HYVE — Telegram QUIZ & AMA — October 20
On Wednesday, October 20, we had the pleasure to welcome to our Telegram chat:
Tudor Stomff, Co-Founder and CEO,
We asked him questions about the development of HYVE.
Some sentences have been slightly edited for readability but the meaning has been conserved.
Summary
HYVE is a direct implementation of game theory on a decentralized organization. HYVE protocol enables any objectively measurable task to become self-verifiable.
HYVE is built on Ethereum with the entire backend in solidity and assembly.
Kleros is built into HYVE as a decentralized third party to arbitrate disputes.
Users can flag false and dangerous tasks and take them down after a community curator checks them.
Introduction
Q — Alex Raffin from GAINS: What did you do before crypto, how did you get into crypto and did you have any other venture in crypto previous to being involved with HYVE?
A — Tudor Stomff from HYVE: I’ve been an entrepreneur for some time now, and even before crypto, the industry I worked in was tech.
For crypto, I was involved in things like Bountyhive.io, Coinhatch.io, Tokenbatch.io etc.
We still have running businesses in the industry but they are now led by someone else while we focus on new ventures such as HYVE.
Product
Q — Alex Raffin from GAINS: What’s your role at HYVE and what is the project about in a few simple sentences?
A — Tudor Stomff from HYVE: My role is that of co-founder and CEO. As for HYVE, it is a direct implementation of game theory on a decentralized organization.
The result is a completely open ecosystem where people and machines alike can collaborate without any restrictions.
Q — Alex Raffin from GAINS: Could you give us a few examples of what HYVE makes possible?
A — Tudor Stomff from HYVE: First of all, HYVE protocol enables any objectively measurable task to become self-verifiable.
Furthermore, the user’s interest is always aligned with the platform because 100% of task fees end up with the holders through various mechanisms.
The system itself is built on game-theoretical principles making it so that once launched, HYVE can continue to exist in perpetuity with no outside interference unless the internet is taken down altogether.
Q — Alex Raffin from GAINS: What’s the business model if 100% of the fees go back to the holders?
A — Tudor Stomff from HYVE: 50% goes to staking whereas 50% of fees become individual items auctioned in something called the Vault. The auction functions like ENS domains, anonymous bids, and 2nd highest bidder wins. Auctions are only paid in HYVE.
The vault earnings are then 50% burned and 50% goes to treasury which ensures the continued existence of the platform.
Q — Alex Raffin from GAINS: Do you have a concrete example of a use case or project build on HYVE for us?
A — Tudor Stomff from HYVE: On one hand, people can use it, as freelancers, hosts, recruiting agents etc, and on the other hand, people can build their own niche platforms upon our infrastructure.
The simplest example is Bountyhive itself which will eventually be built upon HYVE’s infrastructure as a niche social media micro-tasking platform.
In essence, as a developer, you don’t have to rebuild the whole behemoth and can instead focus on your own particularities.
Q — Alex Raffin from GAINS: Is it some kind of Fiverr for crypto?
A — Tudor Stomff from HYVE: Bountyhive is some sort of gleam.io for crypto if that’s what you mean.
As for HYVE, please understand that the reason we built this for 2 years without even making it public is so that there are no limitations. You want offers like on Fiverr? No problem. Do you want jobs like on Upwork? No problem. Amazon mechanical Turk works too.
Any possible form of collaboration that can exist between two parties, be they human or robots can be intermediated by HYVE. We have the Hyves, which are self-governed organizations, or decentralized startups basically. With their own governance, revenue split etc.
Q — Alex Raffin from GAINS: How many people or organizations use the platform right now?
A — Tudor Stomff from HYVE: The platform isn’t live so none.
Q — Alex Raffin from GAINS: When do you plan on launching? Are there people beta testing it?
A — Tudor Stomff from HYVE: We will be opening a test program. And we plan to launch the testnet release in a few months.
I need to stress though that this won’t be an MVP launch but an actual product launch. As for testnet, we’ll keep it open for a bit to let people get used to it and make sure there are no flaws, and then just go for mainnet.
Q — Alex Raffin from GAINS: Are you removing middlemen in nearly all types of human interactions?
A — Tudor Stomff from HYVE: As long as it is a form of collaboration, then yes. Also, we are quite robot friendly. In fact, the platform is built with that in mind.
Let me give you an example, say you have 2 drones with 5km capacity each. A delivery task is posted for a distance of 8km. They can talk with one another to each go 4km and then split the revenue among them.
A more futuristic example would be rockets in space taking tasks autonomously while circling the orbit to generate some extra revenue while still on that mission. The list goes on and on.
Q — Alex Raffin from GAINS: Is HYVE built on Ethereum?
A — Tudor Stomff from HYVE: Yes. The entire backend of HYVE is in Solidity and Assembly.
As you probably guessed, all our operations are handled in Assembly, making the contracts use less gas etc.
Q — Alex Raffin from GAINS: What is the token use case? How did you make sure it captures the value of the ecosystem you’re building?
A — Tudor Stomff from HYVE: There’s quite a few of them actually. In addition to using the token for various features of the platform, you can use them to stake or in the vault, you can use them for curation or governance, you can use them for disputes etc.
The token is an essential part of the system and also respects game-theoretical principles. We really liked the idea of Blockchain as made clear by our continued involvement in the space for years but decentralization is not enough for a future society where we can be proud of what we’ve become as a species.
Game theory helps with that a lot because it aligns people but game theory alone is mostly used in economics. In fact, there are very few examples where it’s been used together with the human factor as part of an entire organization. One example could be Kleros, our partners. Even then, it’s included in parts of it, whereas HYVE is built from the ground up like this. It can effectively function as its own independent society, governed by its people, the users.
Furthermore, users have certain mechanisms that lead them to the correct decision. For example, the feedback mechanism. The grades are between 1 and 5. If you get a rating between 1 and 3, it automatically shows up on your profile. If it’s 4 or 5, you first have to leave a review in return for it to show up. In essence, the system itself leads people to the best decision for both themselves and the organization.
Q — Alex Raffin from GAINS: Are the best grades 4 and 5?
A — Tudor Stomff from HYVE: Yes. This can be changed by the community, through a proposal and subsequent vote. Pretty much anything can be changed.
We’re just putting forth the backbone of it. After all, it would be arrogant to claim that our way is the only way or that we can properly predict how the platform should adapt to future circumstantial changes. We’re just building what we think is best and letting people decide how to take it from there.
Q — Alex Raffin from GAINS: How will you take market shares from the big Amazon Turk, Fiverr, and other platforms?
A — Tudor Stomff from HYVE: We’re not really competing with them, not directly at least. The reason for that is simple. Upwork, Fiverr, whoever can choose to build their own decentralized version on top of HYVE. What’s cool is they can add their own fee on top, skip building the infrastructure, and can even pay a 0% fee if the task itself is paid in HYVE (which can be easily automated).
Q — Twitter user @loc39099049: Can you give an overview of your tokenomics?
Will the design of the token rise and fall with the success of the platform, does it include any scarce paths, such as equity, storage, or burning?
A — Tudor Stomff from HYVE: The market itself along with the vault and staking balances each other out.
If too many people use staking, the vault will have great offers making people go towards it. If both of them are overused, there are not many tokens on the market. This should form a certain perspective to help in grasping a more realistic value of the token.
Q — Telegram user A E S T H E T I C | V A P O R W A V E: What dispute mechanism does HYVE use to resolve contractual issues between the parties? Do you plan to include a decentralized court system like Kleros?
A — Tudor Stomff from HYVE: We actually use Kleros, and it’s already been built into HYVE since last year.
Q — Telegram user Winter Kommt 🥶: Do all contracts at HYVE go through a dispute with Kleros as a mediator? Does it have an additional cost?
How easy do you think it is to adopt HYVE for freelancers who are used to using Paypal? Will you have an educational section?
A — Tudor Stomff from HYVE: Yes and yes.
I think it won’t be that hard because we’ll make it as easy as possible. It’s not a user’s job to know tech and we understand that. And yes we will have an educational section.
Q — Telegram user Sell BTC and catch next gem: Why did you decide to launch this Blockchain-based product when a traditional web version could be more efficient and adaptable?
A — Tudor Stomff from HYVE: You can’t build HYVE on a centralized architecture and I’m saying this as one of the people who built a centralized micro-tasking platform for blockchain projects which was quite successful. If anyone can build HYVE as it is with all its features in a centralized way, I am willing to stop working in the industry. You can quote me on that.
Q — Telegram user nyo_cant: You mentioned that HYVE allows self-verification of any ‘objectively measurable task’. Could you provide some examples of such tasks?
How can HYVE mechanisms lead users to the correct decision? What are the odds for errors and how would they be sorted out within your ecosystem?
A — Tudor Stomff from HYVE: Well, you need to be able to measure it: time, distance, downloads, signups, app interactions etc.
The community can change the rules. To answer the first part of the question, it’s not about an error, it’s not that type of a decision. It’s like whenever you throw your cigarette on the ground you get an instant fine whereas if you throw it in the trash you get a reward. Thus, using the trash is the only objectively correct decision someone can make.
Team
Q — Alex Raffin from GAINS: How many people are in the team?
A — Tudor Stomff from HYVE: Depends. There have been many people involved in HYVE to date, several dozens to be exact, but most of them have had temporary roles, to fill out a specific need and then pass it on.
In essence, we worked just as we envisioned HYVE, in a pretty decentralized manner. In fact, some of us have never met in real life and yet we’ve worked together more than people in the same office.
Finance
Q — Alex Raffin from GAINS: Did you raise funds so far? If so, how did you handle them? Are you planning to do any future raises?
A — Tudor Stomff from HYVE: We did. To be honest, the response has been a bit overwhelming and we’ve had to end things quickly without any sort of public sale due to this.
As for future raises, I am not sure how to answer this, to be honest. We have what we need right now. It’s hard for me to know whether at some point we would need additional funding and I think that’s a decision better left for the future.
For now, we just want to publish a great product and get community feedback to make it better.
Security
Q — Twitter user @cryptoenr1que: If HYVE is fully decentralized, how do you decide what kind of tasks should be carried out on the platform? How do you regulate potentially harmful practices? What mechanisms do you use to solve this?
A — Tudor Stomff from HYVE: First, let’s look from a different perspective. Is the non-existence of HYVE currently prohibiting these types of transactions from taking place? No. It’s the same argument as BTC can be used for terrorism. It’s not like terrorism was invented in 2010.
We have a mechanism in place for that. Namely, curation. People can flag false and dangerous tasks and take them down after a community curator checks them. Curators will be rewarded for their work as well.
Business Development
Q — Twitter user @KathDM3: Since not all freelancers are familiar with blockchain, what are your strategies to teach them what HYVE is, its mission, and benefits?
A — Tudor Stomff from HYVE: HYVE is somewhat different from normal dApps in that we don’t plan to let users have to deal with lots of blockchain/tech stuff.
Let me give an example: Say Bob wants to send Emily 5$. He will literally send the money to Emily, not to 0x…etc. This is just to give you an idea of how HYVE will look and feel like.
Q — Telegram user Goldilock: HYVE is a community-governed ecosystem but your Mainnet Launch is planned for Q4 2021. How can new members take part in the HYVE ecosystem?
A — Tudor Stomff from HYVE: Unfortunately, since the system isn’t live, the only option is through direct community feedback but if you ask community members you’ll see that we actually do take that into account almost every time.
Thanks a lot for coming in today Tudor. I really enjoyed learning about HYVE. I hope you launch quite soon because I’m excited now. Let us know when we can test things out! Where can we go to follow what you’re up to? — Alex Raffin from GAINS
Thanks for having us here. I have to say it’s been a real pleasure and this has to be one of the most interactive AMAs we had to date so I appreciate that. Check out our website, Twitter page or Telegram group. — Tudor Stomff from HYVE
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