The evolution of money, banking, and blockchain
As the concept for Hoard nears its first anniversary, our company, team, product, and vision have matured. We’re proud of what this represents today … and excited for all that it will stand for tomorrow. Once an idea to merely simplify cryptocurrencies, Hoard has now grown into a full-scale mission that will:
- connect the world to blockchain technology
- re-invent banking as we know it
- give power back to the the people
Our Mission — Empower anyone, anywhere in the world to hold, track, transfer, and transact with any tokenized asset from their mobile device, privately & instantly.
True to the original vision of Satoshi Nakamoto, an electronic peer-to-peer cash system, Bitcoin provides the notion of being your own bank. However, this notion lacks the necessary tools needed to truly operate as our own bank. Bitcoin’s absence of the proper framework, security, support, and financial tools you’ll need to participate in the future tokenized economy is a significant hurdle. Don’t worry, this is where Hoard steps in…
What is Hoard building, and why?
Hoard is creating a bridge between the old monetary systems and the newer blockchain-based economy. We’re delivering simplified experiences over complex technologies. We’re creating the most comprehensive digital assets ecosystem the world has ever seen. It’s a platform of inclusivity, not exclusivity. Some elements of our ecosystem are centralized, like connecting to banks and converting fiat to digital currencies. Other elements are decentralized, like our blockchain protocol and cross-exchange pipeline (codename: Smaug). In between these two worlds lives the Hoard app. This application is your personal banking interface to the tokenized economy of currencies, assets, commodities, securities, and utilities in a single location.
What? We’re building a multi-chain wallet, fiat gateway, and decentralized exchange. These will incorporate investment tools, AI automation, a payment network, access to financial markets, and a blockchain protocol. Together, these focus on crucial foundations for cryptocurrency and overall financial capabilities: scalability, interoperability, fungibility, accessibility, and simplicity. Open-sourced and distributed.
Why? The world of cryptocurrencies is complicated. Challenging user interfaces, steep learning curves, insufficient artificial intelligence (AI) and automation, and fragmented dapps and blockchains have made cryptocurrency and the incoming future of tokenization a nightmare for everyday consumers. Who wants to use seven apps to manage three currencies or transact between two parties? This all reinforces our why. Simplicity is not a patent.
The individual user must be able to easily adopt a technology if we expect the world to adapt to that technology.
The Hoard team approaches every single interaction from the user’s perspective. It’s part of our pedigree as interaction design practitioners, highly skilled in human factoring.
- How can we make this path easier to use?
- What’s required to make this pattern more accessible?
- Where can this transaction be safer, cheaper, and faster?
- What will it take for mass adoption to occur?
- Why would someone use our app versus a bank?
- And the list goes on …
Meet the Hoard Wallet.
The Hoard wallet is a single point of key management for all digital assets. It’s the foundation to being your own bank. Think of the Hoard wallet as your interface to blockchain and the new tokenized economy. It’s your private vault where you can hold, track, transfer, and transact any unit of digital value. The wallet is your new gateway to the digital economy with the necessary framework, security, support, and financial tools to transact with any person, place, or thing through blockchain technology.
What makes the Hoard wallet one to rule them all? Never dealing with crypto addresses again. By combining device contacts with familiar contact types we’ve eliminated the need to copy and paste. Simple find the face you know and send or request funds, even if the other party doesn’t have Hoard or a crypto wallet. Hoard handles it all for the end user.
The Hoard wallet is merely the first of many platform products accessible via our mobile applications. It connects you to all of our other products, including the Smaug Network.
Meet the Smaug Network.
In the future, nearly everything of value will be tokenized. Ownership and equity. Barrels of oil and bars of gold. Fiat currencies and cryptocurrencies. The Hoard app is your place to manage these assets, but what about an open market to exchange and convert them? Smaug is the pipeline exchange technology that enables assets to be individually accessible, globally verifiable, and instantly transferrable across any chain. Again, open-sourced, distributed, and decentralized.
Here are some highlights of the Smaug Network:
- Constant Liquidity. A community of “market-making” masternodes act as constant liquidity providers through real-time order quoting, in tandem with “arbitraging” masternodes sourcing and filling exchange liquidity between Smaug and the external market participants. Think of this as a community of “decentralized shapeshifters”.
- Trustless Exchange. Our trust model relies on a combination of smart contracts and economic security incentives from fully-collateralized masternodes. We’ve designed the network to be trustless and secure via a time-locked multi-signature implementation backed by masternode staking, with penalties for masternodes that behave fraudulently.
- High-throughput Transactions. We’re introducing a unique hybrid off-chain/on-chain transaction settlement mechanism. Our masternode structure will be combined with the cryptographic techniques of ZK Accumulators for updating balance sets. Paired with efficiently-verifiable ZK Snark Proofs, we’ll enable anonymous and atomically-confirmable cross-chain transactions at the speed of WiFi. While true atomic transactions are public knowledge, practical application is far from a scalable implementation. Learn more here: http://swapready.net/
- Zero Knowledge Dark Pool Trading. For those who would like to keep their transactions private but transparent, Smaug will implement Zero Knowledge Cryptographic proof constructs, similar to those found in the privacy currency Zcash. This will include updating user balances and publishing transaction information on the blockchain.
- Low Costs. Since funds only move on-chain when they enter or exit Smaug, participants will avoid the transaction costs of similar decentralized exchanges. By enabling funds to transfer between wallet and masternode, we create an incentive for the lowest spreads possible. “Arbitrage” masternodes will tap the same network for trade opportunities. Not only is the cost low, but the liquidity is high. This isn’t the norm in decentralized markets.
Reveal yourself or not. That’s up to you.
Don’t want to give up your email, phone, address, or identity? Excellent, because we don’t want it either. Hoard has been developed and delivered with a headless option. Account creation is voluntary. Simply download the app, import your keys, and being using it as you would any other decentralized platform.
However, to participate in Hoard’s token generation event (TGE) or interact with any regulated asset/entity, you must fulfill the KYC/AML and account requirements. We’re doing this for a variety of reasons. We’re believers in and reinforcers of decentralization and anonymity.
What currencies and assets will Hoard support?
Currently, Hoard has built the necessary framework to operate with Bitcoin and Ethereum-based blockchains. In our initial wallet release, we aim to include support for multiple cryptocurrencies. Which assets we decide to include will be determined later.
We’ve considering running community polls to determine which assets to include in future releases. However, the app is open source so crypto teams have to option to include support on their own time. We will provide constant updates to add support for new and popular assets. In the future, Hoard intends to support most of the major cryptocurrency blockchains (NEO, EOS, Cardano, Lisk, et al).
As noted, blockchain will become a system to tokenize everything of value. Hoard is working toward the inclusion of tokenized securities, commodities, assets, utilities, and currencies with our financial framework and consumer products.
Managing multiple portfolios, simplimplifed.
You know the saying about assuming. Therefore, we wouldn’t assume that Hoard will be the only place you’ll hold funds, track balances, and make transactions. But, we’re hoping to make managing your brokerage, bank, credit, and exchange accounts easier and more rewarding. So, Hoard’s second app release will offer cross-platform portfolio tracking.
Cross-platform portfolio tracking connects you to premium cryptocurrency platforms and other financial institutions through read-only APIs. Keep a close eye on everything happening outside of Hoard. This is another foundational component of the Hoard experience. Access an easier way to sync all of the transactions in a single document at tax time. Gain a more well-rounded idea of your financial standing. Avoid the manual and time-consuming processes.
What will trading be like on Hoard?
Hoard will offer multiple trading experiences: swaps, DEX, and even a potential ATS.
As we continue to develop our blockchain capabilities, Hoard will offer a product called Swaps. Most people are familiar with this type of transaction through apps like ShapeShift and Changelly or wallets like Exodus. Much like the Exodus wallet, the Hoard wallet will enable instant swaps between cryptocurrencies and new tokenized assets as they become available.
Our approach is to create a simpler experience, adoptable by everyone regardless of skill level. It will be as simple as a physical fiat currency exchange kiosk, without the hassle of entering a complicated trading platform or dealing with the paperwork.
- As we mature and our liquidity network grows, Hoard will unveil two foundational trading platforms: DWEX — a decentralized wealth exchange we’re naming dwex.io. It’s an independent and open-sourced trading platform that will sync directly to the Hoard app, but also operate as a standalone desktop exchange.
- Hoard Pro — a fully-licensed alternative trading system (ATS) to enable exchanges between the many tokenized assets coming to the market. Yes, this means we’re going consider becoming a licensed and regulated broker dealer in the future.
These products and their underlying technologies are under development. In some instances, we’ll partner with service providers to get our product out to the market faster. As we grow, these offerings will be served directly under the Hoard brand (or suite of products).
Artificial Intelligence & Automation for the masses.
The first time you stare at an exchange screen, wallet, or any other crypto-related product is daunting. Beyond the anxiety, the time it takes to learn these systems and do your own research can be overwhelming. We have a plan for those who just want an easier and faster experience. A crypto experience that you can tweak and automate. While it’s not a replacement for hard work, machine learning and interaction automation will simplify it.
Hype Coin. Copy trading, crowdsourcing, reviews, and ratings are all great products and services to help simplify your life. But, they’re plagued by human emotion. We made the decision to leverage a sentiment analysis tool. A single positive/negative score matched against a timeframe will help you objectively identify potential buying and selling moments based on crowd sentiment. We’re tracking coins across 1000’s of channels, disseminating the data collected, and resolving that into a simple-to-understand metric. The data collected per coin would take weeks to compile. With Hype Coin, you get it instantly.
Rule-based investment tools. Ever heard of If This Then That (IFTTT)? This Hoard product will be like the IFTTT of crypto. The original idea started as the Acorns of Crypto, rounding up spare change from purchases and investing them into a coin. But after evaluating the market and interviewing people, we decided to make something much more robust. You’ll connect any debit or credit card account, select a rule or rules, and activate an investment trigger. These rules will run in the background and initiate actions based on events like purchases, paychecks, or benchmarks you define. It’s totally up to you. Your investments will be made in a single coin, multiple coins, or coin baskets. Baskets are like an ETF, however you will own and control the keys to your coins.
Auto-rebalancing. A simple yet sophisticated tool that enables you to automatically buy, sell, and reposition a portfolio or coin basket with a single click. You identify the allocation and tap rebalance. Hoard + Smaug handle the heavy lifting.
Make payments great again
Making payments with cryptocurrencies hasn’t been very effective … yet. Current solutions that use debit cards are only bandaids to a larger problem. Centralized services like Visa and MasterCard have always been in the middle of our transactions and nothing is private or cheap. Blockchain technology allows us to make private and inexpensive payments directly to peers or merchants. However, there are drawbacks.
Paying with Bitcoin can take up to 1 hour to safely verify on-chain. While services like Lightning help speed up transactions, it only supports Bitcoin. Other blockchains are faster, but you’re again stuck spending that currency. If you’re not holding, you’ll have to trade (consolidate) in order to make the purchase.
We see it completely differently at Hoard. We’re going to provide a payment network which is private, instant, and inexpensive using any asset you’re holding. We’ll work around Visa & MasterCard. We won’t offer debit cards issued by these centralized services. We’ll even circumvent NFC and Apple Pay to go straight to QR payment technology.
The payment process looks like this:
- Open your hoard app and scan the QR code at the time of sale
- Select the asset you intend to spend
- Confirm by authenticating with your fingerprint or face ID.
- That’s it.
The transaction will be initiated off-chain and supported by our community of masternodes. The remittance will be instant and the merchant has the option to receive the purchase in fiat currency to avoid crypto market volatility. What else? The merchant won’t be susceptible those high processing fees. Transactions costs would range from 0.0% to 0.5%.
Some final thoughts
We’re creating the Hoard ecosystem to solve many of the problems facing cryptocurrency today, and to bring the power of the blockchain to those who face currency challenges as well as those who just want an alternative to the traditional financial system. We strive to give our users both the security and auditability of our open source cryptocurrency platforms, as well as an easy-to-use experience to grow our community. We believe in the promise of decentralized financial tools and want to thank you for supporting our mission to bring this technology to everyone.
There’s so much more to share but we’re cutting it off here for now. For more information visit our website or read an older version of the white paper. In the coming weeks you can expect to see many updates like a new website, new white paper, and the new public beta app. For the technically inclined go check out our open source app on Github.
Lastly, if you would like to join our team and contribute to our project we’re delighted to get to know you. Come join us on Telegram or send us an email at team@hoardinvest.com.
Cheers!
Jason & Dan
