At Hoard, we couldn’t be more excited to be joining the Steemit Community. As part of our contribution to the ever growing content library of Steemit, we look forward to providing development updates, company announcements, and insights in the cryptocurrency market as a whole from our cache of industry influencers.
For information regarding our upcoming ICO, sign up here.
What is Hoard?
Hoard is an all-in-one cryptocurrency platform that simplifies buying, selling, trading, swapping, sending and securely storing crypto assets. A platform that cuts KYC/AML verifications down to seconds, not weeks – a truly innovative solution the market has been waiting for.
Here’s how we see Hoard in a nutshell… Imagine combining the functionality of Coinbase, Bittrex, ShapeShift, Exodus, Qapital, Raiden and Lightning all under one platform. Ambitious yes, but too much? Not at all! We have found that while being no small task, with the right team, talent and tenacity, Hoard can take the crypto world by storm.
What Advantages Does Hoard Have?
Slow Verification
In a test run this fall, it took our account 3 weeks to get verified on Bittrex, 5 weeks on Kraken, 2 weeks on Bitstamp. The average wait times across crypto exchanges is becoming longer, not shorter – and this is putting an additional strain on support times from these exchanges. While verification times are an ever growing issue, liquidity to fiat currencies from crypto can be just as burdensome.
Hoard is seeking to make that process decidedly quicker. We believe that while a verification process is necessary, ultimately getting yourself to market in the fastest time possible is equally important. We will be delving into this subject in more depth in the near future.
Fiat – Crypto Exchanging
On Kraken for example, in a test run it took (7) days on average to convert $USD to crypto, unless I went the wire route, of wiring my $USD directly to Kraken. Verification to utilize a crypto exchange, should not be so burdensome or time consuming, and neither should fiat – crypto exchanges. One of the biggest issues facing traders today is crypto – fiat exchanging, the time it takes to withdraw, and the costs involved. Part of how we are solving this issue is with the development of our OAR token explained in more detail below.
Trading Fees
In 1,000+ transactions I’ve waited over 44 hours in total confirmation times. In those 44 hours I’ve spent over 2.25BTC in fees. In that 2.25BTC in fees I’ve used over 10+ different dapps, exchanges, wallets or services. Case in point, trading is more expensive then most of us realize – unless you are paying attention to it, and tallying your fee losses monthly, weekly, or daily. Here at Hoard, we believe you should trade your crypto for free.
There must be a better way
I’m a UX/UI designer. It’s my job to make digital experiences usable. I’m also a crypto trader, long term crypto investor and front end developer. I decided to put my knowledge of both into action and create something anyone can use. To create a platform that combined the functionality of the most popular crypto services under one roof. I needed to bake in features and services that made crypto effortless, frictionless and consumable. This is Hoard was born.
Some Key Advantages Of The Hoard Platform
• Live customer support, exceptional security and simple user experiences
• FINRA and MSB regulated. KYC/AML compliant for fiat-only users.
• AI investing. Gamify your investing, automate your wealth.
• Fee-Free trading with over 200+ coins. Yes, aren’t you sick of the fees as well?
• Any-to-any swaps. Never consolidate again. Just pick your coin and swap.
• Atomic swaps. Never consolidate again. Pay for any product or service using any coin you hold.
• Lightning payments. Instantly verified, instantly confirmed, instantly liquid.
• CSaaS. Cold storage as a service. Offline & air-gapped. It’s hacker proof.
• Contact syncing to send/request with faces, not hex addresses
• Financial stacking – like personal capital.
• Browser, desktop or mobile. Use the platform you prefer.
• Simple vs complex views. Simply toggle your level of UI noise.
• Run a node, earn double rewards. It’s like miles or points but doesn’t suck.
• Run across any chain.
Out of the mines come OAR: Hoard’s Liquidity Token
OAR is our native platform token that powers our oracle-backed cross-chain atomic network. OAR solves a few different problems I’ve personally faced and most in crypto face today. But I’ll keep it simple. It’s the missing link to the payments layer on blockchain. A token that can cross any chain, instantly verify, liquidate at transaction and scale ad infinitum. It’s the backbone for any-to-any trades, atomic swaps and lightning payments. OAR is freedom and flexibility – allowing users the ability to move from crypto to fiat pain-free. Sorry maximalists, we’re moving into town 😉
How About Some Use Cases?
Crypto Cards won’t scale. Take TenX for example. Many of us loved the idea but sadly they are running into some recognizable troubles. The centralized company (Visa or MasterCard) that TenX must rely on is controlling how TenX does business moving forward. While unfortunate there’s a bigger picture here that can’t be missed.
Leveraging a centralized company to power a decentralized dapp won’t last – as the business relationship is inherently unbalanced. Additionally, the idea of converting crypto to fiat for a transaction is trying to solve the now, which is what we need, but there’s a bigger problem that has yet to be solved. Those businesses don’t yet accept crypto, hence the need to take fiat – creating the gap in utility for cryptos in the marketplace at large. Hoard and OAR aim to solve this be giving any business the backbone it needs to receive crypto from anyone as any coin regardless of what crypto they prefer to accept. I.E. they accept BTC, you hold OMG. Just match the value and tap send. They instantly receive BTC. While many transaction based cryptos have looked to penetrate the retail marketplace, like PIVX or DASH for example they ultimately have an uphill marketing/education battle to convince these retailers to utilize these payment options. Additionally theirs is a secondary business issue in the sense that these retailers must also have consumers using these transaction centric cryptos to make the utilization worthwhile. Hoard has neither problem to solve in the market, as it’s OAR token serves as a bridge between crypto-fiat.
Consolidating won’t scale
You’re in the market to buy something, for this example we will use a car. The car you want sells for $5,000, but unfortunately the seller accepts Bitcoin only. You currently hold NEO, OMG, LTC, ETH, MTL that total $7,000. You can pay the seller but first you have to consolidate. This means you must go to a market, trade each coin back to BTC then send the payment – a burdensome, expensive and inefficient solution.
Wouldn’t it just be easier to send the seller $5,000 worth of any coin and they receive BTC as preferred? Of course it would! I like to call this stacking. The Hoard platform enables you to take any request for any coin and stack your holdings to equal the value. You tap send and your stacked coins consolidate, atomically swapping at the transaction and received as BTC on the other side, instantly.
Network Incentives
Every transaction requires OAR. OAR is staked at each transactions. You can stake your own OAR for your personal transactions or rely on nodes to stake their own OAR for your transaction. Everyone has the power to run a node. Each stake earns a reward. If you’re staking your own OAR through your node for others transactions, you are double rewarded. If you stake your own for your own transaction, you are single rewarded. Much more will be released in the whitepaper.
Unlike Ethereum, and the upcoming casper. You must stake your ETH and pay the gas fees (wei). With OAR, you stake your OAR and get rewarded OAR instead. The system we’re building has never been built. There are pieces here and there but no one is doing it.
What’s up with the Oracle?
We’re working on an open source oracle titled FloatEye™ powered by Active Oracle. I can’t say much more beyond that as we haven’t finished building it therefore is hasn’t been released yet. I wish I could say more but you’ll just have to wait for the whitepaper.
New protocol?
Hoard is creating a new protocol called Proof-of-Holdings (PoH). Again, that’s about all I can deliver on this post. You’ll just have to wait for the whitepaper. I’ll leave you with this. It makes more sense than most protocols. It’s revolutionary in it’s simplicity. It’s backed by oracle, always communicating…
In an upcoming post I’ll dive deeper into the inner workings of the Hoard platform. We’ll dig into the functionality and learn just why it makes sense compared to using 7 different services to manage crypto.
How do I sign up for the ICO?
Visit our website, and sign up!