Meet Hyprr. The startup, based out of Los Angeles, is looking to utilise blockchain technology to create a social network which offers greater control to users and creators.

The company’s platform is powered by UDOO, a utility token, whereby users and content creators can utilise paywall features. Users can also generate income through likes and shares – much as Medium and other publishers do with claps.

Hyprr was previously known as Howdoo, but earlier this week changed its brand to put the company ‘in a fantastic position for the mass market’, in the words of chief revenue officer Jason Sibley.

“The market has moved significantly over the last year, and the game has changed,” Sibley wrote, citing augmented reality (AR) capabilities on Snapchat and music videos from TikTok.

“Short-form video, music integration, streaming and augmented reality is now the norm, so we’ve rebuilt the platform to retain all the features that everyone loved in the beta and more including photos, videos, streaming, blogs and podcasting to incorporate all the new features that users have been experiencing.

“Now factor onto these features the ability to tip, donate, pay for content and subscribe, and we have a world-beating platform,” added Sibley.

The company has also been bolstered by an undisclosed investment from Alpha Sigma Capital. CEO Enzo Villani said Hyprr’s digital assets monetisation system can help content creators who are finding their revenues squeezed by the major social media networks.

Hyprr added that it has 70,000 pre-sign-ups for the platform and expects ‘multi-millions’ of users to sign up. “The collective following of launch supporters exceeds 350 million users, and while we’re not expecting them all to rush to join us, we do expect multi-millions – and that’s a great base for us to launch from,” added Sibley.

Interested in hearing more in person? Find out more at the Blockchain Expo World Series, Global, Europe and North America.