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Launch HN: Hexel (YC W18) – Create a cryptocurrency for your community

191 points by streulpita 9y ago

Hi, we're the founders of Hexel (https://www.onhexel.com https://www.onhexel.com), in the current YC batch. Our product lets anyone create a cryptocurrency (an ERC20 token on Ethereum). You don't sell it or do an ICO, you just create it and start using it right away. It's supposed to be fun! Cryptocurrency is still in a very experimental phase, but most cryptocurrencies out there seem aimed at a serious, large-scale technical problem (not to mention the get-rich-quick schemes). We're helping people create currencies for interesting things they actually want to try using now. So far, we've seen some cool use cases. To name a few: A gaming streamer is rewarding his most loyal viewers with tokens they can redeem for shoutouts or merchandise. A hip hop website is giving tokens to content curators and using them for giveaways. A few Discord channels have created tokens to use as a form of upvotes in their communities (and we think this could be cool for subreddits too). We also provide tools for managing and tracking the token you make. This is free, but we plan to make money by charging for advanced features in the future. Right now on Hexel, you can do the following: 1.) Mint tokens and airdrop them to anyone with an Ethereum address 2.) Share a public page for your token, with information and a UI for sending that token to others 3.) Explore other tokens created on Hexel, subscribe to the ones you like, and request tokens from the creator 4.) Message your token's subscribers with updates or info about things you're doing with your token 5.) View a feed of payments made using your token Although the ICO bandwagon and hype have left many people feeling cynical about cryptocurrencies (we feel that way ourselves), we're optimistic that there are many more potential applications and cool use cases out there. Our goal is to widen the space, make it interesting again, and make other use cases easy to explore. We'd love for anyone to poke holes in the use cases you see on the site, and even better would be feedback on use cases were you think this could be really useful. Thanks so much for any ideas you have! Thanks! John & Marcus

crypto_throw 9y ago
Hi, How long have both of you been working on this project? What was your traction before getting into YC? I'm most interested in the traction part since there's this misconception that YC does not accept early stage companies. It looks there are a whole lot of companies in the very early stage and I personally take that as a positive sign.
- streulpita 9y ago
  In total about 4 months. Before getting into YC we had a an Ethereum developer tools project. It had pretty low traction at that time (a handful of dedicated users, but now many). But we had built other Ethereum projects together before. That developer tools project eventually transformed into Hexel, which is now consumer facing.
SandersAK 9y ago
neat! this is such a great idea. I think there was someone else trying this as well but your setup is a lot more streamlined for non-techies out there.
smartplaya2001 9y ago
Hi John & Marcus. We are interested in this. Can the coins we make be traded on an exchange?
- streulpita 9y ago
  Hey, they are pretty standard ERC-20 tokens, so they technically can be traded on an exchange. However, right now all of the coins have pretty low volume, so most exchanges probably wouldn't list them. A decentralized exchange built on 0x would work though!
  - resolaibohp 9y ago
    It was my impression that any coin could be listed on certain exchanges if you pay the fee to do so. Depending on the exchange it could range from 50k to 1 million USD just to be added.
    - streulpita 9y ago
      Yes, that's usually about right for most exchanges. But if your coin isn't popular enough, they usually will not add it. However, there is a protocol for decentralized exchanged called 0x. Any tokens on Ethereum can be traded on this protocol, using websites like Radar Relay.
smartplaya2001 9y ago
Hi John & Marcus. I got a question. Can the tokens we create on your platform be traded on a public exchange?
arikalmen 9y ago
great product!!!
montalbano 9y ago
Sounds like a great project. I notice that the pricing model currently only features a free option. Wondering if you might be able to tell us more about the business model long term? Many thanks
- streulpita 9y ago
  We're going to keep developing features that make tokens easier to use, especially at a larger scale. We'll charge for premium features later down the road, but those features aren't set in stone yet. We have a few things planned already, things like automated token distribution (without needing MetaMask) and smart contract integrations.
will_brown 9y ago
Hey I offered this exact service with: www.dotcomco.in Some of the in-house community cryptocoins I made as a portfolio of examples include: www.ycco.in - distributed karma for HN community (still up) www.instagramco.in and www.facebookco.in - distributed likes Of course I didn’t make it to front page of HN and got no traction. As I have more than a few cryptocoin/blockchain themed domains I began tozenizing the domain ownership rights to try to sell with the pre-made community cryptocoin, my experience is there seems to be more interest in these domains than the community coins.
- it_learnses 9y ago
  You charge 10 bitcoin as your fee which is around 80,000 usd in today's value!
  - will_brown 9y ago
    That does sound outrageous, then again from the perspective of the cryptocoin world the first purchase with bitcoin was two Papa Johns Pizzas for 10,000 bitcoin which is around $80,000,000 today. When I launched bitcoin wasn’t worth what it is today...that said what would you pay for your own community cryptocoin anyway?
    - kerkeslager 9y ago
      $0
      - hyprCoin 9y ago
        Then you are not the target audience. Every small business or community can be tokenized, just like every small business can have a website. Tokenization could encourage repeat visits, community virility and vested interest, not to mention investment.
        jasongill 9y ago
        "Every small business can be tokenized" My parents own a gift shop (like a Hallmark). Can you give me an idea of how their business could be "tokenized"?
boffinism 9y ago
Trying to actually use this reminds me of how frustrating and slow it is to actually use cryptocurrencies. Endless hoops, lots of waiting for confirmations, and that's me doing things the 'easy' way with Coinbase and MetaMask. Edit: > We've submitted your transaction to the network. This usually takes about 2 minutes to confirm. 30 minutes later... Edit 2: One email to the Hexel support team later and lo, my token is live: https://www.onhexel.com/token/e4a37f4f-3a26-4ae3-a8b2-c932aaed7d8f https://www.onhexel.com/token/e4a37f4f-3a26-4ae3-a8b2-c932aa... 5/7 would recommend
- marcusmolchany 9y ago
  Yeah you're right, the user experience with Dapps can be pretty painful. We're trying to make this better. Edit: transaction time depends on the gas price, email me at support@onhexel.com and I can make sure that things go smoothly!
- streulpita 9y ago
  Perfect example of the downsides. The next thing for us is deploying the token for you automatically, so that you don't need to deal with MetaMask or worry about gas price.
it_learnses 9y ago
Once we create the token, do we have full control of the Ethereum wallet from which it is issued?
- marcusmolchany 9y ago
  You will have full control of the token contract from the ETH address that you used to create the token.
aggronn 9y ago
This is an interesting take on the BaaS market. So this does something to similar to, for example, Chain (chain.com), but for non-technical people?
- streulpita 9y ago
  Kind of. I don't know that much about Chain, but it seems like they are building private blockchain infrastructure for payments. Our tokens can obviously be used for payments, but the angle right now is not that this is faster and easier (because at this point in time, it's not). It's more that this lets people explore new concepts with tokens, and we give non-technical people the tools to try those concepts out. And also make it fun.
SirLJ 9y ago
Pyramids for everyone!
chanfest22 9y ago
This is super cool. Love your unique take on making crypto useful right now and focusing on fun & community (rather than ICO hype).
jtoy 9y ago
There area bunch of these services already, so is this YC doing a me too or is there something inherently different?
- streulpita 9y ago
  Yes, totally valid point. The difference I see is that we're focused on functionality that goes beyond selling / trading. I know there are quite a few options for "Do your own ICO" and stuff like that, which is not that interesting. We're deliberately avoiding things like ICO's and trading right now. Our focus is on making tokens usable today, and consistently improving the ease of use for someone that wants to use a token for something real.
  - gus_massa 9y ago
    But you can't avoid trading with a ERC20 token, because they are designed to be tradable. Any exchange can add the token to the supported list, and the users can immediately send the tokens to the exchange and buy and sell them. Unless these are not really tokens and the "user/owner" can send the tokens without a centralized permission.
    - streulpita 9y ago
      Yes, the creator could go trade them on an exchange if they wanted to. But we don’t help people do an ICO or encourage it. I do think tokens made on Hexel could gain value, but that would come from making them useful, not starting off with a scammy ICO.
      - nonamenoslogan 9y ago
        Altruistic attitude shall not save you from the idiocy of greed surrounding coins/tokens.
numbers 9y ago
Hi, just a general question for tokens that you might be able to answer: let's say I create a token and I want to programmatically give those tokens to people as a reward. Think of it something like "kudos" so let's say I'm at work and I want to give my coworker a thank you and for that, as a token of my gratitude, I want to send them one of my tokens. Is this do-able at all or am I just thinking of this the wrong way? One more question: since these tokens are created on ETH, does this mean for each transaction related to a token, I will need to pay gas each time I want to transact?
- marcusmolchany 9y ago
  Right now you would need to send these tokens to your co-workers using an Ethereum wallet, and you would need to pay gas. However, we're working on a way for you to programmatically send tokens.
  - jonnydubowsky 9y ago
    I think this project is well done, and I love how easy you've made it to just do up a concept, and get a group of people moving into tokenizing their value stream. I am working on a token for storing genomic data in UPort or Civic wallet, and will integrate with Ocean Protocol and Openmined and other data marketplaces. In looking at the compliance of issuing the tokens, I've found that it is essential to actually embed restrictions in the token (like the rtoken protocol is doing) to make sure it can't be traded by unaccredited investors or outside terms of a reg d lockup. It doesn't seem to matter what your intent is, if you provide the tools by which someone can begin trading an unregistered security, this seems problematic. Have you considered technical measures to prevent this?
    - jonnydubowsky 9y ago
      The following quote from a recent Coinbase article has me wondering about the recent round of amazing crypto-art tokens and the speculative market that has emerged for buying and selling them. While the proposed eth721 standard makes a distinction that attempts to seperate these tokens from the ones used in ICOs, it appears as if the SEC and FinCEN don't really care about intentions, rather how these tokens end up being used. As a YC startup, with access to some well-seasoned sources of advice, I'm wondering what you've heard on these issues as they relate to your project? "The U.S. Treasury Department's FinCEN division recently declared that any developer that sells convertible virtual currency, including in the form of ICO coins or tokens, in exchange for another type of value that substitutes for currency is a "money transmitter" subject to proper registration with the Treasury Department, anti-money-laundering rules, and other regulatory and licensing requirements -- requirements that, if not satisfied, could result in imprisonment." from https://www.coindesk.com/crypto-exchanges-ico-teams-brain/ https://www.coindesk.com/crypto-exchanges-ico-teams-brain/
anilshanbhag 9y ago
Everything you want to do can be done on a simple database. You can mint tokens / share it / explore other tokens / message people / view feed. It isn't clear why you want to forcibly put this on Ethereum blockchain and pay a fee to do every transfer (The transaction charge currently is ~ USD 0.5-1 per transaction)
- dharness 9y ago
  Can't win a free ETH if you use a simple database.
  - streulpita 9y ago
    Haha, well actually we could do that regardless. The purpose of the giveaway is to source more ideas for what people actually want to do with cryptocurrencies, and to make sure our product can serve those use cases.
    - chris_wot 9y ago
      All of the examples you gave don’t need a decentralised cryptocurrency and I reckon could be done more easily with a regular database. Unless you can give a reason why those examples require decentralisation then, as much as I respect your attempt at finding an actual use for decentralised Merkel trees, I ultimately think it’s doomed to failure.
      - streulpita 9y ago
        I can offer a few reasons, but they might not convince you. Tokens are provably scarce, meaning the supply is limited and can't be changed by the creator of the currency. They're easily exchangeable, which means they can move between platforms and communities. Finally, they can interact with smart contracts, meaning people can enforce the way the token behaves. I'm actually interested if you can think of a reason too. This is an incredibly difficult brainstorming exercise. So many ICO's have failed to justify their use-cases, but tokens are so interesting that I have to believe there are good reasons to use them. Is there any case that you do find particularly helpful?
fwdpropaganda 9y ago
You say that you're not focusing on trading and that you want to do things right. But isn't the sole point of crypto currencies that they can be traded? What uses are there other than trading?
- streulpita 9y ago
  Oh I do think the currencies should be used for exchanging things. I mostly meant that they shouldn’t be viewed as an investment or a way to make money. More as an actual currency.
  - fwdpropaganda 9y ago
    That already exists and is named complementary currency. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complementary_currency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complementary_currency There's no need for a blockchain, or distributed stuff, etc. The only thing you need is to convince people to accept it. You might as well make an app that transfers balance between rows on a database. And the reason why you never heard of complementary currency before, is that it's something done "just because you can" and has no real advantages. I understand that none of the things I said are specific to you. But am I wrong?
    - as300 9y ago
      But isn't there still a cost advantage? Rather than securing a centralized database you simply create a coin secured by the Blockchain?
      - fwdpropaganda 9y ago
        I don't know. How much does it cost to run things on the blockchain. Someone must be paying. How much does it cost you to spin up on MySQL instance, replicated in all AWS datacenters?
        unclebucknasty 9y ago
deft 9y ago
What value are you guys actually providing? Everything you listed is incredibly easy to do without your site. How are you planning on making money? A static site could do the majority of this.
- streulpita 9y ago
  The most direct answer is that we’re providing ease of use and helpful tools. I guess you could argue that it’s easy or hard depending on the person. We plan on making money from paid features later on, like automated token distribution hooked into API’s, and smart contracts that can easily be hooked up to your token.
samcampbell 9y ago
My favorite coin so far is the TallCoin: "I will issue 1 coin to any person who is taller than me (I'm 6'7")". https://www.onhexel.com/token/bb571299-e19a-4671-9036-7b3e736eb154 https://www.onhexel.com/token/bb571299-e19a-4671-9036-7b3e73...
- kybernetikos 9y ago
  I like WednesdayCoin, a coin that can only be transferred on wednesdays. https://wednesdaycoin.io/ https://wednesdaycoin.io/ (not a hexel coin, but another ERC20)
  - samcampbell 9y ago
    Agreed! Also one of my favorite coins. I was blessed to receive some a few Wednesdays ago.
zitterbewegung 9y ago
I like the idea of ease of use for creating a token . But, if I sign up for your service what do you anticipate the cost of it will be per month / year for this? Also, what are the smart contracts you use or security features that you have and can it be audited or is it a trade secret ? Have you looked at other private ledger technologies and what do you think of those ?
- streulpita 9y ago
  There is no cost per month / year for the existing functionality, it’s all free. The cost later on will be for opt-in features. Right now we have a single token contract that has been audited. We also have a few other smart contracts in the works, to be used with your token. By private ledger, do you mean private blockchains? I’ve always been less interested in those. Part of the fun in blockchains is the public nature of them, and how they enable transparency and interaction between everyone. To me, private blockchains seem like they should just be databases in most cases. But I’m not an expert in that area by any means.
  - zitterbewegung 9y ago
    More like things like hyperledger https://www.hyperledger.org/ https://www.hyperledger.org/ . Maybe a better term I should use is permissioned ledger.
Vosporos 9y ago
But do we need that, though?
eterm 9y ago
Browsing to that page I notice my browser is pinging mainnet.infura.io over and over. Is infura.io the same company as hexel, do you have a formal partnership with them, or are you just piggy-backing their API without proxying it?
- marcusmolchany 9y ago
  Infura is a service that allows you to make calls to the Ethereum blockchain. We use it to get the current state of your token contract.
  - crispyporkbites 9y ago
    Why do you use infura and not your own node?
    - marcusmolchany 9y ago
      For now we're using Infura for speed of development. We plan to use our own node in the near future.
edanm 9y ago
I'm somewhat of a blockchain sceptic (or rather, unconvinced at this stage), but this sounds really interesting. Meta: This is also a very well written announcement post, IMO, and I suggest anyone looking to launch something learn from it. It starts off with the most important soundbites up front, including the rather weird sounding "it's supposed to be fun". Then it gives a bit of backstory, but most importantly, provides interesting examples that back up the weird "fun" assertion. It ends with a pretty clear explanation of what this costs and what the business model is. All in all, great job. Good luck!
- streulpita 9y ago
  Thank you, that's really nice of you.
pryelluw 9y ago
Given how the SEC is looking into crypto currency, how are you dealing with the potential risk that brings to your business model?
kerkeslager 9y ago
All the use cases you mention could be more easily implemented on top of a more mature distributed ledger such as Datomic. 1. What's to stop a competitor from copying your app feature for feature and implementing their own features faster than you can keep up because they're using established distributed ledger technologies instead of blockchain? 2. Are there any features you have planned that make use of the one thing that differentiates blockchains from distributed ledgers (decentralization)?
- marcusmolchany 9y ago
  To your first point, someone could implement something like Hexel using a distributed ledger, but it would not have the trustless components of tokens that exist on the blockchain. The first immediate feature of using a blockchain is that token holders do not need to worry about a private distributed ledger shutting down its service. A future feature we have planned is a developer program where anyone can submit smart contracts that do interesting things with tokens. For this to work with a distributed ledger you would need to implement your own public API for interacting with your ledger.
kerkeslager 9y ago
Trying to check your app out, I got "Our security policy blocks MetaMask in Firefox. Please try Chrome, Brave, or Opera."
- streulpita 9y ago
  Yeah, it's pretty unfortunate. We have a CSP in place to keep our site secure, but Firefox enforces it differently than other browsers, which prevents MetaMask from working. To make it work we would have to relax our CSP to the point where it wasn't really secure at all, so for now we don't support FireFox. We put a bounty on Gitcoin for someone to fix it.
  - BenjiWiebe 9y ago
    If the user agent shows that the browser is Firefox, serve a relaxed csp policy, and a large warning banner explaining what you just explained.
samcampbell 9y ago
I created a Hacker News token. If anyone is interested, I'd be happy to send you some (for free!). Either request on Hexel or comment with your Ethereum address. https://www.onhexel.com/token/9ef7aaf7-82b2-470f-a84d-e392e748d28f https://www.onhexel.com/token/9ef7aaf7-82b2-470f-a84d-e392e7...
dorianm 9y ago
Would anybody be interested for the same thing but for regular currencies? I'm making a new one at https://pointsproject.org https://pointsproject.org and could make local ones
lee101 9y ago
Hi i'm founder of https://bitbank.nz https://bitbank.nz a cryptocurrency forecasting platform, pre ICO. I think more things supporting ICO's would be great e.g. like how waves has a decentralized exchange so that when you create a token on waves you can immediately monetize it. I suppose theres a decentralised exchange for ERC20 tokens somewhere, but something that smoothes the entire end to end ICO process would be amazing.
codingandcoding 9y ago
awesome! do you want hire another engineer?
bringtheaction 9y ago
Oh shit, this might be perfect for a fun idea I had for something I wanted to do for my friends but without charging them money. But if it’s an ERC20 token, don’t we need to pay gas to use it? Or does the token run on a chain that you guys control instead of on the Ethereum blockchain?
- streulpita 9y ago
  You do have to pay gas because it is on the main chain. We are working on a way to make this free in the future.
  - bringtheaction 9y ago
    Speaking of ways to make transactions free for the user, is it possible to run a full node that verifies transactions and have it look at the type of ERC20 token in addition to the amount of gas and choose to always verify those ERC20 tokens that were made with Hexel even though they pay 0 gas? Rather, I mean, I think that the above would be possible, but would those transactions be accepted by the rest of the network or do transactions need to be verified by more than just the one or few couple of full nodes that you run? I seem to recall something about the execution of every single smart contracts happening on all full nodes in the network but that seems strange (mainly because of how volatile any large scale network of distributed nodes will be in terms of nodes passing in and out or temporarily losing connectivity with the rest of the network) so I think I did not understand correctly how the Ethereum network really works. Furthermore, if a full node could be run in the fashion I mentioned above then how many smart contract executions would it be able to facilitate per hour? Currently Ethereum is Proof-of-Work, so it would depend on your hashing power I guess. Perhaps the chance of finding a block is so small that you can’t realistically run the kind of node that I mentioned? And how about after they switch to Proof-of-Stake, will it be feasible then if not now? How much would you have to stake in order to be able to put through the transactions you wanted?
    - philipodonnell 9y ago
      - I seem to recall something about the execution of every single smart contracts happening on all full nodes in the network but that seems strange Your understanding is correct. All code runs on all nodes. That's why it costs $0.50 or so every time.
justboxing 9y ago
My favorite is the HN Coin. > I created a Hacker News token. If anyone is interested, I'd be happy to send you some (for free!). https://www.onhexel.com/token/9ef7aaf7-82b2-470f-a84d-e392e748d28f https://www.onhexel.com/token/9ef7aaf7-82b2-470f-a84d-e392e7...
pj_mukh 9y ago
Created a coin! We've been toying around with the idea of crowd-sourcing a lot of mapping (for augmented reality) and could use the ETH network as the basic infrastructure to make it happen. The details around pricing + scarcity mechanics connecting to physical spaces still need to be worked out, but the idea is promising. This would be a nice abstraction once there is an API where we could hook into! https://www.onhexel.com/token/aab493ef-dbef-4d78-bb3a-9b79273c8ed6 https://www.onhexel.com/token/aab493ef-dbef-4d78-bb3a-9b7927...
tyrankh 9y ago
This is very very rad. Good work folks! Less crypto scamming and more crypto fun is great. Jean
scrumper 9y ago
Congratulations. Couple of questions, hopefully I haven’t missed you. 1. Recent SEC activity: is this a threat to you? I see you have been careful to avoid fundraising in your examples, but other people here have come up with that as a use case in brainstorming. 2. Did you look at Stellar? It has none of the disadvantages of Ethereum (ie instant confirms and de minimus fees) and was in part purpose built for your kind of project. I know you both have Ethereum backgrounds but was wondering if you’d considered and ruled out alternatives. Good luck! I’m keen to see a healthy online micropayments ecosystem so I’m supportive of your project, which could become part of that.
hlieberman 9y ago
Jesus.
moflome 9y ago
Congratulations on your launch! Could you please compare your project to OST? For example, I just used their new kit to launch an ERC20 based token: https://kit.ost.com/ https://kit.ost.com/ Thanks!
Ice_cream_suit 9y ago
Scammers on HN now... To be expected I suppose. Human greed is matched only by human gullibility.
zdfjkhiuj 9y ago
Given that your goal is to make toys, the tradeoffs of cryptocurrencies are unacceptable. The whole architecture of cryptocurrencies is based around extreme security and trust. Who needs that level of security for a toy? Why would I tolerate high fees, slow transactions, and a clunky user experience if the token isn't worth anything? Why would I use a globally-distributed power-guzzling network of thousands of GPUs to make something as silly as TallCoin? This has all the downside of cryptocurrencies with none of the upside. Databases aren't trendy, but they'd solve the same problem better with less waste.
chabb 9y ago
شيخ الروحاني لعلاج المسحور والأمراض الروحية وتيسير امورالتجارة والزواج والمحبة والجلب وأمور أخرى الاتصال على النقال 00212660966649 أو وات ساب 00212660966649

191 points by streulpita 9y ago

crypto_throw 9y ago

Hi, How long have both of you been working on this project? What was your traction before getting into YC? I'm most interested in the traction part since there's this misconception that YC does not accept early stage companies. It looks there are a whole lot of companies in the very early stage and I personally take that as a positive sign.

streulpita 9y ago
In total about 4 months. Before getting into YC we had a an Ethereum developer tools project. It had pretty low traction at that time (a handful of dedicated users, but now many). But we had built other Ethereum projects together before. That developer tools project eventually transformed into Hexel, which is now consumer facing.

SandersAK 9y ago

neat! this is such a great idea. I think there was someone else trying this as well but your setup is a lot more streamlined for non-techies out there.

smartplaya2001 9y ago

Hi John & Marcus. We are interested in this. Can the coins we make be traded on an exchange?

streulpita 9y ago
Hey, they are pretty standard ERC-20 tokens, so they technically can be traded on an exchange. However, right now all of the coins have pretty low volume, so most exchanges probably wouldn't list them. A decentralized exchange built on 0x would work though!
- resolaibohp 9y ago
  It was my impression that any coin could be listed on certain exchanges if you pay the fee to do so. Depending on the exchange it could range from 50k to 1 million USD just to be added.
  - streulpita 9y ago
    Yes, that's usually about right for most exchanges. But if your coin isn't popular enough, they usually will not add it. However, there is a protocol for decentralized exchanged called 0x. Any tokens on Ethereum can be traded on this protocol, using websites like Radar Relay.

smartplaya2001 9y ago

Hi John & Marcus. I got a question. Can the tokens we create on your platform be traded on a public exchange?

arikalmen 9y ago

great product!!!

montalbano 9y ago

Sounds like a great project. I notice that the pricing model currently only features a free option. Wondering if you might be able to tell us more about the business model long term? Many thanks

streulpita 9y ago
We're going to keep developing features that make tokens easier to use, especially at a larger scale. We'll charge for premium features later down the road, but those features aren't set in stone yet. We have a few things planned already, things like automated token distribution (without needing MetaMask) and smart contract integrations.

will_brown 9y ago

Hey I offered this exact service with: www.dotcomco.in Some of the in-house community cryptocoins I made as a portfolio of examples include: www.ycco.in - distributed karma for HN community (still up) www.instagramco.in and www.facebookco.in - distributed likes Of course I didn’t make it to front page of HN and got no traction. As I have more than a few cryptocoin/blockchain themed domains I began tozenizing the domain ownership rights to try to sell with the pre-made community cryptocoin, my experience is there seems to be more interest in these domains than the community coins.

it_learnses 9y ago
You charge 10 bitcoin as your fee which is around 80,000 usd in today's value!
- will_brown 9y ago
  That does sound outrageous, then again from the perspective of the cryptocoin world the first purchase with bitcoin was two Papa Johns Pizzas for 10,000 bitcoin which is around $80,000,000 today. When I launched bitcoin wasn’t worth what it is today...that said what would you pay for your own community cryptocoin anyway?
  - kerkeslager 9y ago
    $0
    - hyprCoin 9y ago
      Then you are not the target audience. Every small business or community can be tokenized, just like every small business can have a website. Tokenization could encourage repeat visits, community virility and vested interest, not to mention investment.
      - jasongill 9y ago
        "Every small business can be tokenized" My parents own a gift shop (like a Hallmark). Can you give me an idea of how their business could be "tokenized"?

boffinism 9y ago

Trying to actually use this reminds me of how frustrating and slow it is to actually use cryptocurrencies. Endless hoops, lots of waiting for confirmations, and that's me doing things the 'easy' way with Coinbase and MetaMask. Edit: > We've submitted your transaction to the network. This usually takes about 2 minutes to confirm. 30 minutes later... Edit 2: One email to the Hexel support team later and lo, my token is live: https://www.onhexel.com/token/e4a37f4f-3a26-4ae3-a8b2-c932aaed7d8f https://www.onhexel.com/token/e4a37f4f-3a26-4ae3-a8b2-c932aa... 5/7 would recommend

marcusmolchany 9y ago
Yeah you're right, the user experience with Dapps can be pretty painful. We're trying to make this better. Edit: transaction time depends on the gas price, email me at support@onhexel.com and I can make sure that things go smoothly!
streulpita 9y ago
Perfect example of the downsides. The next thing for us is deploying the token for you automatically, so that you don't need to deal with MetaMask or worry about gas price.

it_learnses 9y ago

Once we create the token, do we have full control of the Ethereum wallet from which it is issued?

marcusmolchany 9y ago
You will have full control of the token contract from the ETH address that you used to create the token.

aggronn 9y ago

This is an interesting take on the BaaS market. So this does something to similar to, for example, Chain (chain.com), but for non-technical people?

streulpita 9y ago
Kind of. I don't know that much about Chain, but it seems like they are building private blockchain infrastructure for payments. Our tokens can obviously be used for payments, but the angle right now is not that this is faster and easier (because at this point in time, it's not). It's more that this lets people explore new concepts with tokens, and we give non-technical people the tools to try those concepts out. And also make it fun.

SirLJ 9y ago

Pyramids for everyone!

chanfest22 9y ago

This is super cool. Love your unique take on making crypto useful right now and focusing on fun & community (rather than ICO hype).

jtoy 9y ago

There area bunch of these services already, so is this YC doing a me too or is there something inherently different?

streulpita 9y ago
Yes, totally valid point. The difference I see is that we're focused on functionality that goes beyond selling / trading. I know there are quite a few options for "Do your own ICO" and stuff like that, which is not that interesting. We're deliberately avoiding things like ICO's and trading right now. Our focus is on making tokens usable today, and consistently improving the ease of use for someone that wants to use a token for something real.
- gus_massa 9y ago
  But you can't avoid trading with a ERC20 token, because they are designed to be tradable. Any exchange can add the token to the supported list, and the users can immediately send the tokens to the exchange and buy and sell them. Unless these are not really tokens and the "user/owner" can send the tokens without a centralized permission.
  - streulpita 9y ago
    Yes, the creator could go trade them on an exchange if they wanted to. But we don’t help people do an ICO or encourage it. I do think tokens made on Hexel could gain value, but that would come from making them useful, not starting off with a scammy ICO.
    - nonamenoslogan 9y ago
      Altruistic attitude shall not save you from the idiocy of greed surrounding coins/tokens.

numbers 9y ago

Hi, just a general question for tokens that you might be able to answer: let's say I create a token and I want to programmatically give those tokens to people as a reward. Think of it something like "kudos" so let's say I'm at work and I want to give my coworker a thank you and for that, as a token of my gratitude, I want to send them one of my tokens. Is this do-able at all or am I just thinking of this the wrong way? One more question: since these tokens are created on ETH, does this mean for each transaction related to a token, I will need to pay gas each time I want to transact?

marcusmolchany 9y ago
Right now you would need to send these tokens to your co-workers using an Ethereum wallet, and you would need to pay gas. However, we're working on a way for you to programmatically send tokens.
- jonnydubowsky 9y ago
  I think this project is well done, and I love how easy you've made it to just do up a concept, and get a group of people moving into tokenizing their value stream. I am working on a token for storing genomic data in UPort or Civic wallet, and will integrate with Ocean Protocol and Openmined and other data marketplaces. In looking at the compliance of issuing the tokens, I've found that it is essential to actually embed restrictions in the token (like the rtoken protocol is doing) to make sure it can't be traded by unaccredited investors or outside terms of a reg d lockup. It doesn't seem to matter what your intent is, if you provide the tools by which someone can begin trading an unregistered security, this seems problematic. Have you considered technical measures to prevent this?
  - jonnydubowsky 9y ago
    The following quote from a recent Coinbase article has me wondering about the recent round of amazing crypto-art tokens and the speculative market that has emerged for buying and selling them. While the proposed eth721 standard makes a distinction that attempts to seperate these tokens from the ones used in ICOs, it appears as if the SEC and FinCEN don't really care about intentions, rather how these tokens end up being used. As a YC startup, with access to some well-seasoned sources of advice, I'm wondering what you've heard on these issues as they relate to your project? "The U.S. Treasury Department's FinCEN division recently declared that any developer that sells convertible virtual currency, including in the form of ICO coins or tokens, in exchange for another type of value that substitutes for currency is a "money transmitter" subject to proper registration with the Treasury Department, anti-money-laundering rules, and other regulatory and licensing requirements -- requirements that, if not satisfied, could result in imprisonment." from https://www.coindesk.com/crypto-exchanges-ico-teams-brain/ https://www.coindesk.com/crypto-exchanges-ico-teams-brain/

anilshanbhag 9y ago

Everything you want to do can be done on a simple database. You can mint tokens / share it / explore other tokens / message people / view feed. It isn't clear why you want to forcibly put this on Ethereum blockchain and pay a fee to do every transfer (The transaction charge currently is ~ USD 0.5-1 per transaction)

dharness 9y ago
Can't win a free ETH if you use a simple database.
- streulpita 9y ago
  Haha, well actually we could do that regardless. The purpose of the giveaway is to source more ideas for what people actually want to do with cryptocurrencies, and to make sure our product can serve those use cases.
  - chris_wot 9y ago
    All of the examples you gave don’t need a decentralised cryptocurrency and I reckon could be done more easily with a regular database. Unless you can give a reason why those examples require decentralisation then, as much as I respect your attempt at finding an actual use for decentralised Merkel trees, I ultimately think it’s doomed to failure.
    - streulpita 9y ago
      I can offer a few reasons, but they might not convince you. Tokens are provably scarce, meaning the supply is limited and can't be changed by the creator of the currency. They're easily exchangeable, which means they can move between platforms and communities. Finally, they can interact with smart contracts, meaning people can enforce the way the token behaves. I'm actually interested if you can think of a reason too. This is an incredibly difficult brainstorming exercise. So many ICO's have failed to justify their use-cases, but tokens are so interesting that I have to believe there are good reasons to use them. Is there any case that you do find particularly helpful?

fwdpropaganda 9y ago

You say that you're not focusing on trading and that you want to do things right. But isn't the sole point of crypto currencies that they can be traded? What uses are there other than trading?

streulpita 9y ago
Oh I do think the currencies should be used for exchanging things. I mostly meant that they shouldn’t be viewed as an investment or a way to make money. More as an actual currency.
- fwdpropaganda 9y ago
  That already exists and is named complementary currency. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complementary_currency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complementary_currency There's no need for a blockchain, or distributed stuff, etc. The only thing you need is to convince people to accept it. You might as well make an app that transfers balance between rows on a database. And the reason why you never heard of complementary currency before, is that it's something done "just because you can" and has no real advantages. I understand that none of the things I said are specific to you. But am I wrong?
  - as300 9y ago
    But isn't there still a cost advantage? Rather than securing a centralized database you simply create a coin secured by the Blockchain?
    - fwdpropaganda 9y ago
      I don't know. How much does it cost to run things on the blockchain. Someone must be paying. How much does it cost you to spin up on MySQL instance, replicated in all AWS datacenters?
      - unclebucknasty 9y ago

deft 9y ago

What value are you guys actually providing? Everything you listed is incredibly easy to do without your site. How are you planning on making money? A static site could do the majority of this.

streulpita 9y ago
The most direct answer is that we’re providing ease of use and helpful tools. I guess you could argue that it’s easy or hard depending on the person. We plan on making money from paid features later on, like automated token distribution hooked into API’s, and smart contracts that can easily be hooked up to your token.

samcampbell 9y ago

My favorite coin so far is the TallCoin: "I will issue 1 coin to any person who is taller than me (I'm 6'7")". https://www.onhexel.com/token/bb571299-e19a-4671-9036-7b3e736eb154 https://www.onhexel.com/token/bb571299-e19a-4671-9036-7b3e73...

kybernetikos 9y ago
I like WednesdayCoin, a coin that can only be transferred on wednesdays. https://wednesdaycoin.io/ https://wednesdaycoin.io/ (not a hexel coin, but another ERC20)
- samcampbell 9y ago
  Agreed! Also one of my favorite coins. I was blessed to receive some a few Wednesdays ago.

zitterbewegung 9y ago

I like the idea of ease of use for creating a token . But, if I sign up for your service what do you anticipate the cost of it will be per month / year for this? Also, what are the smart contracts you use or security features that you have and can it be audited or is it a trade secret ? Have you looked at other private ledger technologies and what do you think of those ?

streulpita 9y ago
There is no cost per month / year for the existing functionality, it’s all free. The cost later on will be for opt-in features. Right now we have a single token contract that has been audited. We also have a few other smart contracts in the works, to be used with your token. By private ledger, do you mean private blockchains? I’ve always been less interested in those. Part of the fun in blockchains is the public nature of them, and how they enable transparency and interaction between everyone. To me, private blockchains seem like they should just be databases in most cases. But I’m not an expert in that area by any means.
- zitterbewegung 9y ago
  More like things like hyperledger https://www.hyperledger.org/ https://www.hyperledger.org/ . Maybe a better term I should use is permissioned ledger.

Vosporos 9y ago

But do we need that, though?

eterm 9y ago

Browsing to that page I notice my browser is pinging mainnet.infura.io over and over. Is infura.io the same company as hexel, do you have a formal partnership with them, or are you just piggy-backing their API without proxying it?

marcusmolchany 9y ago
Infura is a service that allows you to make calls to the Ethereum blockchain. We use it to get the current state of your token contract.
- crispyporkbites 9y ago
  Why do you use infura and not your own node?
  - marcusmolchany 9y ago
    For now we're using Infura for speed of development. We plan to use our own node in the near future.

edanm 9y ago

I'm somewhat of a blockchain sceptic (or rather, unconvinced at this stage), but this sounds really interesting. Meta: This is also a very well written announcement post, IMO, and I suggest anyone looking to launch something learn from it. It starts off with the most important soundbites up front, including the rather weird sounding "it's supposed to be fun". Then it gives a bit of backstory, but most importantly, provides interesting examples that back up the weird "fun" assertion. It ends with a pretty clear explanation of what this costs and what the business model is. All in all, great job. Good luck!

streulpita 9y ago
Thank you, that's really nice of you.

pryelluw 9y ago

Given how the SEC is looking into crypto currency, how are you dealing with the potential risk that brings to your business model?

kerkeslager 9y ago

All the use cases you mention could be more easily implemented on top of a more mature distributed ledger such as Datomic. 1. What's to stop a competitor from copying your app feature for feature and implementing their own features faster than you can keep up because they're using established distributed ledger technologies instead of blockchain? 2. Are there any features you have planned that make use of the one thing that differentiates blockchains from distributed ledgers (decentralization)?

marcusmolchany 9y ago
To your first point, someone could implement something like Hexel using a distributed ledger, but it would not have the trustless components of tokens that exist on the blockchain. The first immediate feature of using a blockchain is that token holders do not need to worry about a private distributed ledger shutting down its service. A future feature we have planned is a developer program where anyone can submit smart contracts that do interesting things with tokens. For this to work with a distributed ledger you would need to implement your own public API for interacting with your ledger.

kerkeslager 9y ago

Trying to check your app out, I got "Our security policy blocks MetaMask in Firefox. Please try Chrome, Brave, or Opera."

streulpita 9y ago
Yeah, it's pretty unfortunate. We have a CSP in place to keep our site secure, but Firefox enforces it differently than other browsers, which prevents MetaMask from working. To make it work we would have to relax our CSP to the point where it wasn't really secure at all, so for now we don't support FireFox. We put a bounty on Gitcoin for someone to fix it.
- BenjiWiebe 9y ago
  If the user agent shows that the browser is Firefox, serve a relaxed csp policy, and a large warning banner explaining what you just explained.

samcampbell 9y ago

I created a Hacker News token. If anyone is interested, I'd be happy to send you some (for free!). Either request on Hexel or comment with your Ethereum address. https://www.onhexel.com/token/9ef7aaf7-82b2-470f-a84d-e392e748d28f https://www.onhexel.com/token/9ef7aaf7-82b2-470f-a84d-e392e7...

dorianm 9y ago

Would anybody be interested for the same thing but for regular currencies? I'm making a new one at https://pointsproject.org https://pointsproject.org and could make local ones

lee101 9y ago

Hi i'm founder of https://bitbank.nz https://bitbank.nz a cryptocurrency forecasting platform, pre ICO. I think more things supporting ICO's would be great e.g. like how waves has a decentralized exchange so that when you create a token on waves you can immediately monetize it. I suppose theres a decentralised exchange for ERC20 tokens somewhere, but something that smoothes the entire end to end ICO process would be amazing.

codingandcoding 9y ago

awesome! do you want hire another engineer?

bringtheaction 9y ago

Oh shit, this might be perfect for a fun idea I had for something I wanted to do for my friends but without charging them money. But if it’s an ERC20 token, don’t we need to pay gas to use it? Or does the token run on a chain that you guys control instead of on the Ethereum blockchain?

streulpita 9y ago
You do have to pay gas because it is on the main chain. We are working on a way to make this free in the future.
- bringtheaction 9y ago
  Speaking of ways to make transactions free for the user, is it possible to run a full node that verifies transactions and have it look at the type of ERC20 token in addition to the amount of gas and choose to always verify those ERC20 tokens that were made with Hexel even though they pay 0 gas? Rather, I mean, I think that the above would be possible, but would those transactions be accepted by the rest of the network or do transactions need to be verified by more than just the one or few couple of full nodes that you run? I seem to recall something about the execution of every single smart contracts happening on all full nodes in the network but that seems strange (mainly because of how volatile any large scale network of distributed nodes will be in terms of nodes passing in and out or temporarily losing connectivity with the rest of the network) so I think I did not understand correctly how the Ethereum network really works. Furthermore, if a full node could be run in the fashion I mentioned above then how many smart contract executions would it be able to facilitate per hour? Currently Ethereum is Proof-of-Work, so it would depend on your hashing power I guess. Perhaps the chance of finding a block is so small that you can’t realistically run the kind of node that I mentioned? And how about after they switch to Proof-of-Stake, will it be feasible then if not now? How much would you have to stake in order to be able to put through the transactions you wanted?
  - philipodonnell 9y ago
    - I seem to recall something about the execution of every single smart contracts happening on all full nodes in the network but that seems strange Your understanding is correct. All code runs on all nodes. That's why it costs $0.50 or so every time.

justboxing 9y ago

My favorite is the HN Coin. > I created a Hacker News token. If anyone is interested, I'd be happy to send you some (for free!). https://www.onhexel.com/token/9ef7aaf7-82b2-470f-a84d-e392e748d28f https://www.onhexel.com/token/9ef7aaf7-82b2-470f-a84d-e392e7...

pj_mukh 9y ago

Created a coin! We've been toying around with the idea of crowd-sourcing a lot of mapping (for augmented reality) and could use the ETH network as the basic infrastructure to make it happen. The details around pricing + scarcity mechanics connecting to physical spaces still need to be worked out, but the idea is promising. This would be a nice abstraction once there is an API where we could hook into! https://www.onhexel.com/token/aab493ef-dbef-4d78-bb3a-9b79273c8ed6 https://www.onhexel.com/token/aab493ef-dbef-4d78-bb3a-9b7927...

tyrankh 9y ago

This is very very rad. Good work folks! Less crypto scamming and more crypto fun is great. Jean

scrumper 9y ago

Congratulations. Couple of questions, hopefully I haven’t missed you. 1. Recent SEC activity: is this a threat to you? I see you have been careful to avoid fundraising in your examples, but other people here have come up with that as a use case in brainstorming. 2. Did you look at Stellar? It has none of the disadvantages of Ethereum (ie instant confirms and de minimus fees) and was in part purpose built for your kind of project. I know you both have Ethereum backgrounds but was wondering if you’d considered and ruled out alternatives. Good luck! I’m keen to see a healthy online micropayments ecosystem so I’m supportive of your project, which could become part of that.

hlieberman 9y ago

Jesus.

moflome 9y ago

Congratulations on your launch! Could you please compare your project to OST? For example, I just used their new kit to launch an ERC20 based token: https://kit.ost.com/ https://kit.ost.com/ Thanks!

Ice_cream_suit 9y ago

Scammers on HN now... To be expected I suppose. Human greed is matched only by human gullibility.

zdfjkhiuj 9y ago

Given that your goal is to make toys, the tradeoffs of cryptocurrencies are unacceptable. The whole architecture of cryptocurrencies is based around extreme security and trust. Who needs that level of security for a toy? Why would I tolerate high fees, slow transactions, and a clunky user experience if the token isn't worth anything? Why would I use a globally-distributed power-guzzling network of thousands of GPUs to make something as silly as TallCoin? This has all the downside of cryptocurrencies with none of the upside. Databases aren't trendy, but they'd solve the same problem better with less waste.

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