In this ongoing series, we showcase blockchain and dApp startups that have partnered with Reflective Ventures to solve entrenched industry problems using RChain’s revolutionary blockchain platform.

In this episode, Shahan Khoshafian, Senior Associate, Reflective Ventures is in conversation with Salman Habib, Co-founder of Hellofriend, at the World Blockchain Conference in Atlantic City.



“The goal is to connect people in real-life, protect their data, all in a decentralized manner.” -Salman Habib (Hellofriend Co-Founder)

Hellofriend aims to restructure social networking by providing robust solutions:

Social integration: transcending social isolation that online social media currently reinforces, by utilizing web interfaces as a means for connecting people in real-life.

Data protection: establishing a peer to peer network as a replacement for third party, centralized hosting that has recently lead to data breaches.

Why blockchain?

First and foremost, decentralized applications powered by blockchain technology allow everything from end user decisions to computation to hosting to be distributed among the acting parties.

Hellofriend aims to leverage this liberty, and unlock potential for mutual benefit between producers and consumers. Participants will have the opportunity to transition from their current roles as online consumers of social media, and explore untapped roles as face to face, incentivised providers of valuable real-life experiences in secure social organizations.

Scalable utilities: dApps for wide user adoption

Salman brought up an interesting analogy at the Blockchain World Conference.

“If you individually ask a random group of people to explain TCP/IP, complete answers would be few and far between. If you ask that same group of people about a front end that utilizes TCP/IP such as Google, the majority, if not every person would know exactly how to explain what you were mentioning.”

He believes we are in a similar state in blockchain, with companies marketing themselves as a back end solution, and not focusing on wide scale user adoption by everyday consumers.

Third generation solutions such as RChain are addressing scale, and their mission doesn’t stop there. Consumer applications need to be able to use the blockchain, if RChain’s speed, and scale will come to fruition in the marketplace.

Hellofriend partnership with Reflective Ventures: Building on RChain

Consisting of Harvard dropouts and MIT affiliates, the Hellofriend team realizes the importance of building on top of a blockchain that can scale their transactions, for the best user experience. Their partnership with Reflective Ventures represents a collaborative effort to thrive on the RChain main network, which is pretty exciting news moving forward!



Reflective Ventures is a privately owned and managed venture firm committed to funding, incubating, and ultimately building the next generation of blockchain technologies and innovative dApps.