The Hypercerts Foundation

Mission

The mission of the Hypercerts Foundation is to advance the development and adoption of open-source protocols for funding and rewarding positive impact.

Organization

The Hypercerts Foundation is a fully independent organisation working closely with stakeholders in the open source, scientific research, and cryptography communities to develop and promote additional protocols that are decentralized, secure, and transparent. The Foundation will also provide support and resources to help drive the wider adoption of these protocols.

History

Research on hypercerts was first presented to the public by David A. Dalrymple at the conference series Funding the Commons in March 2022. However, the concept of “impact certificates” has been a recurring theme at conferences and in online discussion forums since at least 2014. In late 2022, a small team of research scientists, developers, and practitioners began implementing hypercerts as a set of Ethereum-based smart contracts that could be used to assert and fund impact claims. The Hypercerts Foundation will now serve as the long-term home for this work.

The new foundation is supported in part by Protocol Labs and is part of the broader Protocol Labs Network of hundreds of companies and organizations. The Foundation will complement Protocol Labs Network’s mission of enabling a more secure, open, and accessible internet. The Hypercerts Foundation, however, is fully independent and will focus on protocol development and cultivating a community of developers and impact entrepreneurs well beyond the Protocol Labs Network.

Further links

Read the full announcement of the Hypercerts Foundation.