Hair Loss Cure 2020

On rare occasions, I write about lesser known people doing something extremely interesting or unique in the hair loss world. In many cases, this has involved writing about blog readers testing or outlining their own theories and concoctions to treat hair loss. In other cases, I wanted to support hard working sincere people involved in the hair loss world for many years with no financial driving force.

Update: June 23, 2025

HairDAO now develops its own hair loss treatments via its own lab. It sells these new treatments along with existing hair loss products via anagen.xyz.

February 24, 2022

HairDAO: Autonomous Blockchain Technology to Cure Hair Loss

This time, I want to discuss a new blockchain based Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) called HairDAO. It was initiated by two hair loss sufferers. Ultimately, this venture might turn out to be meaningless (or worse, turn into a scam as more money becomes involved). But so far, I am impressed with what I have read and feel like it holds potential.

Also, as far as I know, blockchain based concepts are very transparent. They are extremely unlikely to turn into any kind of pyramid or ponzi scheme type fraud. Nevertheless, proceed with caution! For now, this is just something unique of interest to myself.

Biotechnology and health related DAOs are becoming increasingly common (e.g., VitaDAO for longevity and anti-aging research). See this list of other science related DAOs. I like VitaDAO’s slogan: “We’re democratising longevity.”

VitaDAO’s Discord is fully active and you can join them to get a better idea of the future of HairDAO’s Discord (my invite link expired). Also, the #VITA token is already being traded on the public blockchain. Another interesting one is LabDAO, which is in pre-launch mode, just like HairDAO.

Key Highlights of HairDAO

HairDAO will be fully owned and operated on the Ethereum public blockchain.
The two co-founders of this initiative are Andrew Bakst and Andrew Verbinnen. Both suffer from hair loss and treat it using medication.
Their Whitepaper that just came out earlier this month is well worth a complete read. It covers many aspects of the current issues in the hair loss world when it comes to lack of funding for the most relevant treatments and research.
The only token held by the Treasury at launch will be the $HAIR ERC-20 token. Most likely, it will be released before the end of 2022.
There will be 1 billion $HAIR tokens minted at launch. These will be controlled by a temporary Gnosis Safe Multi-Signature Wallet.
Follow them on Twitter if you find this concept interesting. Or on Discord if you are really a fan. FYI — HLC2020 also has its own Discord hair loss chat.

Per HairDAO’s Whitepaper, besides outright purchase, the $HAIR token can also be earned through: the provision of capital and operational work; the generation of intellectual property; the operation of manufacturing facilities; clinical trial participation; and regulatory advisement.

Note: I am not sure how this will all work. My intuition tells me that these kinds of co-operative community based projects are part of the long-term attraction of blockchain technology.

How will a DAO Help Hair Loss Research?

Upon first glance, it seems confusing as to how HairDAO can speed up hair loss research. Especially since most people assume that sales of tokens such as $HAIR are just to make money in a similar vein to stock trading or cryptocurrency coin trading.

However, the aim of a DAO is to collectively fund (or invest) in researchers and institutions via community discussion and voting. HairDAO will do this via its Discord channel where it has channels for proposals (and working groups in future). Perhaps they can rapidly raise funds for Dr. Tsuji and Riken as their first priority?

The chart below from their White Paper gives a general idea of how this will work.

HairDAO Hair Loss Cure Funding — HairDAO — Hair Loss Research Investment. Source: White Paper.

Our primary goal is to solve hair loss. My personal opinion is that we need to deploy capital in a profitable way so that people can make money from holding our tokens and also solve a cause they care about. Otherwise we are just a charity for hair loss and I think profit-driven people are more likely to find solutions to problems. But ultimately the community will decide what is best — Andrew V.

I agree with the above quote. Moreover, people who believe very strongly in charity and volunteer work are less likely to be involved in a cosmetic/ beauty/appearance related field such as hair loss.

Disclaimer

Note that I am not being paid in any way whatsoever to write about HairDAO. I am not even likely to purchase the #HAIR token when it comes out unless I see some real upside in other related biotech area tokens. Nevertheless, it is great to finally see blockchain technology and the hair loss world finally intersecting.

Perhaps HairDAO can also be used for the popular “Group Buys” and new hair loss compound experimentation down the road?

Sooner or later, blockchain technology will become massive and much more than just cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. I remember how I got interested in Twitter in its earliest days and kept thinking that it held much greater potential. It took a decade before it really took off.

I have followed the hair loss world for over 20 years, and written about it on this site for 8.5 years. Nevertheless, almost every single month, I still read something on hair that totally surprises me. The latest is courtesy of this thread on Reddit regarding a new study on the benefits of ultrasound for hair growth.

Sound Hair Growth — Hair growth after 30 kHz sound therapy. Source: Biomedical Reports. Choi et al.

Inaudible Sound Therapy and Hair Growth

A new study from South Korea that came out last month suggests a role for sound therapy in treating hair loss. It is titled “Induction of hair growth in hair follicle cells and organ cultures upon treatment with 30 kHz frequency inaudible sound.”

According to the authors, these inaudible frequency sound waves positively affect scalp hair via 4-hour treatments that:

Induce proliferative and anti‑apoptotic effects in human dermal papilla cells (hDPCs) and outer root sheath keratinocytes.
Inhibit the negative effects of dihydrotestosterone (DHT) upon hair growth.

The authors conclude that:

“Overall, the results suggested that inaudible sound may be effective in treating hair loss and could be used to develop a new hair loss treatment approach.”

They provide two hypotheses on why inaudible sound vibrations are causing hair growth:

The promotion of hair growth occurs due to activation of the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway via the sound waves.
The hair growth occurs as a result of mechanotransduction (mechanical stress) from the cell membrane of hair follicle cells. This stress is a result of modification by the inaudible sound.

Ultrasound Drug Delivery for Hair Growth

Note that ultrasound therapy and related devices are often used to improve drug delivery systems. In 2020, I discussed a study that used ultrasound activated nanoparticles to treat androgenetic alopecia. Also in the same year, I discussed sonophoresis and radio frequency as new potential ways to deliver topical finasteride.

A 2020 study from Taiwan found dual-frequency ultrasound to be effective for transdermal minoxidil delivery and hair growth enhancement. The authors found that ultrasound-mediated microbubble cavitation significantly increased both skin permeability and transdermal drug delivery.

Molecular Vibrations

This phenomenon is not as unbelievable as one would expect. For many years, we have known that even things like low-level laser light (LLLT) therapy, massage/mechanotherapy, scalp wounding, and even friction can lead to hair growth in some.

And in the way-out-there world, we have read anecdotal reports of hair regrowth on people who got unintentional scalp injuries from fire and even lightening. I think I should hereon call all such phenomena as “molecular scalp vibration” spurred hair growth.

The authors of this latest study cite a number of supporting studies. This includes ones that suggest that low-intensity vibrations and sound impact the body at the cellular and genetic level.

HairDAO: Blockchain Driven Hair Loss Cure