Hooked Protocol

What is Hooked Protocol (HOOK)?

Hooked Protocol is positioned as the on-ramp layer for massive Web3 adoption to form the ecosystem of future community-owned economies.

Focusing on ways for users to earn and providing gamified learning experiences, Hooked Protocol facilitates and optimizes onboarding flows for all Web3 pathfinders, aiming to get them “hooked” on Web3.

The Hooked Protocol team believes that, by paying out economic value back to users, they can enable everyone to access, earn, and own a share of crypto without any prior experience. The project allows developers to transform their applications into a streamlined Web3 form and aims to leverage decentralized social networks and viral growth.

To this end, Hooked Protocol has already garnered a significant following, with a community of millions thanks to the success of products like Wild Cash.

When was Hooked Protocol Launched?

Hooked Protocol completed its seed fundraising round in Q2 2022, with backing from Binance Labs, the venture capital and accelerator arm of the eponymous crypto exchange, and Sequoia Seed Fund.

This fundraiser allowed the Hooked Protocol team to accelerate early development efforts, and they were able to launch their flagship Wild Cash product in Indonesia in Q3. It became one of the biggest SocialFi applications across all blockchains and surpassed 50,000 Daily Active Users right from its launch day on the BNB Chain.

This immediate success allowed Hooked Protocol to expand rapidly, and the project hit the Binance Launchpad for an IEO (Initial Exchange Offering) in Q4 2022. This IEO had a hard cap of $2.5 million, with HOOK tokens being sold for $0.1 each. This meant that just 5% of the token supply was sold at the IEO.

Who are the Founders of Hooked Protocol?

Hooked Protocol was founded by a former Uber and Meta executive known simply as Jason Y. The project’s C-suite follows the same naming convention, with the founder being joined by CTO Mike L. and CMO Jess L.

How Does Hooked Protocol Work?

Hooked Protocol attempts to gamify learning and integrate social referral, spinning these factors together into the Wild Cash game that made quite a splash at launch on the BNB Chain.

Wild Cash has four main aspects. Users can “dive into the rabbit hole” with Quiz to Earn, an easy way to brush up on Web3 knowledge and get rewarded with tokens.

Then there’s the mining game labeled a BTC mining simulation using PoWT. PoWT stands for proof-of-work-and-time, where players invest their time and effort within the platform to try and fill progress bars.

The third way to earn within Wild Cash is through referrals. Users can monetize their social network by referring contacts to Wild Cash and earning token rewards.

The tokens earned this way can be managed through the “stake, swap, and transfer” section of the app. As this functions similarly to a cryptocurrency wallet, users are offered the tools to withdraw their assets from Wild Cash or even Swap them through various exchange channels.

What makes Hooked Protocol Unique?

It must be noted that the tokens earned within the Wild Cash app are called HGT, or Hooked Gold Tokens, not HOOK tokens. HGT are purely in-ecosystem tokens. There are also uHGT tokens, which are derived from the mechanism of managing the liquidity of HGT.

HGT itself is non-liquid, but a community-driven and algorithm-adjusting unlocking mechanism via uHGT makes the model sustainable, according to the Hooked Protocol “whitepaper.”

HGT tokens that users earn through in-app quests and actions are converted into uHGT, or unlocked HGT. A specific bonding curve has been applied to these unlocks, with the user’s proof of engagement and community contribution playing a role in unlock frequencies and caps.

How is the Hooked Protocol Network Secured?

While it is supposedly developing rollup infrastructure for various layer 1 blockchains, Hooked Protocol’s blockchain presence currently boils down to Wild Cash, which is a dApp on the BNB Chain.

BNB Chain uses a proof-of-authority (PoA) consensus mechanism with a limited number of permissioned validators, compromising on decentralization in exchange for high performance.

What is the Use of HOOK?

HOOK is the governance token of the Hooked Protocol, designed to reflect the value that flows across the platform. It is also used as fuel for economic activity upon future rollup infrastructure, can be staked to incentivize holding, and has social aspects when it comes to status signaling.

How Much HOOK Is In Circulation?

As previously mentioned, 5% of the HOOK token’s supply was sold in its Binance Launchpad IEO, while the seed sale saw 20% of the supply go to Binance, Sequoia, and others.

The Hooked Protocol team took away 20% of the 500 million HOOK tokens in existence. The remaining 55% is split between a community allocation and the project treasury.

Tokens sold to private investors are due to unlock in the latter half of 2023, and team token emissions will begin at the same time. Currently, only 10% of the HOOK token supply is in circulation.

How Do You Buy HOOK?

With VC backing, centralized exchange listing is never far away. That is often true when one of the backers is the investment arm of an exchange, so it should be no surprise that HOOK is listed on several exchanges, including Binance.

It is also possible to buy HOOK tokens via decentralized exchanges like PancakeSwap on the BNB Chain.

How Do You Store HOOK?

You can store HOOK tokens using a BNB Chain-compatible wallet, on Wild Cash (since it has a wallet-like function), or on an exchange account. Since the utility of the HOOK token is limited, you aren’t missing much wherever you store it. This may change when DAO-style governance is implemented.

That said, it’s good to be aware of the risks when it comes to custodial storage. Plenty of cryptocurrency custodians have hurtled into bankruptcy in the recent past, and customers/depositors always seem to get the short end of the stick.

Is HOOK a Good Investment?

Hooked Protocol is a relatively new project that, at least at the time of writing, is living off the laurels of its success with Wild Cash. While gamification is definitely a proven route when it comes to marketing, there’s an element of abstraction when it comes to how exactly users are creating value and getting paid out by the app.

However, the Hooked Protocol lays out ambitious plans, and its roadmap includes collaboration with other Web3 projects as well as the development of DAO governance and more diverse applications. If these come to fruition, the HOOK token could certainly gain value as it attains actual utility.