Happy Holidays, Hololooters, and Happy New Year!
The last 12 months have been a wild ride with many product updates, partnership announcements, asset rollouts, and a fair bit of market turbulence. On the balance of things, though, we’re extremely happy with the year that was and optimistic about what 2023 has in store.
If you haven’t seen it yet, our Chief Growth Officer Dominik Glowicki recorded a video covering some of the significant developments from the last year, as well as some of the key points to look forward to in the new year.
This article reiterates some of the key takeaways and explores in more detail some of the highlights from the last year. So sit down, pour yourself a glass of eggnog (or champagne, tea, or whatever else you enjoy drinking at this time of year), and join us for Hololoot’s year in review ✨
Partnerships, partnerships, & more partnerships
Hololoot is about giving creators and users a new way to enjoy the assets they love. We formed partnerships with some of the most exciting brands and projects in the Web3 space to achieve this goal.
We were thrilled to collaborate with the likes of CryptoBlades, Blockchain Game Alliance, and Enjin, among others, to create exciting 3D collections for our users. Many of these are still available on the Hololoot marketplace in our app.
Partnerships remain a crucial part of our business plan heading into 2023, and we’re excited to bring you all new opportunities to collect AR assets from the projects you love. These partnerships also play an important role in bringing new users to Hololoot — the more, the merrier, after all!
Competitions & giveaways
Our community is our most valuable asset, and over the past year we strived to reward you all through a suite of competitions and giveaways.
Many of the partnership collections were tied in with exciting giveaways that saw NFT and (digital) cash prizes for entrants. These competitions required Hololoot users to hop into the app and begin using it by creating short videos using the available assets.
Christmas, Halloween and the recent World Cup saw thousands of users claiming free assets and getting creative in the Hololoot studio. All you need is a smartphone and the Hololoot app — the rest is up to your imagination.
These competitions and giveaways will continue into the New Year as we seek to attract new users to our app and community. As always, keep an eye out on Twitter, Telegram and Discord for the latest on these events.
Product updates
From our public beta test in March to a full App Store release in November — 2022 has been a massive year for our hard-working devs.
We’ve always said that our’s is a multi-year mission, but this year has seen the app begin to take shape. Our early Android and Apple testers put the first version of our app through its paces before becoming publicly available on the Play Store in the middle of the year.
Between the first version and now, the app has gone through many quality-of-life updates and bug fixes. Users can now access the app on both major mobile ecosystems, buy and claim free AR NFTs from their devices, display their NFTs in glorious AR, and record videos and take screenshots from the in-app interface. Some of the other features currently available include:
- A cloud-based customizable homescreen that allows us to promote individual NFTs and entire collections, and display in-app updates to users
- A full catalogue of available NFTs
- A wallet integration that allows users to view their entire collection by connecting MetaMask
- Detailed descriptions and displayable metadata for all assets
- Shared AR experiences that allow users to interact with assets in a group, as well as individually.
There’s still plenty of work to be done, and 2023 will be an exciting year for our users. More fixes, updates, and UI changes await — and we can’t wait to share them all with you ⭐️
Staking changes
In mid-October, we announced some major changes to the way users staked $HOL. After lengthy negotiations and following feedback from users and our expert advisors, we made the decision to migrate staking from the Hololoot platform to our partners and MyCointainer.
The switch to MyCointainer means stakers can enjoy a better UI experience while enjoying the same great APR they came to expect on the native platform. For those that prefer to do things old-school, this option is of course still available and won’t be going anywhere. But for a new generation of Hololooters that might not have as much crypto experience, the MyCointainer platform offers a quick, easy way to get involved in Hololoot.
The year ahead
We’ve got a lot to look forward to in 2023 as we hone our products and bring more users into the world of AR. If you’ve been with us from the beginning, you’ll witness some major changes to the app that bring us even closer to our overall goal. These developments are also designed to bring new users into the ecosystem.
Product development
App development will proceed over several sprints, with regular updates released intermittently. This will mean massive improvements to the overall user experience and bring a range of services that we’ve promised and that you’ve been asking for.
At the top of the list is the introduction of resales into the marketplace. Currently, users can trade Hololoot AR NFTs on third-party marketplaces like Element and OpenSea. Bringing resales to the app will make it easier for users to trade their collections and keep more revenue within the ecosystem. More revenue means more features, which we’re keen to launch.
The technological implementation of resales is complete, however, there are a couple of legal hurdles that we still need to cross. We’ve always done things above board, so once the necessary financial licenses are in place we’ll launch this feature as soon as possible.
Exploring NFT collections (and soon, trading them) will become even easier with the launch of a web version of our marketplace. This will be a secure alternative to the mobile apps, giving users even more ways to enjoy Hololoot.
2023 will also see Hololoot go multi-chain. Right now, our assets are built on BNB Chain infrastructure. With multi-chain functionality, users from across the Web3 world can begin enjoying Hololoot, and importantly, projects on other chains can finally tap into the potential of AR NFTs.
We’ve discussed geo-located AR assets in the past, but we’ll finally see this come to life next year. This is a big step — and a challenging one — but will see Hololoot take its place among the leading AR applications on the market. Games like Pokèmon Go put geo-located AR on the map, and once integrated into Hololoot; you’ll also be able to enjoy AR assets as you roam the streets.
Tied in with geo-location will be the release of an AR marketplace for Hololoot assets. Rather than viewing them on a flat screen, you’ll be able to view them in the world and bid, all without leaving the viewer. This opens up some exciting possibilities for artists and brands to create installations and will take our app’s utility to a whole new level.
AR hardware like glasses and headsets have come a long way over the last few years, and last year we started seeing production prototypes of sleek devices that consumers would be happy to wear. We’ve been working closely with one such hardware manufacturer and are in talks with several others, and it’s our hope that they’ll be ready for Hololoot in 2023.
Hololoot has always been about pushing the boundaries of what is possible with AR and NFT technologies, and AR glasses are at the cutting edge of the space. These devices — which allow you to interact with AR hands-free — are expected to see rapid adoption in the coming years as the technology matures, and we plan to grow alongside it.
Marketing strategy
The New Year marks a new chapter for Hololoot, and we’ll be adapting our marketing message to suit it. While our goals have never changed, we believe a fresh approach to the way we connect with businesses and users will help take us to a new level.
In the next few weeks, you’ll notice a fresh new face for the Hololoot website, and an app refresh will follow shortly after. Our business development and marketing teams have been working hard over the past few months to prepare for this switch as we make Hololoot the go-to platform for businesses and projects of all types — not just those in the Web3 space.
Our vision is for Hololoot to be the app for gamers, creators, and collectors, and to do that, we need to support the brands and projects that users love. Our updated B2B and B2C strategies will help onboard the people we need to bring Hololoot to the masses. Keep an eye out for the changes, and let us know what you think on Twitter, Telegram, and Discord!
Holopixel & CryptoZoo
In light of market and user sentiment, we’ve made the difficult decision to phase out $PIXEL and the CryptoZoo project.
$PIXEL was designed as an in-app reward token, however after consulting with the community and our advisors we’ve decided to stop $PIXEL rewards in Q1, 2023. We understand many of you have been staking for $PIXEL and have accumulated a fair few tokens, and we plan to reward you for your loyalty and belief in Hololoot in a special event.
When we created $PIXEL, our vision was to launch a token that could be exchanged for rewards and benefits in the ecosystem. While the token won’t play a role in the future of Hololoot, those who have accumulated it will be able to get those rewards and benefits during this special event. There’s a lot more to say on this, and we’ll be releasing more details in the new year.
Likewise, CryptoZoo will take a backseat as we focus on other areas of development. That doesn’t mean it’s gone forever — existing CryptoZoo assets will remain on the marketplace as limited-edition collections and may return at later stages in our project timeline. We believe that focusing on our B2B offerings and support for geo-location will create more sustainable income streams for the project, which will in turn give us the funds and technological infrastructure needed to explore mini-games like those proposed in CryptoZoo at a later stage.
Best wishes for the New Year
From all of us at the Hololoot family, thank you for your support over the last 12 months. Like all Web3 projects over this time, we’ve faced some challenges, but thanks to the support of our community, we’ve emerged stronger than ever.
As always, make sure you’re following us on all our social channels. As we’ve discussed in this article, there’s a lot to look forward to in the new year, and we can’t wait to share everything will you as we push forward.
The Hololoot Team ❤️
