The HUG mint is over... now what?

We have officially come to the end of a week-long mint list-only free mint, and we are now ready to get back to building, together with all 2,600 holders! We are beyond thrilled to welcome all of you into our HUG family. Here's a recap of what you may have missed this past week and what else to look forward to.

ICYMI... Key Highlights of the Week

🎉 We concluded our first minting window and minted out 6,000 HUG Passes! Remaining Passes will be set aside for future minting windows which will be decided with input from the community. Our Discord is now open to verified holders where we will continue to work on curation efforts for HUGhub, our community DYOR platform as well as further our work on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives across Web3 (see more below in our HUGmap).

✍️ We opened up applications to all HUG accelerator programs - groupHUG, hedgeHUG, and our artist-in-residence program. You may find links to all application forms, with additional details on each program in this tweet and on our website.

🇯🇵 We announced our first non-English speaking groupHUG cohort, groupHUG Japan, and are excited to expand our accelerator program to more non-English speaking countries.

📈 We are teaming up with Okcoin to launch the first NFT marketplace with no cap on royalties for creators, and to feature rising NFT projects led by women, BIPOC, and underrepresented groups in the ecosystem.

Okcoin Announces NFT Marketplace with Zero Fees, Uncapped Royalties

/PRNewswire/ -- Okcoin, one of the world's fastest-growing cryptocurrency platforms, is launching an NFT marketplace with zero transaction fees for retail...

💖 As part of what we offer through groupHUG, we worked hand in hand with Boss Beauties to help them raise a $4.4M venture capital funding round, backed by Offline Ventures, Serena Ventures, and Female Founders Fund. Read more about their raise and our involvement here!

What's on our HUGmap

Now that minting is over, we are excited to get back to building and stay laser focused on delivering value to HUG holders while also moving forward with our mission of building the inclusiverse 🌎✨

Here's how we are putting our mint proceeds to work:

• Continue investing in and building out our three accelerator programs (🫂 groupHUG, 🦔 hedgeHUG, and 👩‍🎨 artist-in-residence program) - Roll out more English and foreign language accelerator cohorts, and distribute more grants to support our artists-in-residence in taking their creative endeavor to a scalable business.

• Launch a closed beta version of 🗂 HUGhub, our DYOR community platform for discovering NFTs - Over the past month, we have been working tirelessly with our community curators to curate a database of over 300 projects and artists with an emphasis on women and diverse creators. These have all been meticulously categorized to allow users to search and filter projects by founder attributes, mission/cause, utility, etc. Initial platform designs are currently being finalized, and we look forward to deploying the valuable data we have gathered so far into a beautiful user-friendly platform to solve the problem of discovery in NFTs.

• Further 🌈 DEI efforts both within and outside the HUG ecosystem - Following the appointment of our 2 DEI advisors, Lori Grace and Dr Hans, we are working on an industry-wide study and thought leadership piece on inclusivity which we intend to co-author with them and our community. We are also working on creating educational resources for both groupHUG and hedgeHUG, and to work with our advisors to review and implement DEI practices within HUG and the projects we advise.

• Add ✨ value to HUG holders through new ways of engagement, both virtually and IRL - Apart from creating the most huggable experiences both virtually and IRL, we also plan to give the community a bigger voice in shaping a number of initiatives from loyalty rewards to education to supporting social causes (yes, this has everything to do with the utility of each hug that we have yet to announce!).

Things to look forward to this week 👀

• Our first bilingual Twitter Space on Apr 25, 5pm PT (Apr 26, 9am Japan Time) to welcome groupHUG Japan! Set your reminders here.

• HUG will be taking over the Crypto Valley Art Gallery in Decentraland on Apr 27. More details to be shared soon!

• Utilities of matching hug pairs, to be gradually revealed starting from this week onwards...

It's been a wild week of mint, but now the work officially begins! If you are a verified holder, we can't wait to see you in Discord. If not, we hope we can convince you to buy one off the secondary and welcome you to our HUGfam! Here's to the inclusiverse and beyond! 🚀