Bringing Email To Blockchain: How hashmail Is Building An Inbox For Web3

The Web3 ecosystem is currently in the process of developing the counterparts of many Web2 applications. Starting with content delivery (metaverse), finance (cryptocurrency) and apps (decentralised Apps), the Web3 ecosystem is likely to take over from Web2 eventually.

However, there are limited protocols currently for Web3 to allow users to communicate with one another. As most decentralised Apps (dApps) and blockchains operate independently and are decentralised, this makes it tricky for a user to collate information in one place.

Mumbai-based startup hashmail is bridging this communication gap. It has built a mailing inbox for dApps and blockchains for a more connected Web3 ecosystem.

Founded in July 2022 by Swapnika Nag and Bharat Kumar Ramesh, hashmail launched its Web3 inbox on October 1st and clocked over 1,000 sign-ups within nine days of its launch.

hashmail’s inbox allows users to sign up with their wallet address, which enables them to communicate with other users using the wallet address as a unique identifier. dApps can also communicate with the user using the wallet address.

Further, the startup’s product also allows dApps to communicate regularly with their users, introducing transparency and helping dApps build trust and increase revenue in the process.

hashmail has raised $650K since its inception. It is backed by angel investors such as Arpan Sheth (Bain & Company) Umang Vohra (Cipla), Vikas Purohit (Tata CLiQ, recently left), Karan Singh (Bain & Company), Ankur Puri (McKinsey), Naveen Kukreja (Paisabazaar), and Aditya Shukla (Bain & Company). 

How hashmail Works?

It is prudent to mention that most of the communication on Web2 happens via various email protocols, such as the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), the Post Office Protocol (POP) and the Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP). All of these protocols enable communication between applications and individual users.

Explaining hashmail’s functioning, Nag said, “It looks and feels very much like an email, but it routes messages directly to a wallet address.”

She added that while dApps are aware of the wallets and have transactional data, they can’t directly communicate with a wallet.

“Essentially, what we enable is how applications and other users directly communicate with the wallet address – the ENS (Ethereum Name Server), which is a .eth address. Everything in this ecosystem has an identifier, and you can communicate without revealing your email,” she explained.

Currently, over 20,000 messages are being exchanged between users and dApps on hashmail every day, according to the startup’s website. The platform currently indexes over nine blockchains and 100 dApps for transactions to send notifications to users’ inboxes.

Talking about the workflow of hashmail, the cofounder said that a wallet address is the only identifier most dApps have for a user (in the case of a regular email, the unique identifier is the email address). Therefore, dApps can communicate directly with the only user information they have access to (the wallet address) using hashmail.

The Web3 startup also claims that the messages sent using it remain end-to-end encrypted and are backed up in encrypted decentralised storage. Therefore, the users can access their messages even if there is an outage on the platform.

To avoid scams and spam notifications, hashmail verifies the wallet addresses for security purposes, Nag said, adding that the verified wallet addresses have a check mark beside their names.

The startup claims to support more than 170 wallets, including popular ones such as Metamask, BitPay, Coinbase, Uniswap and Zerion. Soon, users would also be able to connect multiple wallets with a single inbox, eliminating the need for multiple inboxes.

Building A Communication Stack For dApps

While hashmail remains free for individuals and even small dApps with low user volumes, the startup’s primary source of revenue is the three-layer communication stack that it is building for dApps.

dApps can use hashmail APIs and consoles to prepare email templates and programmatically trigger communication. The product is still a work in progress and Nag said it would take the startup a month or two to launch it.

A dApp can send a notification when a user connects his wallet or it can send a reminder if a user has not transacted for a while. Apart from notifications, dApps can also send broadcast messages such as newsletters, protocol updates and so on.

For instance, a Uniswap user can receive ENS expiry reminders, wallet-to-wallet transfer notifications and NFT notifications using hashmail.

According to the startup’s website, dApps have already started using its platform to send notifications to its users. These dApps have sent more than 150 notifications to their users within the first 10 days of launch, per hashmail’s website. These notifications include reminders, transaction notifications and critical alerts. 

hashmail also enables dApps to provide support to users via emails. Nag pointed out that the support is quite poor in the Web3 ecosystem right now. “We are building the entire ticket management system, agent dashboards, CX management, etc. for applications,” the cofounder said, adding that hashmail is building a cross-channel support system.

Lastly, the startup is also building analytics for dApps, which would allow the applications to personalise communications based on a user’s experience in the segment and transaction volume. The cofounder added that the startup is in touch with several analytics players to enable integrations.

The startup has set a date of early December 2022 to come out with a freemium model for automated communication.

The startup would charge the dApps for sending emails after a certain number of emails. Interestingly, a part of that revenue would be passed on to the individual users since they help hashmail by interacting with the content delivered by dApps.

hashmail competes with the US-based Push Protocol (previously ENPS). While Push is doing something similar in the way of communication in Web3, it is only working on providing notifications to wallet addresses. In comparison, hashmail allows for a full-fledged email experience.

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