From NFTaggregator to trendhub: Our Journey from an NFT Network to a Comprehensive Social Collaboration Network

Introduction
The year 2021 marked the starting point of an exciting journey that evolved a simple idea into a versatile platform for digital creatives, businesses, and community enthusiasts alike. What began as NFTaggregator eventually became NFTchoice and finally turned into today’s trendhub – a social collaboration network that can curate, present, and evaluate virtually any type of content, far beyond just digital art. In this retrospective, we’ll guide you through a chronological journey, highlighting milestones, challenges, and turning points. We hope you’ll see why we believe trendhub has the potential to be so much more than “just another” social media platform.

1. The Year 2021: Laying the Foundation and the First Major Success

From Coinfreak to NFTaggregator
Our story began with a platform update: Coinfreak turned into NFTaggregator. We had a vision—to create a platform where NFT artists could showcase, describe, and ideally discuss their digital artwork. But that was easier said than done. The extensive restructuring, plus the design and functionality setup, took about three months of development.

During this phase, we worked intensively on the user interface, backend, and the fundamental approach to how we wanted to exhibit NFT artwork. We wanted to ensure that every feature worked seamlessly together and that creators had an intuitive platform. At the same time, we began attracting potential users via social media to build our community early.

Twitter Marketing and Rapid Growth
A crucial factor in our success in the first year was an intensive Twitter marketing campaign. From April until the end of 2021, we ran various ads, posted launch content, and actively engaged with the NFT community. The result: about 4,500 NFT digital art creators joined NFTaggregator, posting around 150 stories about their NFTs every day. These numbers were overwhelming, gave us a huge motivational boost, and underscored the need for further platform development to handle more significant traffic and functionality.

2. The Year 2022: Market Crisis in NFTs and the Birth of New Ideas

The NFT Market Slumps
Unfortunately, 2022 was marked by a massive market downturn. Starting at the beginning of the year, overall interest in NFTs dropped significantly, which we felt on NFTaggregator. We only managed to bring in another 1,000 digital artists for the platform, and even that proved to be an uphill battle. This slump made us question our vision: would a social media platform solely dedicated to NFTs be sustainable in the long run?

Realignment and Focus
Yet we still believed we were in the early days of NFT technology. We analyzed the underlying issues in the market and found that buyers often lacked essential background information about NFTs, a critical component in building trust. We asked ourselves how we could add real value and restore confidence in NFTs by leveraging the community.

Our response: a decentralized, community-driven rating system that would better gauge the value of individual NFTs. In the Web2 world, reviews and customer feedback are firmly established, but a comparable tool was missing in the Web3 space. After three months of conceptual work, we had assembled all the building blocks to begin programming our new system.

November Brings NFTchoice
In November 2022, we kicked off NFTchoice. We merged our existing NFTaggregator platform with a carousel feature and a voting tool that integrated a token-based system to strengthen community participation. This setup laid the groundwork for what we still use today, though no longer limited to NFTs. This transformation was the first major step in pivoting from a sole NFT focus to a broader functional scope.

3. The Year 2023: Major Feature Enhancements and Fundamental Realignment

Integration of the 3D Carousel, Voting Tools, and Token System
In the first six months of 2023, we focused heavily on further developing NFTchoice. The 3D carousel was intended to give users an appealing and intuitive overview of various NFT collections. We also embedded the token system more deeply into the platform, allowing voting in exchange for token rewards. This approach underscored how essential an engaged community is to the long-term success of any platform.

However, the NFT market continued to stagnate. When we tried to officially launch NFTchoice in the summer of 2023, it became clear that interest in NFTs remained low. Consequently, we decided once again to rethink our strategy and look for new directions.

A Turning Point During the Summer Break
During a short summer break, we reached a critical turning point: Oliver, one of our core team members, realized the platform had more potential than merely hosting NFTs and digital art. Bianca gave us the pivotal insight that our “Hubs”—essentially curated collections of social media posts—could be used for much more.

Upon closer examination, we saw that Hubs could dive far deeper into topics than typical social media posts. This realization spurred new use cases, from rating digital art to showcasing products for businesses. We discovered that our community-driven approach could be beneficial in multiple industries, not just NFTs.

NFTchoice.io Becomes trendhub
This realization marked the true beginning of trendhub. In September 2023, we started transforming NFTchoice into a more comprehensive social media concept where users could upload and rate all kinds of content. Our users were no longer limited to NFTs; music videos, product demos, or podcasts became just as relevant as digital art.

4. Late 2023: Hubs for Everyone and New Features

The HUB Creation Form
To give users more freedom, we began developing what we called the HUB Creation Form in November 2023. Until then, only we as platform operators had created Hubs to hold artwork competitions. Now, we wanted every user to be able to conceptualize their own Hubs, regardless of the topic.

Building this form was extensive. Our goal was maximum flexibility alongside user-friendly simplicity. By the end of 2023, we had finalized crucial functions such as “Private Hubs” with invite codes, Hub balance management, and various tools for uploading diverse types of content.

Platform Expansion and a Look Ahead
With the new Hub creation process, it became obvious that trendhub could be applied in many more ways. Whether for businesses, artists, or individuals, everyone would be able to create their own themed Hub and expand it through social engagement. We mobilized additional developers and designers to finalize the platform and prepare it for the coming year.

5. The Year 2024: Fine-Tuning, Growth, and Strategic Partnerships

January to Summer 2024

Multihub and the Pilot Phase
At the beginning of 2024, one of our most important features was on the horizon: “Multihub.” This functionality would allow businesses (and anyone else wanting to conduct larger-scale surveys) to link multiple Hubs together. By early March, it was fully implemented, and we transitioned trendhub into a pilot phase.

We presented the platform to a variety of people and organizations, gathering feedback to eliminate any last weaknesses. Simultaneously, our team grew: for the first time since 2022, we expanded to 15 members, especially in Business Development. They reached out to potential users to determine where trendhub could fit best.

Focusing on User Experience (UX)
These conversations revealed that the ease of use of such a flexible tool was crucial. Beginning in March 2024, we focused heavily on UX improvements—both for creating Hubs and for viewing them.

A major update was the inclusion of collaboration features, such as direct commenting in videos, audio files, and documents, with the ability to link those comments in a main chat. Additionally, we expanded the Hub feature to support a variety of multimedia content—from videos, PDFs, and HTML embeds to Google Drive and YouTube URLs. These optimizations lasted until summer 2024, and our test users gave consistently positive feedback.

Radical Simplification of the Hub Creation Form
The feedback we received led us to a fundamental change: we completely redesigned the previously complex Hub Creation Form. At times, it took users up to 60 minutes to create a Hub; after our overhaul, a Hub could be set up in as little as 30 seconds. This shift occurred in late summer 2024 and made trendhub suddenly much more appealing to a broader user base.

Fall 2024

Content-Based Subscription
In September 2024, we received a game-changing tip: instead of simply letting users subscribe to each other, let them create subscription models for their own communities. This led to the unique idea of “Content-Based Subscriptions,” allowing creators on trendhub to offer exclusive content or special features to their community.

New Team Members and Direction
Another milestone was the expansion of our executive team with Javier, Christian, Piotr, and Peter. Each brought specialized knowledge to help further develop trendhub. At the same time, we established a new company in Dubai—a process that spanned three intense months and included applying for the DMCC Crypto Center.

The Contribution Feature and Securing Partners
In October and November 2024, we finalized the Contribution feature within Hubs. Now, community members could not only comment on a creator’s content but also add their own related content to the discussion. This collaborative approach breathes fresh life into each Hub topic.

During the same period, we secured strategic media and investment partnerships, including with IBCgroup, thanks to our ACYC pitch deck. They were impressed by our vision of promoting trendhub as a broad-based social collaboration platform rather than a mere NFT evaluation tool.

Year-End 2024

A New Pitch Deck and a “Real, Finished Product”
To prepare for future investments, we spent all of December creating a professional pitch deck for trendhub. Unlike ACYC, where we presented a future project, we now had a nearly complete platform to showcase. Potential investors reacted far more positively than in the early days, giving us confidence for the next steps in our expansion.

Introducing AI into the Hub Creation Form
We’re particularly proud of integrating an AI component. Starting in November and December 2024, an AI helps streamline the Hub Creation Form, making it even faster and more intuitive for creators to set up new Hubs. The vision behind this: trendhub should one day serve as your “Daily Help Assistant.” Whether you’re an individual, influencer, business, or institution, you can simply input your interests or problems, and the AI will generate an initial Hub blueprint for you.

This new development epitomizes our emerging spirit in recent months: step by step, trendhub is becoming a flexible, collaborative platform that supports its users in a variety of tasks.

6. Summary and Outlook

In almost four years, we’ve undergone a massive transformation:

• 2021: From Coinfreak to NFTaggregator, intensive restructuring, and a successful Twitter campaign that brought in 4,500 digital artists.
• 2022: An NFT market crash, prompting realignment. We focused on rebuilding trust through decentralized community evaluations, ultimately developing NFTchoice.
• 2023: We introduced a 3D carousel, token system, and voting tools, then made a pivotal shift from a purely NFT-centric platform to a broader social media concept: NFTchoice became trendhub.
• 2024: Evolving the platform into a “Social Collaboration Network” featuring Multihub, Content-Based Subscriptions, and collaborative content-sharing. We founded a new company in Dubai, integrated AI into the Hub Creation Form, and pursued partnership deals with investors and media companies.

Looking back at the beginning, we’re amazed by the many pivots and innovations we’ve made in a relatively short period. The hard work, the highs and lows, and the continuous engagement from our user community have brought us to where we stand today.

trendhub is no longer just an NFT rating portal. It’s a platform that brings different interests together to share, discuss, and expand upon content collectively—whether it’s digital art, product surveys, educational content, or creative media projects. We see trendhub as a central hub for community engagement.

Our vision goes much further: we aim to offer a platform that supports people, businesses, and institutions in their day-to-day tasks by creating targeted Hubs and collaborative possibilities. With the recently introduced AI feature, we’ve shown that we’re ready to take the next step in that direction.

Thank You to Our Community
Without the early and ongoing support of our users, this journey wouldn’t have been possible. Your suggestions, critiques, and dedication have shaped our direction. For every new feature or modification, we always asked, “How can trendhub better meet the needs of our community?”

A Look to the Future
We’re excited about the coming year and our ongoing talks with investors and strategic partners. With our new Dubai-based company, we see additional opportunities to position ourselves globally and make a clear impact in both crypto and Web3.

Ultimately, our core mission remains: to build a platform that unites people and fosters genuine engagement. Whether you’re crypto-enthusiasts, creatives, or businesses—trendhub aims to be your “Daily Help Assistant,” a place for feedback, collaboration, and idea generation.

Closing Words
We hope this chronological retrospective offers a clear view of our development and shows why we put so much effort and passion into this project. From the early days as NFTaggregator to NFTchoice and finally evolving into today’s trendhub, it’s been an exciting road filled with challenges and discoveries. And we’re only at the start of what we can achieve together.

We’d like to thank everyone who has supported us so far and look forward to those who will join us. Here’s to many more years of innovation, collaboration, and creative growth!