NFT Collectors Hub on Hedera! HashGuild and King Solomon (Part 1)

This interview was originally published by Genfinity.

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Genfinity, a company focused on the Hedera Hashgraph ecosystem and network, recently interviewed Marcel, the co-founder and CEO of HashGuild, a company building a Tool Set Marketplace for the Hedera community. During the interview, Marcel spoke about HashGuild's vision to provide a comprehensive platform for the NFT ecosystem on Hedera, including a marketplace, a launch pad for NFT projects, and a staking solution. Marcel discussed the success of the launch pad so far, with 10 NFT projects having minted on it, as well as the staking solution, which has been live for a few weeks with HashGuild's own NFT project as the alpha user.

Marcel also talked about the importance of providing a platform that helps users navigate the NFT ecosystem and find the tools they need to succeed, especially as more and more people are getting onboarded into the web 3 space. Overall, the interview provided valuable insights into the work that HashGuild is doing to create an NFT infrastructure on Hedera and the value it brings to the Hedera community.

Transcription

Genfinity – King Solomon – Founder & CEO
‍What is up, everybody, Solomon here. I hope you guys are all having a fantastic day. As you guys know, within Genfinity, in our Hedera Corner, in collaboration with HashPack, we are doing just tons and tons and tons of Hedera Hashgraph ecosystem and network interviews, and today, definitely one that I'm excited for. Have Marcel, who's the co-founder and CEO of HashGuild, building out an amazing Tool Set Marketplace for the air community. So, how are you doing today Marcel?

HashGuild – Marcel – Founder & CEO
‍Thanks for the invitation and always a pleasure to talk to you and also you know I'm speaking to the community and sharing our visions.

Genfinity – King Solomon – Founder & CEO
‍Yeah, so I mean to give a little bit of an overview of HashGuild. I mean, can you talk kind of in general, like a summary about what HashGuild represents within the ecosystem from a Marketplace, for staking, or launch pad, or just kind of run the gamut for us so that the audience and Community can learn a little bit?

HashGuild – Marcel – Founder & CEO
‍Sure, so actually our core vision, if we have to be more specific about it, is basically that HashGuild shall be the main NFT infrastructure provider on Hedera. We want to build a platform that aligns all relevant tools and services for both creators and collectors throughout their user journey, as we call it in business terms. What that includes, obviously, a trading hub. So, our marketplaces live, but we actually went, I think, since one month, already passed this Marketplace only procedure, so we are currently delivering a launch pad plus a staking solution. I'm not sure if probably some people will be aware, but we also actually deployed our smart contract for our permissionless minting tool. So we're also providing, literally, from NFT creation til the NFT distribution of the utility of NFTs to the respective customer group, either creator and collector. And for us, it's like really important to have like this kind of one platform where you can find everything because you know we know about this typical onboarding of new people into the ecosystem, web 2 to web 3, and you know where to start, where to stop, where to go ahead. And for us, it's just important to deliver a platform that really like sums everything up, and you find what you need on the platform.

Genfinity – King Solomon – Founder & CEO
‍Yeah, that's fantastic. I mean, I think what we've seen within Hedera, even over the past year, not even past year, the past six months has been amazing, the past three months has been amazing. I love the initiatives about not having kind of a piecemeal ecosystem and really trying to provide as many services and use cases for your audience, for user engagement, and that user experience as possible. You talked about the launch pad and the staking aspects. How many projects, I mean, ballpark, have you guys had on the launch pad? I think I was on the site beforehand. From the staking aspect, it looks like you had three or four on there right now. Maybe go through who you've had on there yet, how many projects, and what that looks like so far.

HashGuild – Marcel – Founder & CEO
‍So, on the Launchpad on our Alpha and combined with the actual beta version I think I'm told we had right now 10 NFT projects minting with us through the launch pad, including for example OGX, HBAR Panda, Wizards Second Drop, and Plum. So, yeah, also really good art in there as well. So, really appreciate that sense as well. You know, not only those big collection drops, but also having some unique art pieces in there. But that's just a personal note. Regarding the staking, we actually put it live I think three or four weeks ago. And obviously, we started with our own NFT project being like the alpha user and also the testing group. It worked out perfectly. We onboarded it directly, with Wizard and HBAR Panda in the close lineup as well. I think the week's announcement also went out already. So, they are next in line. Yeah, this is just the starting point.

Genfinity – King Solomon – Founder & CEO
‍Can you give a little bit of background? I mean, you mentioned web 2 to web 3. I guess from your standpoint, why did you start building in web 3? How did you see the potential there? How long have you been in web 3? And then I always have to ask, why Hedera? Why did you choose to build on it there?

HashGuild – Marcel – Founder & CEO
‍Yeah, I mean it's a nice story. So actually, my co-founder and I started building a typical startup environment or a development agency and a gaming startup back then in web 2. Personally, I entered the web 3 space through NFTs on Ethereum. Made some trades over there. Yeah, not at the typical pump and dump. Also, not getting completely clean over there as well. So you know, it's you either gain money or lose money. The space is in a different kind of different. So yeah, and we were over there. We actually sat together and besides having our agency, we both aligned on let's hop on the train, but not just launching an NFT project. We also wanted to bring some kind of utility towards that. And first, we made a typical NFT project creation, the art, the story itself. And then we decided this whole web 3 space is about giving control to users to hold us accountable. So, we decided to build on Hedera because of the governance model and the scalability. It just fit perfectly with what we wanted to achieve. And you know what better way to do it with actually a DAO voting on where the typical interested people on minting your collection want to have your collection. And from there, out of nowhere, suddenly there are people who conquered voting and brought us over to Hedera. Back then, you know that was maybe two, three, four weeks before the drop or the initially planned drop, but like oh well, you know, great. We don't know too much about the network yet, so let's deep dive into what's happening over there, what's the current status in terms of infrastructure, but also in terms of the deeper connection to transaction fees and the overall vision of the network and the general potential of the network. And we actually fell in love with it, also coming from the Ethereum network over to the Hedera community. Like, really the OG community, everybody's super friendly. I mean, it's still the same, and it was super exciting for us. And we said, yeah, you know, that was a perfect decision to take. Happy to enter this ecosystem. And then we figured out, okay, you know, we launched our kind of NFT project and we're like, okay, you know, Marketplace. Wait, how does it work over here? People back then were trading for Discord channels and we're like, okay, you know, this is not too exciting. So, let's directly deep dive into building up a marketplace and all this infrastructure we made use of on Ethereum back then. And literally, within a month or two, we had our first version of a marketplace up and running. Everything was existing on Ethereum even one year ago with launch pads, minting tools, marketplaces, analytics tools--like everything was there. And we actually said perfect timing. We came from the builder perspective, always looking for opportunities to create value, and this was lights on. Let's move forward.

Genfinity – King Solomon – Founder & CEO
‍Yeah, 100%. And I think a lot of people, especially looking at Ethereum, that network essentially having a seven year head start as far as user engagement and user experience. But it's been really exciting to see how fast-tracked the Hedera ecosystem has become over the past year. I mean, it's night and day over the past year. And talking about the different marketplaces that exist on Hedera, obviously all boats are rowing together to drive the network forward, providing more liquidity for these nft projects, more liquidity for projects in general. What really differentiates--and I think you touched on it at the very beginning--but what differentiates HashGuild in relation to these other marketplaces right now from what you're seeing?

HashGuild – Marcel – Founder & CEO
‍I think we have to cut this question into a different setup. So, first point, as I already mentioned, we're not just a marketplace provider. We want to be like this go-to platform where you find the tools you need for creators, for others, for collectors. That's the first part, and I think that's a huge differentiator, especially when we're talking about our close connection to the project. We have onboarded it's super helpful and super interesting to talk to them about their needs. Like, you use the launchpad, your collection is live, so what's next? You talked about utility, how you're providing utility. And we have that in place--it's like an easy procedure for creators and in that momentum because you know staking, launchpads at the beginning, it's a credit tool, but also for the collectors because they see something is happening with the project. They're not just talking, they're executing, and we just help them execute their goals. This is the first part. Second part is I think what is still a little bit unknown is that we really, really believe in decentralized and complete automated ways. For example, we are not gating, we are not gating access to creators or collections. We handle it like Opensea, Sorare, all the other marketplaces out there. You create a collection, you have it, you have an NFT in your wallet. If the collection is not registered in our marketplace at this moment, it gets through fetching the NFT, fetching the collection, it gets displayed--not listed, it gets displayed on the marketplace, and everybody can see how many NFTs are registered under the collection and all those data points. We're really closely working with the data we get from the network, and I think that's a super important point. And adding to this, I think what really differentiates us is, you know, we started without the marketplace. We now have three major marketplaces out there, of course with Zuse being the front runner. But you know, trading like buying NFTs is one part, and what we realized is, looking at, for example, the offering or the bidding functionalities, our network is still far away from the opportunities other collectors receive on other networks, and this is for example, why we also released the functionality or feature that you can actually bid or make an offer on any NFT that has been registered on our marketplace. So, what that means is currently I checked the numbers a few minutes ago because I wanted to give and correct outlook on what's possible and what isn't. There are 300,000 Hedera NFTs registered on Hash Guild, which means holders that have signed in with HashGuild own in total 300,000 NFTs. And actually, everybody can make an offer or make a bid on any of those 300,000 NFTs. And that's the beauty of it. That's the beauty of the game. Because if you look into, I don't know, the Hangry Barbonns, it's not just about you see the listed NFTs, the floor prize, and you can maybe bid on those that are listed. But you can literally build on, I think, right now it's 70% of the whole collection. That's really cool, and that's nice. I think that's the beauty of the game. We like to use all the data the network gives us. I think that's a really important point, especially when it comes to decentralization, transparency. We have transparency, so why don't we use it? Right? I think that's what made one major point when you really talk about the marketplace. And of course, everybody with an NFT collection can just log in with their wallet and don't need to have any approval from our site. Holders can list, buy, sell, everything is possible. Of course, we also have a verification system, but that's on the top, and yeah, those added services are currently 80% automated. So, at the end of the day, it really needs from our side just a short check and a few clicks to get this very, very fine button or create this launch pad design for an upcoming mint. Like, a lot of automation is currently happening, and there will also be some cool updates coming, especially I think at the beginning of January. I'm planning something over there which makes it even more seamless, flawless, however you want to call it. And yeah, I think that's also kind of the division of Hash Guild.

Genfinity – King Solomon – Founder & CEO
‍I think that's amazing to put the power, as many options and choices, in the hands of the users. Like, I love the fact that, because if you start accumulating, I mean for me, I'm a little bit of a Hedera nft d-gen over the past couple of years, and I haven't sold any Hedera NFTs yet, and that's on me. That's my decision. But to be a registered user, to be a user on Hash Guild, and to have offers on NFTs that I, because it's overwhelming sometimes to be like, I want to list this, and I want to list this at floor, I want to do X, Y, and Z. But to literally be able to receive offers, I think that's absolutely fantastic, and you see that through things like opensea and other things right now. So, I haven't seen that yet on Hedera. So that's awesome that the HashGuild platform is facilitating that.