Community blog

HashPack x Mints and Drops Podcast Episode #27

Article by

Mints and Drops

Mints and Drops bring enthusiasts & Hedera NFT creators together. Building bridges in an intertwined constellation of uniquely talented people all at the same time, at the very same place, in our ecosystem.

Watch the most recent edition of Mints and Drops' podcast as they interview May Chan, CEO of HashPack.

Transcription

Mints and Drops – Fil - Founder
Hey Hbarbarians, what's up? Thank you for passing by. My name is Fil, and I am from Mints and Drops. And today, I'm having the ultimate pleasure to receive on the show May from HashPack. You know, the number one and leading wallet over in our ecosystem. She knows it all. She brought up the secret sauce just a little bit. What's planned, you know, for next year? You know, her part of her history, what she's bringing to the table, you know, in terms of utility, UX, UI. Enjoy. May from HashPack, this is a great one. Thank you so much for being around. Thank you for passing by today on the show.

HashPack Wallet – May Chan – Founder & CEO
Yeah, absolutely. It's great to be here.

Mints and Drops – Fil - Founder
Thank you so much. How, how are you?

HashPack Wallet – May Chan – Founder & CEO
I'm doing really well. I guess, uh, I'd like to say happy holidays to everyone who's listening in. It's been really busy, and even, even in the holidays here, we're really busy at HashPack, so we're yeah, not taking it at UT, but it's been fun, lots of fun.

Mints and Drops – Fil - Founder
That's amazing, you know, and being, you know, one of uh, your users, for sure, I've been enjoying uh, the app a whole lot. There's, there's so much to say once you're in front of me. I feel like you're the Oracle from The Matrix. You know, I got so many questions. Um, how do you make it so uh, simple with all the possibilities over at HashPack? We can talk about the history and whatnot, but in in terms of UX and UI, with so much that you can do inside, so little in terms of frame, how do you make it simple and accessible for everyone?

HashPack Wallet – May Chan – Founder & CEO
Yeah, well, you know, I think that that simplicity and accessibility is the reason why we're like the number one wallet on Hedera. Um, and it's really been our focus from the very beginning. So like, we have an amazing designer on our team, his name is Jacob. Um, Jacob, yeah, and he lives in the UK. Um, and he just, like, from the beginning, he was like, we have to have a great user experience. We have to make it so that anyone can use the wallet, not just like d-gens, but also, you know, the grandmas of those degens. Um, actually, from day one, we actually had a few users who were completely new to crypto and were terrified of anything to do with private keys and stuff, so we really built our wallet around that kind of like user experience to make it so that those kind of people would be really confident in using our wallet. Um, in terms of like simplicity, we really wanted to avoid some of the bloated UI that we see in in a lot of wallets. Um, I think that it's really tempting as like a product designer to keep adding buttons and tabs and add more features so that people can do things, and and that comes at a cost of clarity and making it um, really easy for the user to understand what's going on. And I actually think that you know, there's still a lot that we can do to make the wallet better, so we're constantly improving that, but yeah, uh, I think we really just, we're really just focused on making it a great experience. I think it helps that we know what kind of audience that we're building for. Uh, right now, it's the NFT community. It's the DeFi community. Um, and I, we really want to make that experience as good as possible for those people. Um, and I think we're doing well because we've been told that HashPack's UX is better than any other wallet, even on other chains. And even there are some users that have come to me and said that the main reason why they moved to Hedera is because of HashPack. Like, they loaded it in, it was so easy, and yeah, yeah, you buy your NFT and it shows up.

Mints and Drops – Fil - Founder
Yeah, it's, it's just simple. And we can go around it, you know, later on, but in terms of UX, you know, it's straightforward. I mean, and you don't even feel it, so that that's what makes it so powerful in my opinion. And um, did you venture into any other ecosystem? What's your what's your story? Um, what's your storyline? How did you how did you end up or doing HashPack?

HashPack Wallet – May Chan – Founder & CEO
It's a really funny story. Um, I didn't get into crypto until February last year, so 2021 in the heat of the bull run. Uh, a friend of mine just out of the blue, shield me on Hoge coin, which is like Doge, but it's a bulldog. So, so I like, bought some at his at his behest. Um, and then I promptly lost a lot of money on it because I don't know what I didn't know what I was doing, but it was fun. Um, I did have an opportunity to like, profit, but I, I, you know, held, uh, so that kind of that kind of like speculation thing, I am I, and not good at all. Um, and I recognize that really quickly, so I started looking into the chains, different chains, different tokens. Um, and somehow, I ended up on Hedera, and I joined a community on Hedera called Club Hbar, and it's just a bunch of people who are really big Hbar fans. Um, and then we uh, like, I was, I was just like looking into the documentation of Hedera and stuff, and I, I found the SDK, and I started just tweaking around with it. Um, and I had this idea of building something on the network, so I asked in the community, I was like, does anyone want to build something with me? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just like out of nowhere, four random people on the internet, got together, and we decided to build a wallet, and six months later, we launched it, and that became HashPack.

Mints and Drops – Fil - Founder
Oh, that's crazy. Jacob wasn't there, or he come along later.

HashPack Wallet – May Chan – Founder & CEO
Jacob was, we started with, okay, so in that Discord, I think about 10 people raised their hands, and then after about two weeks, only four people remained, and those four people became the four co-founders of HashPack, and all of us are still there.

Mints and Drops – Fil - Founder
That's crazy. Yeah, it always makes up the simplest stories when you when you start up something. Um, it's always like the simplest thing right, it's just raise your hand if you want to build something. That's crazy, and it becomes, you know, the number one wallet out in the age, that that's absolutely nuts. That's crazy how, um, and through all of this, of course, because you have to be an enthusiast of the entire ecosystem, NFT base, and whatever, yeah, um, and of course, you're a builder out here, how do you find balance throughout this, because of course, you want to invest, you want to go ham, and of course, we've all made mistakes, you know, like you said with the old Queen, but at the same time, it's so thrilling at the same time, so you know, because it's juicy, there's so many you know, stuff that you can make happen, how do you find balance between, okay, I got to build this, I got to keep my head down, and just, yeah, put all the noise out, and then, okay, well, I'm gonna enjoy myself at that.

HashPack Wallet – May Chan – Founder & CEO
So yeah, it's kind of tough. Um, I used to be a lot more engaged day to day with the community. I used to like go hype on Hbar whenever it rose up and like post uh, wojacks when the price went down and you know, really, really get involved in that for fun. Um, but as the year has gone by, it's been harder and harder, because the space is growing so fast. Um, it used to be a lot smaller. I used to know like almost everyone in the ecosystem that was building on something. Um, and I had like some contacts with the HBAR foundation and with Hedera, and you know, I, it was easy to just like keep up to date with everything that was going on. Um, and now everything's grown so much, and we have so many new projects every single day, and we have people coming in from all the different chains, so it's really crazy. Um, but you know, I, guess, like one of the things that really helped was going full time on HashPack, which I was able to do, uh, back at the beginning of the year, and so now, I didn't have to juggle two jobs. But also, like, I've learned to put aside a bit of time every day to do some physical exercise, like going to the gym. And I do a little bit of non-crypto related things too, which helps my sanity. But I think it's just fun to be in the crypto space and to keep up to date with what everyone's building. I don't really get so involved with the new NFT projects these days or the crypto tokens, but I have friends who do, and they tell me all that's going on. So it's fun to keep up to date, and like, I guess, as the CEO of a wallet, it's not really good for me to favor any projects, so I just sort of sit back and kind of promote everybody equally, is my goal - be objective. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And just give everyone an equal chance to show off what they're doing and get excited about what they're doing. So yeah, I actually really love that about the Hedera community. We're really open and welcoming, and we really collaborate well together as a group. I would love to keep seeing that happen as the network grows, which I know is tough.

Mints and Drops – Fil - Founder
It will, I'm sure it will. For sure, because at one point, because we - we like right now, we all connect because we share at least a vast majority of values and you know, uh, opinions and points, right? And it's not forced to have a full array of it of being, you know, uh, in accord with it, but still, what we have, what we share, you know, we share through the entire network, and that's what's so amazing, you know? And that, and that's what's so welcoming about it too.

HashPack Wallet – May Chan – Founder & CEO
Yeah, it's what a lot of people love when they come to Hedera too, like just how open the community is, and how there actually is a really fun community here. And so, like, I really love that about this space.

Mints and Drops – Fil - Founder
Even though it can be like, uh, some type of a rabbit hole, or really, yeah, because when we start this up, I don't know, well, one year and a half ago, or so, I started back in, uh, wow, that's March 2021, yeah, and uh, you know, I started this stuff like maybe let's say, okay, well, five hours a week, or so. I was like, okay, what's this, what's that? Of course, discovered Hbar not so long after, wise, but you know, the more you dive into it, the more you see stuff that you can read and learn about, and vice versa, you uh, meet up, you know, incredible people that you know, and they know other stuff, and then well, there's five hours a week, it becomes five hours a day, and then it becomes 10 hours, then you're like, wow, I gotta set limits, for sure. Uh, that's why I was asking you about balance, because it can get absolutely crazy, and since it's worldwide, never sleeps, yeah. I'm, uh, not to brag, but I'm a UX/UI student right now, I'm taking a class. Nice, it's a scary career switch from you right now, and uh, you know, I, I can see great UX/UI, of course, even before you know, knowing or starting, at least, the very basics, okay? And uh, being a Fan myself, you know? I can say of course, you know, that I cannot see the design. Which is why you know I believe it's really great design. What do you think in terms of the whole package? What's the biggest accomplishment? Hey, this is not a mic drop, but you know, you're doing this and you're like, 'Okay, we got this unlock.' And you know, I can close my eyes and I know I got this. In terms of biggest accomplishments, like, I got this.

HashPack Wallet – May Chan – Founder & CEO
Yeah. I think it's, we can't downplay the fact that we are the leading wallet on Hedera right now. I think our biggest accomplishment so far is paving the way for NFT marketplaces and the DeFi economy. We really enabled DeFi on Hedera, like, from the grassroots. We built everything up. The stuff that we built enabled marketplaces to form, enabled DEXes to come online, and I think that the community recognizes that without HashPack, we wouldn't have this community and ecosystem that we have today. So I definitely think that our team has a point of pride where we're leaders in the space and we're really building something that's important that people need, because everything that we've done so far has really catalyzed growth and interest in the space. And, of course, like the wallet is the interface to the network. It's not itself an application. You don't necessarily do things on a wallet. You do things with the wallet. So even though I'm saying that we did a great job of building the space, I also want to just point out that there are also great teams on Hedera, like Saucer Swap, like Stader, like Zuse. All of the creators that are building new things and stuff. Right? All of us on Hedera are really trying to build something great, and HashPack is kind of like the glue that binds everything together. So that's really how we see each other. And I guess, yeah, like I think as a community, we should really be proud of what we've accomplished so far. It's amazing, especially given that we missed the bull run of 2021, yet we're still growing, and it's really good. And I have a really good feeling about going forward about the interest that we can drive into Hedera, about the things that we can do in the space that can evolve Web3, not just build on what's been done or build what's been done before, but build on top of it and really iterate. Exactly. Like right now, HashPack is leading Hedera, but I hope that Hedera can lead Web3. And that's not to say...there's also one thing I want to just comment on that I've been thinking about lately, which is, at the beginning, like, early 2021 or before that, people were being very Hedera Maxi and saying, 'Hedera is the old coin' or things like that, and I think that, that...I mean, that happens in other ecosystems as well, but I think that that's actually a bit divisive to say that kind of thing. Rather, we should think about, as a community, not just Hedera, but Web3 as a whole, how can we build something that's going to be great? And I think that the Hedera community is very open to that idea, where we can work together, we can work with all these other chains and build something great. And I think that that's necessary. Like, if we look into, um, all of the other ones, like Polygon and Ethereum and Solana, even with Phantom moving on to different wallets, Algorand, yeah, XRP, like all of these spaces are, we're starting to see the dapps and stuff, um, and the wallets go, like, build cross-chain compatibility and ability to swap assets across as seamlessly as possible, and I think that that's the future. So, like, as an ecosystem, we're growing, but we can also lead the way and really make it as easy as possible for anyone to use Web3. So, and I think there is, like, the perfect platform to do it on, yeah.

Mints and Drops – Fil - Founder
Again, because we share common values of, you know, welcoming people in and...yeah. I even though at one point, of course, you have to choose a house to build upon. But at one point, of course, um, there is always this expression where you know the pie is not big enough, right, because you have to, you have to go somewhere else because mistakes have been made, you know, in our camp and other camps. Yeah, and we can a hundred thousand percent benefit from anything, and just for sharing this, because again it's so cliche to say, but we're so early, and that's so true, because at one point you know we just want Web3 to be all there. So, I vouch for that a thousand percent, for sure. And um, wanted to get back on, there's so much to say, um, when did Secure Trade come into play? Was it February?

HashPack Wallet – May Chan – Founder & CEO
Uh, it was in early January, I think. It was one of our first features, yeah.

Mints and Drops – Fil - Founder
That came in as a bomb, because I just had a flashback, you know what, and what it came in, and of course there's many layers to this, but that truly brought up a level of trust that that was so much needed, because at one point it was like, okay, I wanna...it's like you know when you're waiting in the goal for the baseball and you're waiting for it and you're like, 'Am I stealing, uh, you know, the first base or whatever?' And then you know you did not know because the person in front of you, you needed that level of trust, you needed that distance to say, 'Okay, this is the securus safest place for us to do something,' and that propelled it. That truly propelled it, and that may explode everything, even before before secondary marketplace.

HashPack Wallet – May Chan – Founder & CEO
Well, Secure Trade, was because at that time, that was before any marketplaces were live on Hedera. I think there was like one or two Max, and they were kind of doing things in a weird way where you had to enter your key into the marketplace, because back then there was no signing with wallets. We actually had to build that out. Um, and so we built Secure Trade, which is peer-to-peer trading, where you create the request as a sender of the NFT and you say how much you want to buy the NFT for the buyer, and then you send them that transaction, and then they sign it, right? And so then the trade happens automically, which means there's no chance for the sender to not send the NFT or the buyer to not pay for it. Right. Um, and we saw so much activity just come up from that. People were so excited, people were trading non-stop. It was it was really good, and even today, your trade is actually pretty like a lot of, um, activity on there, and we are also planning to build out a version two of Secure Trade, which I've been now saying more prominently now in in spaces because we're getting close to delivering that. Um, but Secure Trade version two will let you trade not just HBAR for NFTs, but also NFT for NFT, or NFT for tokens, or token for a token, or anything, like any combination you could do, like HBAR and a token for that. It's something that we're really excited for, because it'll really unlock like peer-to-peer trading overall, and it's also kind of complicated because there's like custom fees for all of these NFTs and tokens and stuff and royalties and stuff that all have to be taken into account. So it's like kind of tricky, but we are definitely aiming to bring that out soon, and then I think that we'll see like another wave of people trading things and you know having fun with NFTs, which I think is really important in this space. Like being able to just have fun, you know. It is it is it's important, you know.

Mints and Drops – Fil - Founder
It's fun to make games, but you know, it's fun to talk to people too, and just have fun. Right. That's the whole thing, the whole concept, to get also to one another. Um, so SecureTrade 2.0, 3.0, um, that that's not, that's, uh, not to put you on the spot, so that's for next year. Um, yeah, about that. Yeah, cool. What's, what, what, what sort of, juicy, what's the sauce, uh, for, uh, no pun, what's the sauce for HashPack coming in like Q1, Q2?

HashPack Wallet – May Chan – Founder & CEO
Yeah, um, iOS app is coming up. We're actually in beta right now, which, yeah, um, so beta means that it's basically done except that Apple Store hasn't approved us yet. We're having trouble with their NFT policies, but, uh, you can actually download the beta app right now and use HashPack on your iOS app, or on your on your Apple phone or iOS device. So that's coming. We also have a security audit coming up, which isn't really juicy, but we're, that is one thing that the community was asking for, and we're going to be delivering on that. So those are kind of like things that that are already announced. We have a really big push on the community side where we reached out to a bunch of builders and creators on Hedera and we put all of their projects onto our community site on our website, and that's kind of like getting people aware of what's being built on Hedera and showcasing those cool projects so that new users can come and dive into the ecosystem. So we've got a lot of things planned for building that community and keeping things going and keeping that energy up. Uh, and I think it will really grow. Um, and then aside from that, we've got some cool things coming up on like for NFTs. Um, we, we really like I think one of the biggest things on Hedera right now is the NFT community and how vibrant and innovative it is, so we're really going to plan, we're planning to add more features on that part with the gallery and like, oh, I can't share too much, because you know, we just come on, we just, yeah, uh, well, things like being able to sort your gallery. Are things that we've talked about in the team. Things like Secure Trade V2, which is a big one where you can actually trade things. Things like sharing your NFTs with people, like to brag or show off. We have that coming up. We're also really keen on the gaming space, so building out features that will help games come into Hedera or come into web3 and start issuing their collectibles and things like that, and then viewing them in HashPack. We're actually working with a few games right now to try to figure out how exactly that flow works.

Mints and Drops – Fil - Founder
In my opinion, gaming and NFTs go together really well. I was a gamer back then and when I started with crypto and NFTs, I put in a site. But to me, it's such a lane that goes together and people already know what it is. So if you want to integrate this whole thing that's web3, which nobody knows what it is outside of us, and you bring in something that people know and it's a world of positivity. Yeah, definitely.

HashPack Wallet – May Chan – Founder & CEO
Gaming is very interesting because so far gaming in web3 means gambling games and coin flips, and you earn and those kinds of things. But then you can also just extend it to things that already exist in games, like skins and collectibles and things like that are not speculative in nature but are more community-focused or experience-focused. You can gather an achievement from a game and then store it in your wallet if you're really proud of it, or some rare loot or something like that that you can move forever. Yeah, lots of really cool possibilities with games, and there are a few things that games need in order to properly move into web3. Some of that revolves around a wallet and accounts and how to manage them, so we're actually building out a lot of those kinds of things to make it as easy as possible for games to do that. Finally, another thing that I'm really interested in and that my team is also looking towards is things like the NFTs that Starbucks, Nike, and Reddit have been offering, and so we're looking at web 2 brands that are moving into web3 and trying to figure out how that works. They're issuing digital collectibles, like Starbucks' loyalty card with collectible stamps. The idea is that you're building that community, those experiences, and I think that NFTs have a huge opportunity there, not just for web 2 brands, but also for NFT creators to build out those kinds of experiences and communities. I think it's going to be huge and the easier we make it for brands as a community, the more we'll see that kind of adoption. Yeah, I'm really excited about that, and we're going to be trying to build things towards that. A lot of that will benefit NFT collectors because that's really the basis of these collectible digital collectibles. Yeah, I guess that's a sneak peek of where we're going as a company and what we're looking forward to in 2023.

Mints and Drops – Fil - Founder
Can't come soon enough. Thank you so much for taking the time to be with us tonight on the show. It was truly a pleasure. I enjoyed my time. It was really great.

HashPack Wallet – May Chan – Founder & CEO
Thank you so much. You can reach us on Twitter at @may_hashpack or our official Twitter @hashpackapp. We also have an official Discord, the link for which is on our website, hashpack.app. If you have any support questions, bugs, or feedback for us as a team, you can come in and chat with us. We're really open to that. Just a disclaimer: HashPack team will never DM you first and we'll never ask for keys or anything like that. Make sure you're looking at the official accounts because there are unfortunately a lot of scammers in the space trying to take advantage. So yeah, we'll never DM you first. Go to our Discord to find our social media stuff and we'll be more than happy to chat.

Mints and Drops – Fil - Founder
May, thank you so much. It was a pleasure. Yes, okay, I'll see you later, and thank you so much again. You're welcome back on the show at any point, and have a great evening.

HashPack Wallet – May Chan – Founder & CEO
Absolutely, you too. Thank you.

Mints and Drops – Fil - Founder
May from HashPack. Thank you so much for your presence today on the show. I truly and genuinely enjoyed my time. Thank you to all of you who passed by on the show. I have to say that Mints and Drops have made it onto the resource page on the main website at HashPack. It's truly a blessing. Thank you to every single one of you on the team. Thank you to all of you who are watching every single episode or one episode or the other. Your presence and support is truly felt. I want to take a moment to truly thank all of you so much. This is what happens when you have a good house, a great house, and you can build upon it. You can build bridges and have a blast, make some friends, expand, grow the pie, and be there on the next show of mints and drops.

Back to community blog