On November 23, Binance announced that it will soon launch the 29th Launchpad project Hooked Protocol (HOOK). This Launchpad is a BNB-only event. Based on the investment model, the user's investment amount is determined based on the user's 7-day average BNB holdings. BNB holding snapshot period: November 24 08:00 to December 1 08:00 (Eastern Time 8).

Hooked Protocol is a community-driven social network with a token economics design, where users can get a gamified experience. The team is currently integrating wallets and DIDs. Previously, Binance officially disclosed that Binance Labs and Sequoia Seed Fund led the seed round of financing for Hooked Protocol, with A&T Capital and others participating in the investment. The amount of financing was not disclosed.

Hooked Protocol aims to build an entry point for Web3, providing users and enterprises with a tailored Learn&Earn product experience and infrastructure to enter the Web3 world. Hooked has launched a product called Wild Cash in Indonesia and Brazil, which currently has more than 2 million monthly active users. The application is equipped with gamified learning features and has achieved exponential growth through its built-in social recommendation mechanism.

This article will explain in detail Hooked Protocol's team, economic model, product experience, and coin-earning gameplay.

team

Jason Y is the CEO of Hooked Protocol. He has worked at Uber and Meta (formerly Facebook). He has been engaged in consumer Internet and strategic growth for more than 10 years. He has created many products and has experience in operating web2 users with over 100 million users. According to A&T Capital, members of the Hooked Protocol team come from the text growth platform Midu (under China Literature Group), which was once invested by Tencent. The core team has rich 2C marketing experience and strong product capabilities. In Jason Y's LinkedIn, he hid his work from 2018 to 2022, but according to multiple media reports, Midu's CEO Yang Ji worked at Facebook and Uber at the same time as Jason. In October this year, there were also rumors that Yang Ji left Midu. Jess L is the chief marketing officer and has worked at Uber and Google. Judging from the information on LinkedIn, the two of them were colleagues at Uber.

Dual Currency Economic Model

The Hooked protocol adopts a dual-currency model, in which the HOOK token is the governance token in the Hooked protocol that reflects the value of the ecosystem, and HGT (Hooked Gold Token) is the only utility token in the ecosystem, which is used to dynamically incentivize the community to make continuous contributions.

HOOK tokens are mainly used for community governance, gas during on-chain economic activities within the protocol, staking incentives, social elements, and longer-term goals. Its governance rights are reflected in the rights and voting in the Hooked ecosystem proposals, and behaviors that are beneficial to the platform will receive initial airdrops. The social element is reflected in the fact that HOOK tokens have the privilege of exclusively purchasing limited edition NFTs (game tools, secret boxes, etc.) within the Hooked protocol and accessing exclusive community activities. The platform promises that the token income obtained in this part will be destroyed. The overall economic model is similar to the StepN model.

Additionally, HOOK tokens will be invested in innovative practices that benefit the ecosystem of individual participants and businesses as a whole, ensuring substantial liquidity and token value that grows in direct proportion to the value of the entire community.

HOOK tokens are based on the BNB chain, with a total of 500 million. 20% of them are used for private placement, 20% belong to the team, 30% belong to the ecosystem and treasury, 25% belong to the community, and 5% are used for Binance Launchpad. The private placement price is 0.06-0.12 US dollars, and the Binance Launchpad price is 0.1 US dollars, which is a valuation of 50 million US dollars.

The initial circulation of HOOK tokens is 50 million, and the circulation will be 19.16% after one year, until it is released in 2029. According to the Binance Launchpad price, the initial circulation market value of HOOK tokens after listing is 5 million US dollars, and the total circulation market value is 50 million US dollars. According to CoinMarketCap data, the total circulation market value ranks around 320th in the entire network.

There is no upper limit on the issuance of HGT tokens, and the number of HGT tokens issued depends on the amount of money earned by users completing in-app tasks. The only way to produce HGT tokens is for users to complete in-app tasks. Specifically, they can earn coins by answering questions, earning coins by inviting others, and POWT mining, etc., which motivates users to experience Web3 in the game.

HGT tokens earned through various in-app tasks and behaviors can be unlocked and converted to uHGT (unlocked HGT tokens). HGT tokens themselves are not liquid and tradable, so the uHGT mechanism is used to manage the liquidity of HGT. uHGT uses a community-driven and algorithmically adjusted unlocking mechanism to ensure a sustainable model, adjusting the reward amount, frequency, and unlocking cap based on user participation proof and community contribution, in order to reduce the speculative risk of reputation and value when token prices fluctuate.

The HGT consumption mechanism is to purchase NFTs in the app, enhance the gaming experience, and unlock advanced rewards. The earned HGT tokens can also be converted to HOOK tokens. Originally, uHGT could not be purchased, but later someone cracked the purchase method, and it soared 30 times overnight, but now it has fallen back. According to Dexscreener information, the current token price of uHGT is 0.0000069 US dollars, and the amount of USDT in the liquidity pool is 124,000 BUSD.

product experience

The Hooked protocol has now launched its first pilot application, called Wild Cash. According to Binance Research, Hooked became the first and only Web3 application in Indonesia to dominate the Google Play rankings for nine consecutive days shortly after its release, with more than 2 million monthly active users.

Wild Cash can currently only be downloaded through the Google Play Store. You can log in with your Google account or Facebook account, and then select the language in the app according to the product instructions to participate in the fun and earn money. It should be noted that once the language is selected, it cannot be changed. After the user successfully registers for Wild Cash, it will assign the user a cryptocurrency wallet address. There is currently no entry to export the wallet private key or for users to import their own wallets.

Wild Cash reduces the probability of being robbed of coins by robots at zero cost through the question bank and the correct answer rate mechanism. According to community experience feedback, the efficiency of completing multiple accounts to rob coins through simulators and scripts is extremely low, and more rewards can be obtained by answering questions seriously. However, the invitation reward is extremely high, and users can achieve witch attacks by inviting multiple accounts, thereby obtaining a large number of tokens.

How to earn coins

Currently, there are three ways to earn coins in Wild Cash: answer questions, invite, POWT, and pledge. The tokens earned by users are Gold, which can only be used within the application and can be used to upgrade in-game items (more efficient mining hoes, mine carts, etc.).

Answer questions to earn coins

The quiz earning coin activity is divided into prize quiz and quiz training camp. In both activities, users have the opportunity to receive Gold token rewards.

Users can first participate in the prize quiz to understand the answering scenario, familiarize themselves with the question bank content, and prepare for the special question-answering session. The prize quiz has two modes: one is to share 500 million Gold tokens within a limited time, and the other is to share 1 billion Gold tokens within a limited time. Users can participate in any event from the first answering time to 24:00 on the same day.

The way to participate is to answer questions at a fixed time, and the token rewards will be issued every other day. There are 10 questions in each guessing event. If the user answers the question incorrectly or fails to answer the question within the specified time, it will be considered a failure. You can use the resurrection card to revive. There are 3 resurrection opportunities per day for each event. Every time a user successfully invites others to download and register the Wild Cash app, the user can get 5 resurrection cards as a reward. There is no upper limit on the number of resurrection cards.

The Q&A training camp has 3 training areas, each with different difficulty and token rewards. The question bank consists of 10 basic questions related to the cryptocurrency circle, and the answer time for each question is 60 seconds. If the user answers 10 questions correctly, there will be 1 chance to get the Gold token reward. If all 10 questions are not answered correctly, the question will be answered in a loop until all 10 questions are answered correctly. If you quit midway, you will lose the reward.

The Q&A training camp will set the number of questions that users can answer every day based on their historical accuracy rate. The higher the accuracy rate, the more questions you can answer, and the more rewards you will get. According to PANews tests, you can get 1,100-1,800 Gold tokens for each quiz.

Invite to earn coins

Users can copy their personal link in the invitation earning interface to invite friends to participate. Successfully inviting a single user can get 5,000 Gold tokens. At the same time, a ladder of invitation rewards is set. The first successful invitation can get 30,000 Gold rewards, and successfully inviting 3 people can get 31,000 Gold rewards, and so on.

When the user you invite starts mining, you will receive 5% of the mining reward of the invitee. This reward is a platform reward, and the mining reward of the invitee will not be reduced. In the invitation interface, you can click the corresponding button to remind the invitee to participate in mining, and you can remind them once every 24 hours.

POWT Mining

POWT refers to Proof of Work Time mining, which simulates Bitcoin mining. Users can mine a limited amount of Gold tokens through in-app functions (such as token mining games), thereby cultivating and enhancing the daily Web3 experience of Hooked users.

The default mining efficiency of the application is to mine 1 gold per second, the mining time is 1 hour, and the upper limit of a single account is 10,000 gold per 24 hours. Users can improve mining efficiency by clicking the Tap button, or cast a hoe with higher mining efficiency. The casting price of a hoe with a 2HGT/s efficiency is 9,600 gold, and the casting price of a hoe with a 3/s efficiency is 19,800 gold. At the same time, the capacity of the mine cart can be increased to increase the amount of gold that can be mined per day. The casting price of a 16,000/24h mine cart is 36,000 gold, and the casting price of a 33,000/24h mine cart is 68,000 gold.

According to the system settings, the first priority is to upgrade the mining efficiency and mining car capacity to maximize the daily coin production.

The mining efficiency of the hoe upgraded to level 3 is 3/s. You can get 10,800 coins by mining at normal speed for 1 hour. At this time, the capacity of the level 1 minecart is sufficient. If the user clicks the screen to increase the mining efficiency, you need to buy a level 2 minecart. Therefore, after starting mining, you can upgrade the hoe first, and then continue to upgrade the hoe to level 3 after the next 24 hours, and then upgrade the minecart capacity after the second 24 hours. After the third 24 hours, upgrade the hoe. This efficiency is currently in the form of a blind box, so the subsequent operations depend on the efficiency of the hoe.

Stake to earn coins

The HGT earned through the above methods can be used to earn more tokens through staking, with an annualized return of 20%. The staked tokens can be deposited and withdrawn at any time. When the earned Gold reaches 800,000, users can exchange it for uHGT in the app, and then exchange it for BUSD. According to the Wild Cash app, the exchange ratio of Gold and uHGT is 1:1. According to the current secondary market price of uHGT, 800,000 Gold tokens are worth 0.5 US dollars.

Later planning

The Hooked protocol was announced to be launched on the BNB Chain mainnet on October 24. It is expected to expand to other Layer 1 networks (such as Solana, Avalanche, etc.) in the fourth quarter of 2022, while expanding into the global market and launching the guessing experience in more regions.

In the first half of 2023, we will launch a more diverse gamified learning experience, establish continuous cooperation and partnerships with more Web3 projects, and launch wallet solutions for Hooked community users. In the second half of 2023, we will become one of the largest Web3 explorer communities and launch DAO governance structure exploration for the Hooked protocol. At the same time, we will use the Hooked ecosystem infrastructure to launch more different applications, and explore business models for application middleware solutions (wallets, DIDs, etc.) launched by ecosystem developers.

According to information disclosed by Binance, there will be long-term and lasting cooperation between the Hooked protocol and the BNB chain, which will incentivize the Hooked community to explore the BNB chain ecosystem with attractive benefits and diverse experiences.

Summarize

In summary, from the product experience, the application is highly complete. The official has also reduced the risk of sub-coin HGT being minted by robots in batches through the answering rules. In addition, the limited-time and limited-quantity purchase of tools to improve mining efficiency has slowed down the mining output speed, requiring users to spend more time and energy to participate. However, the invitation reward mechanism has huge loopholes, which can be completed by witch attacks at zero cost, and the current economic ecological cycle path within the application is extremely single, and demand cannot meet supply. This model will lead to the HGT token price having no support value in the short term. It is necessary to observe whether Hooked officials will improve the invitation mechanism and build a richer economic cycle within the ecosystem.

From the perspective of the economic model, the circulation of the parent coin HOOK was extremely low in the early stage, and the total circulation market value was only 50 million US dollars, which may be for the purpose of market makers to achieve strong control. In addition, Hooked officials once held a Halloween event and issued more than 40,000 Hooked Party Passes (in the form of SBT, non-transferable) to the community. According to official information, Hooked officials announced an airdrop to Pass card holders.

From the perspective of ecological needs, in the current Binance ecosystem, except for Stepn, which caused short-term FOMO and made the economic activities on the BNB chain extremely active, there are no other similar phenomenal products. The Hooked protocol has the potential to attract more users to the BNB chain. But this depends on the economic cycle within the Hooked protocol being diverse enough, otherwise there will be another period of silence after the FOMO sentiment.