Hats Protocol is shutting down their operations company. There's no longer a funded core team maintaining the project. The community is now voting on what comes next:
- a) Launch DAO and token as planned
- b) Hats as OSS + "Maintenance mode"
- c) Something else
I always appreciated the idea of the protocol and the effort to build what should exist vs. jumping on the latest trends in crpyto. There's a need to build idealistic protocols that can only work with blockchain tech. It's the kind of thing that should exist. But how should they monetize? How can they survive if no one is willing to spend money on it right now?
While I built herocast, a Farcaster client for power users, I collaborated with Spencer, Nick and Ido. We pushed a feature that let Farcaster accounts be managed onchain through Hats. DAOs could control who has access to post from a shared account, managed through the onchain permissions in Hats Protocol.
Onchain permissions for social accounts. Clean integration with DAO tooling. The right architecture.
We didn't get traction.
Even for my @herocast account, even their investors - we didn't end up using the feature. Part of it was practical: Warpcast (now Farcaster's main app) didn't support DMs outside their client, which kills a lot of the "shared account" use case. I think the deeper issue is that we built for a need that wasn't urgent enough.
The Current Crypto Vibe
The only things "working" in crypto right now are gambling and stablecoins. Infrastructure and DAO tooling? No customers. The builders who care about decentralized coordination are still here, but the market isn't buying what we're selling.
I feel part of an aligned group that wants this to succeed. We need this infrastructure. But I'm also guilty of the same thing: building what should exist instead of what people are desperate for today. That's the uncomfortable truth.
What We Can Learn From Splits
Look at what Splits is doing. Clean UX. Great at hustling in a related niche. They started with a simple primitive: split money onchain between users. From there, build features people need:
- Multi-safe management for orgs
- Scheduled sending
- Basic accounting and compliance tools
They're not waiting for "DAOs" to become mainstream. They're serving businesses that want to do things onchain today.
My Vote: Option B, But Make It Useful
I'm proposing B - run it as open source, keep the lights on, make it fully infrastructure. But with a specific direction: Make it as easy to use as possible.
Hats has solid infrastructure for role-based access control. The contracts work. The protocol is sound. What's missing is the bridge to people who need it right now.
The path forward isn't more DAO tooling for DAOs. It's:
- Start with businesses - Companies already managing crypto treasuries, NFT projects, protocol teams
- Solve immediate pain - Who can sign what? Who has access to which accounts? How do we onboard/offboard people?
- Keep the spirit - Onchain contracts that help people coordinate, but wrapped in UX that doesn't require a PhD in Ponzinomics
The Hats DAO (=we) need to ask: do we have a clear goal as a collective? If we're going to pursue something together, what is it? Who is setting the goals? Is there enough aligned energy to turn this into something today? I don't have all the answers, but would love to help keep Hats Protocol going so the infrastructure is ready when DAO season will come back.
random screenshots from Hats x herocast time last year
