Hats Protocol is ushering in a new era for organizations, leveraging the power of blockchain technology to create code-based, onchain entities. This approach enables organizations with decentralized ownership to effectively manage shared resources and achieve collective goals.
Hats Protocol transforms organizations into programmable digital objects. Every aspect of an organization, including the roles within it, can be automated and managed like any other piece of software, streamlining operations and enhancing efficiency.
At the core of Hats Protocol is the creation of public infrastructure designed to support the future needs of humanity.
Understanding Hats Protocol
Hats Protocol serves as a foundational platform for constructing organizational structures, termed as organizational graphs. Within these graphs, roles, referred to as "hats," act as the fundamental building blocks. These hats are sophisticated objects adhering to the ERC-1155 standard, encapsulating responsibilities, permissions, and incentives. Represented as tokens, these roles are held by agents, which could be individual Ethereum accounts, groups, DAOs, smart accounts, or AI agents, offering a wide array of onchain decision-making structures.
The structure of the organizational graph is defined by administrative and accountability links between different roles. Administrative permissions enable certain actions within the protocol, such as creating new roles, assigning roles to agents, and modifying role permissions to ensure agents can fulfill their duties.
Accountability links within the graph allow any agent to oversee and align another agent’s performance, with the authority to revoke hats if they are misused or become unnecessary.
Hats Protocol is designed with extensibility in mind, allowing developers to enhance interfaces. This flexibility enables organizations to automate the assignment and removal of roles, administrative links, and accountability measures based on specific criteria or logic. The ecosystem already includes over 15 automations that can be integrated into organizational graphs without the need for additional coding.
The power of a hat comes from the permissions it grants, which are crucial for effective organizational management. These permissions include:
- Managing funds, operational budgets, and compensation flows.
- Holding ownership or decision-making power in specific domains.
- Accessing essential data, communication channels, and workspaces.
- Modifying, publishing, and executing organizational code.
- Representing the organization in various external contexts.
By decentralizing decision-making and execution, Hats enables organizations to operate efficiently even when ownership and stakeholder involvement are broadly distributed.
Operational Mechanics of Hats Protocol
Hats are dynamic, revocable, and clearly defined roles that can be collectively managed by the entity wearing the "Top Hat," whether it be an individual or a collective such as an organization. These roles are structured in a tree-like configuration, known as a "Hats tree," to establish adaptable organizational graphs under the control of the organization or appointed representatives. These graphs can then be visualized through any Hats interface.
On the blockchain, hats are represented as tokens compliant with the ERC-1155 standard and can be held by any Ethereum address, including EOAs, multisigs, or contracts. Holding one of these tokens signifies that the address is a "wearer" of the hat, granting them the associated authorities through various integrations and token-gates.
A hat can have multiple wearers up to its maximum supply limit, and these roles are assigned or revoked by the organization or its designated agents or smart contracts. Although wearers can relinquish a hat, they are not permitted to transfer it.
