Hathor — making blockchain easy?
PS: This piece was written before I started working at Hathor Labs.
“Blockchain made easy” is Hathor Network’s bold tagline. Yan, Hathor’s CEO, was quoted in a recent Cointelegraph article, saying (Google translate from Portuguese):
“Our ultimate goal is to bring the greatest number of use cases, the greatest number of users and businesses into the network and start simplifying the blockchain adoption process.”
While Marcelo, CTO, said this in an AMA last year:
“What if anyone could create a blockchain as easily as we upload videos to YouTube? (…) Creating a new token to explore a new use case must be just as trivial and mundane as taking a photo. You take 20 pictures and keep only the best. You create 20 different tokens and keep only the best one; you play around with new use case scenarios.”
It’s time we look at the facts to find out if there is merit to these strong claims and how far away the project is from achieving its ambitious goals.
If you’re looking for introductions to Hathor Network, you may want to check out my other posts first:
Making it easy for businesses and users
Anyone who’s spent a few minutes looking into Hathor will know about the easy tokenization feature. From the desktop wallet, anyone can create their own token in literally a few seconds. It doesn’t require any coding; you simply select a name and symbol for your token and the total amount you want to mint.
There are no costs involved in creating a token, however, you need to make an HTR deposit. For every 100 custom tokens minted, you lock up 1 HTR. This deposit will be returned if you later decide to melt (burn) the tokens.
It’s worth noting that you can only melt tokens that are in your custody, so you need to control all tokens to get the full deposit back. The team has discussed a couple of potential ways to improve the handling of these scenarios.
One option being considered is creating a reclaim authority which could be used to reclaim tokens from others. Another alternative is introducing a token destruction transaction that would withdraw the full deposit and prohibit any future transactions involving the token. Any implementation of such features would obviously have to be completely transparent and verifiable on the explorer for anyone.
This deposit approach for custom tokens is analogous to buying a piece of land and building your company on it. Then, if at some point you decide to close your company, you’ll still be able to use your property for another endeavor or sell it.
The deposit mechanism is also perfect for anyone wanting to explore how blockchain technology can be integrated into existing business models and legacy systems. With Hathor’s tokenization capabilities, you can easily drum up a proof of concept and validate it. If you change your mind or need to go back and change something, you can simply melt your tokens and start over without having wasted a single R$ in the process.
If you have stuff that doesn’t necessarily belong in public, you’ll be able to set up your own independent, scalable network through one or more side-DAGs with your own business rules. These environments can be private, permissioned, or public, and you’ll be able to move from one to another, e.g., after everything has been tested in a private environment and you’re comfortable making it public.
Nano contracts are simplified smart contracts that won’t require any coding knowledge to set up. Anyone will be able to easily configure nanos to add logic and use cases to their tokens. A separate testnet with an initial nano contracts implementation is coming in Q3. Anyone wanting to contribute with development, testing, and feedback is encouraged to join the Hathor discord, where the team will set up a dedicated channel for nanos.
While we wait for further official info on how nanos will work, you can read this introduction and a more technical RFC.
Once you’re happy with your token’s use case, you might want to provide a wallet for it. You can either use the official Hathor wallet for desktop and mobile as is or follow this guide to create your own white-labeled version of it. It’s just a matter of changing a couple of images, texts, and colors to get your branded wallet — the beauty of open source.
The final step of launching your project is to let people trade your token. When the HathorSwap DEX by HTRFDT launches later this year, you’ll be able to list your token for free there, and let anyone start trading it immediately.
HathorSwap won’t have any gas fees, just a 0.3% swap fee to pair LPs (0.25%) and HathorSwap (0.05%). It’s also worth noting that you can use HTRFDT’s HathorPay extension for Chrome and Brave (Firefox support coming with the next update) with HathorSwap, without paying any fees.
For CEXes that already have HTR listed, listing your token too will be a simple task for them. They literally just need to modify a configuration string to add your token, so it’s pretty much plug-and-play for them. The difficult part is probably going to be convincing them why they should list your token…
Combine all of the above with the true enabler of mass adoption — free and instant transactions in a fully decentralized network. But other networks have almost free transactions, you say, what’s the big deal?
There is actually a world of difference between cheap and free transactions when it comes to automating business processes that generate thousands of transactions daily. Free is also a keyword when trying to onboard legacy companies that don’t necessarily understand the technology yet or why they need it. Hathor is building the infrastructure that lets these companies test and validate blockchain technology in a controlled environment, without financial risk.
We are already seeing the first examples of this happening, with companies such as Play9 (9Block NFT platform, Affero Lab (Affero Flow), WorkAxle (grant program winner), and the so-far unnamed real estate developer in Brazil building an STO platform on Hathor.
Making it easy for developers
If you need to extend on the codeless, built-in possibilities that Hathor offers and want to develop your own applications on top of the network, you should know that all programming languages are welcome. The team is putting effort into providing tools that make it easy for companies and individuals to integrate with Hathor.
Hathor Labs aims to enable anyone to set up a fully operational local testnet in just minutes. This includes running all the services required to integrate HTR or any custom token into your own product (i.e., a full node, wallet, and transaction mining service).
The team is also extending public APIs and creating SDKs and documentation to help onboard developers. The Ankr integration is just one example of the efforts in this area, as being able to set up your own node in a couple of minutes greatly simplifies integration with Hathor.
Hathor Labs is also building DevOps tools to help both the core team and external engineers detect and fix any bugs or stability issues, should they occur. In a fully decentralized network like Hathor, these are critical items to ensure network stability and security.
Creating a safe, transparent ecosystem
Going back to custom tokens, it’s worth noting that all tokens on Hathor Network are created as layer 1 tokens built into the protocol itself, different from most other platforms. Tokens on Hathor have all the capabilities of ERC-20 tokens and some extra ones. They inherit all the features of HTR, including being secured by the total hash rate of the main network. The same will apply to side-DAGs as well and any tokens operating on them.
When you create your token, you decide whether minting additional tokens should be possible, as well as melting. These details are visible for anyone on the explorer:
The team is also currently working on a “verified” token feature to indicate whether a token has been verified and proven “safe”. Similarly, tokens confirmed to be scams can be flagged to help prevent anyone from getting rugged.
Just like custom tokens, nano contracts will be native, mitigating the risk of bugs and security issues that comes with custom smart contract development on other platforms.
This level of transparency and pre-configured, native functionality leaves a lot less room for exploits and developer blunders, creating a safer, more user-friendly ecosystem for all participants.
While there are still some unknowns — we don’t know how nanos, side-DAGs, and NFTs will be created and configured, or the costs associated with them, if any — Hathor Network seems to be on the path to something big, possibly revolutionizing.
Hathor is designed to become the de facto platform for tokenization. In order to succeed and win market shares from well-funded, established projects, Hathor must exceed expectations in all possible ways in terms of user and builder experience. Having the best technology doesn’t guarantee a win in this market. Hathor needs to provide the best, fastest, cheapest, and safest tokenization platform, and most importantly, it needs to be perceived as that by the market.
We need to wait and see how it all pans out. Personally, I believe the team is proving that the blockchain made easy slogan is more than just a narrative. Bottom line is, when the team’s vision has been built out, anyone will be able to launch their own blockchain project and list their token for free.
A single person without coding skills could do all of this in a matter of hours, possibly with the only cost being the one percent minting deposit. This is happening in 2021 and I don't think we fully realize the implications of it yet. However, it should significantly lower the barrier to entry for blockchain technology and crypto.
Follow me on Twitter for more updates on Hathor.
Disclaimer: I am currently not associated with Hathor Labs. While I own some HTR, I have not received any compensation from Hathor Labs or any other party for this story. None of the above is financial advice; always do your own research before investing in anything.
