Germany and Europe and also to the attention of regulators and lawmakers. Among other things, Jolocom is the chosen tech provider in three-quarters of the German government’s Secure Digital Identity showcase projects.
8. Aspecta
Twitter: https://twitter.com/aspecta_id
Website: https://aspecta.id/
Aspecta’s AI solution creates an insightful & interactive digital identity (Aspecta ID) for pioneering builders and beyond. By linking accounts across Web2 and Web3 spaces, such as GitHub, Twitter, and wallet address, an Aspecta ID holder can obtain a personal webpage showing insights regarding thousands of skills, hundreds of experience spotlights, fun facts, and connect you to like-minded peers. Aspecta was curated by serial entrepreneurs from Yale University, UC Berkeley, and Tsinghua University, and led by Tinder’s former chief scientist, Dr. Steve Liu.
Further, in Aspecta’s ecosystem, third-party Apps will allow users to login with Aspecta ID and are able to query users’ cross-App profiling for personalized services, search, advertisements, etc. Starting from builders, Aspecta brings more web2 developers into the Web3 world and greatly expand the application of Mask Network’s DID protocol Next.ID. Developers and projects can also use Aspecta to quickly team up in Hackathons.
9. The Rift (Hyper XP)
Twitter: https://twitter.com/LootRift
Website: https://rift.live/
The Rift (rebranding to HyperXP) is a gaming identity protocol that enables Web3 project developers to easily implement an on-chain, trustless, decentralized XP system to recognize and reward user activity and engagement — from gameplay to active governance to community participation.
The Rift originated from building the XP system for the Lootverse but has evolved way beyond, first to CC0 projects and then to the general Web3 gaming ecosystem.
For Web3 projects, implementing a shared on-chain XP system can encourage, identify, and reward the most active and engaged users and build bridges to other projects across the wider Hyperverse. For users, participants, players, and holders, a well-designed XP system can reward their engagement with value, like unlocking mints, earning special privileges, discovering hidden doors, getting airdrops, and anything else developers can dream up.
Public Good (Non-Social) Category
1. The Genesis Scrolls (The creative writing initiative for the Lootverse）
Twitter: https://twitter.com/openquill?s=21&t=-fLp0ox-nosyw1rHkfyCBg
Website: https://openquill.foundation
Over a year ago, Dom delivered an on-chain masterpiece to the world — Loot. An NFT collection that has become a center of gravity for a decentralized world-building community, Loot was intentionally left as text only, without any visualization, as a way to leave the whole world to the imagination. With Loot as the canonical foundation, the Lootverse was born: a decentralized collective of thousands of developers, creators, writers, and fans building a fictional fantasy world with games, multimedia, and more.
We believe that Loot is a public good for the Web3 ecosystem: it is a bridge for writers, creators, musicians & builders into Web3 and acts as a canvas to experiment with the power of decentralized collaboration. It’s a way to “turn on multiplayer mode” for their creative work.
As Loot core contributor Timshel puts it:
Games are more fun when they have stories.
Stories are more fun when they build worlds.
Worlds are more fun when they have games.
Timshel leads one of the most active projects across the Lootverse — The Genesis Scrolls — a collaborative writing initiative designed to bring the ecosystem to life with rich narrative storytelling. Have you ever dreamed of writing your own additions to “The Song of Ice and Fire” or “The Three Kingdoms“ or the biography of the characters in the books? Through the Lootverse, now you have a chance — Dom created the foundational items and 8000 canonical “bags“ of the Lootverse, and within the original contract provided a secret scaffolding to give order and structure to the world. Born from Loot’s foundation, every bag contains stories of the past, present, and future, and these stories are being created and told by a decentralized community.
The Genesis Scrolls project is building the foundations for Loot’s decentralized, expansive, multimedia sci-fantasy world. As a catalyst for world-building and an invitation to a broader community outside of Web3, the project is shepherding the creation of a Web3-native “book” of short stories from the Lootverse, funded with no-strings-attached grants for writers, published to the public domain in order to provide a rich foundation for collaborative world-building.
This is the first ever “book” that will live:
- on-chain on ETH L1;
- inside of an NFT;
- as a real physical book.
Alongside grants from Lootverse DAOs, the Genesis Scrolls project received a donation of over $30k (10 ETH earlier this year) from Dylan Field, the founder of Figma. This donation has been used to fund writing grants to over 70 participants who have collectively created over 100,000 words of storytelling so far.
2. Notfellows
Twitter: https://twitter.com/notfellows
Website: https://notfellows.xyz/
Notfellows is a 100% crypto-native and globally distributed community of talented young builders. Most of the fellows are entrepreneurial and have strong technical backgrounds. Notfellows aims to support the builders with a diverse set of value props, including hacker houses, intimate fireside chats with high-quality individuals, ecosystem partnerships, and more.
Notfellows was initially a group of young folks who got rejected by Paradigm fellowship. The competition was fierce as the approval rate was in low single digits. However, this unexpectedly sparked an epic journey, why don’t the rejects hang out together? Who said we can’t build great stuff? Today Notfellows’ ETHBogota house produced 11 prize-winning projects and one ETHGlobal finalist.
Notfellows also has a similar ethos like Mask’s own Dropout Scholarship. With the support from Mask and other partners, Notfellows will tirelessly support young people in Web3 and introduce these young talents to the entire Web3 ecosystem.
3. Moonshot Commons
Twitter: https://twitter.com/buildmoonshot
Website: https://moonshotcommons.com/
Moonshot Commons started in 2021 when a group of technologists got together in a basement, and decided to build. In three days, “Moonshot” projects — from Brain Computer Interfaces to rocket engines — were created, while a vibrant community of engineers was formed. Today, Moonshot Commons aims to be the “South Park Common” for Gen-Z engineers in Web3. Moonshot Commons now has more than 6,000 members and 30 projects in the community have become venture backed. Moonshot Commons supports Gen-Z engineers from day1 because they believe the next SpaceX will: belong to Gen-Z, be engineering-driven, misunderstood at first, and global by default.
Moonshot Commons supports the Mask Network and Web3 ecosystem by attracting, mentoring, and incubating Gen Z builders. These talents will graduate as founders, early-stage engineers, or Moonshot’s ecosystem partners benefiting from Moonshot’s technology and community. Apart from the campus channel, Moonshot also builds its brand presence and expands its reach among early-stage entrepreneurs by releasing content such as Moonshot Insight, Moonshot Research, Moonshot talk. etc. Moonshot hosts two annual Hackathons in order to provide an occasion for entrepreneurs to build and iterate their Web3 ideas.
Mask Network participated in the 2022 Moonshot Web3 Summer Hackathon as a sponsor and partner, witnessing 523 teams register for the event, and 25 of those teams demo-ed their products at South Park Commons NYC.2. Moonshot will help Mask Network continue to expand its reach among early stage entrepreneurs and help Mask Network continue to reach out to outstanding startup ideas from every generation of the young.
4. Intmax
Twitter: https://twitter.com/intmaxRU
Website: https://intmax.io/
Intmax is the first Rollup to achieve both hyper scalability and privacy. The scalability of Intmax makes the gas cost of zkRollup to be less than 1% of conventional zkRollups.There are phase1/phase2 in this project. Intmax’s phase 1 supports hyper scalability and privacy for limited purposes like transfer/exchange/mint of ERC20/NFTs. This will be with a biometrics interface and this lets even non-crypto people use the Layer2.
Intmax’s phase 2 provides hyper scalability and privacy to the general functionalities. This allows usual web applications to be deployed on the zkRollup. This move makes another source of value for DeFi, which comes from the outside of the crypto space. Verifiable Back-end (VBE) is the key technology in Phase 2. VBE will construct front-end HTML/CSS files in a verifiable manner. Intmax’s technical structures are extensively discussed and well regarded in the ETH core community (including Vitalik).
The recent wedding of Intmax’s founder Leona and Mai(formerly Miss Bitcoin) has also been a major event in the Japan Crypto Scene. Mai, a key Japanese Web3 influencer, has also been a major impact on the project
5. Word Block
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JESSCATE93
Website: https://devpost.com/software/the-word-block
Word Block is a Web3 note-taking tool built for open and interactive block reference. Everyone can publish user-owned notes (or articles, websites), composed of text cells with wallet signatures (i.e., word blocks).
Word Block will continue building a Web3 note-taking tool and a literature system with composability. Word Block is keen to explore the possibility of a new interaction between content and individuals, a bridge in connecting web2 context and Web3 signature economy, a “container” of the new publishing era.
6. Scam Sniffer
Twitter: https://twitter.com/realScamSniffer
Website: https://scamsniffer.io/
Scam Sniffer is an all-in-one Web3 anti-scam solution with API, Chrome extension, and Discord bot. Scam Sniffer can identify scam websites and malicious transactions in real time to protect individual users. Scam Sniffer’s vision is to create the most respected and widely adopted anti-scam platform built and owned by the community.
The current gateway to Web3 is a wallet, but their efforts on anti-scam are limited. MetaMask, for example, has its built-in anti-phishing blacklist, but it is not updated frequently enough to block newly established phishing websites. ScamSniffer team initially built a tweet post-inspection extension based on Mask Network and won an award from the hackathon ETH Shanghai.
7. Secure3
Twitter: https://twitter.com/secure3io
Website: https://www.secure3.io/
Secure3 is an intelligent audit contest platform to empower a more secure, affordable and accountable Web3 security ecosystem. Secure3’s model incentivizes the best of the community to help projects find the most severe yet subtle bugs in the most efficient way, both time and money wise. Empowered by both artificial and human intelligence, Secure3 Intelligent Audit Contest finds more critical bugs faster than any existing methods.
8. Mest
Twitter: https://twitter.com/mest_io
Website: https://www.mest.io/
Mest is a simple wallet analytics tool that focuses on wallet profiles for better trading decisions by exploring what is in and what has been done with your wallet.
Mest is focused on wallet profiles from 1. Track your portfolio‘s PnL, 2. Trait-level analytics, 3. Find better trading decisions.
Mest plans to build widgets for the Gitcoin community so the community can get a comprehensive view of how Gitcoin and its grants are working.
9. Opsci
Twitter: https://twitter.com/opscientia
Website: https://opsci.io/
OpSci is a decentralized science organization developing tools for web-native identity, scientific reputation, open science funding, and data sharing. OpSci is breaking new ground by building the first professional academic society on-chain. OpSci Society members that verify their scientific contributions may mint hypercert NFTs to retroactively fund their work.
OpSci dApps are designed with a seamless UX that integrates Web2 services with user-friendly privacy controls utilizing zero-knowledge systems and cryptographic verification of real world impact. OpSci Society is powered by an open source Web3 stack that allows any community to create their own membership-based society with tools for verifying and rewarding contributions.
Mask Network is continuing to support the expansion of non-profit organizations from various fields in the crypto world, and believes that OpSci has the potential to transform the practice of science through Web3.
Mask Network couldn’t have achieved all these today without our partners’ support, hence, so we decided to pass on the spirit of mutual support in the Web3 world. We aim to fund around 50 projects for the first year with an average check of $MASK worth 10k USD.
Mask Grant is conducted four times a year, with the next one scheduled for early 2023. Definitely come apply if you think you are contributing to the Web3 public good space.
More about Mask Grant and Mask Ecosystem
