Problem

1. Memory Fragility

Hard copy pictures fade, get lost, or get damaged. Devices and cameras can break or be stolen. Centralized accounts (Google, iCloud) depend on fragile access points. If a phone number expires, passwords are forgotten, or accounts are flagged, years of personal data can vanish. Social platforms are also vulnerable to policy shifts or government restrictions.

• Corrected Data:
  • (Handy Recovery Advisor, 2023): Over 70% of users have experienced data loss at least once due to various issues like accidental deletion and hardware failure.
  • (Google, 2023): Accounts inactive for 2 years are permanently deleted, including Gmail, Drive, and Photos data.
  • (World Economic Forum, 2021): Centralized platforms are exploring data governance models to manage data flow for "common purpose," a broad concept that can include government requests or policy changes.

2. Social Media Facade vs. Genuine Connection

People often present curated happiness online while struggling privately. Plans with friends and family are constantly delayed (“we should meet up soon” turns into never). Platforms reward performance, not authentic connection — leaving emotional needs unmet.

• Corrected Data:
  • (Cigna Loneliness Index, 2020): 61% of U.S. adults report feeling lonely, and very heavy social media users are significantly more likely to feel isolated. The report also found that younger generations are lonelier than older ones.
  • (CDC, 2021): 42% of high school students reported persistently feeling sad or hopeless during the pandemic.
  • (Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 2018): Limiting social media use to 30 minutes a day significantly reduced depression and loneliness.

Solution: Meet TouchGrass

TouchGrass is a Web3 dApp that helps friends and families meet, share, and preserve real-life experiences forever.
Organize spontaneous or planned meetups (birthdays, hangouts, end-of-year parties). After each meetup, create a shared photo album stored on-chain as an NFT. One person uploads, everyone else gets notified and can mint. Unlike fragile physical or centralized storage, these memories are permanent, decentralized, and co-owned.

What You Can Do with TouchGrass

• Connect with Gmail (sequence).
• Create a plan (event). Invite friends using their email (if already registered).
• Create a clique (group). Add members to the clique. Upload a file to IPFS (one image or video per event).
• By default, all event details and uploaded files are re-uploaded to IPFS as metadata, enabling minting.
• A chat function is on the roadmap to make planning smooth

Why This Matters

TouchGrass solves the two gaps that Web2 social apps and traditional albums can’t:

• Permanence: Your most important memories can’t vanish with a password reset or platform shutdown.
• Authenticity: TouchGrass rewards real-world presence and shared experiences, not performative likes.

Hurdle & Solution - Frontend dev

One of the biggest hurdles I faced was trying to use Sequence alone to interact with my smart contract and mint the Clique NFT.
The contract call wasn’t going through as expected, and since the entire project depends on this minting flow, it became a huge blocker.

After some trial and error, I figured out that combining Sequence with Wagmi solved the problem. With this setup, I was finally able to mint the NFT successfully.

I didn’t have enough time to polish the UI to the level I wanted, and the chat feature had to be postponed. But I’m happy that the core minting flow works as expected. 🎉

Proof of Transaction

Here’s the proof of a successful minting transaction:

🔗 View on Block Explorer

Touchgrass deployed smart contract address: 0x35AcB41e1c3a0B35478ce9d01FC1aa45E15416E2