Chia Fork Altcoin HDDCoin is on a roll recently, with their store launching (and recently improving to support international shipping) as well as being very on the ball when it comes to critical updates. This is a top tier Chia Fork development team, and their latest project certainly supports that claim. So here we get our first look at another major launch: the HDDCoin HODL program.
They have recently entered into the Beta testing phase of HODL. What is HODL? While it has been compared to staking programs I don’t think it actually shares much in common with them. Sure, you lock up some crypto for a period of time in order to receive a reward, but that’s really where the comparison ends.
Staking programs are generally considered to be either consensus mechanisms, like in Proof in Stake coins, or a loan contract like a bond where you buy a contract for a fixed period and then get your money back plus interest after a fixed term so that the counterparty can use that coin for market making or higher interest loans or whatever. HODL is a bit different.
HODL is a smart contract system where you lock up your HDDCoin for a fixed period of time, and the HDDCoin team rewards that contract based on the amount of time you lock the coin up for here. This is a pure supply restriction scheme, designed to keep farmed HDD from immediately going into an exchange for sale. The HDDCoin team will be rewarding the HODL participants from their pre-farm wallet, but that’s where their involvement ends.
The actual HODL contract is a time locked address that holds the coins for a certain period of time and then releases them automatically. The HDDCoin team does not, to my understanding, have access to the coins during this period. They are simply out of circulation. The coins will release back to the sending wallet after the time period expires regardless of whether the HDDCoin team exists or not, that all happens on chain. Without the HDDCoin team there isn’t a reward system, as there is a centralized web service that depends on, but any locked coins will be returned at the end of the contract period.
hddcoin hodl cli screens 
hddcoin hodl cli screens
As to the web service, it runs at https://hodl.hddcoin.com and runs a GET and a POST API endpoint. The POST is used to submit new contracts so their system can look at them and determine the reward, and the GET allows you to see your current contracts. All this is handled through the HDDCoin CLI and seems to be quick and work well. I spent some time trying to mess with the contract and was not able to, but I am far from a Chialisp expert so I don’t know if there are any obvious flaws. It seemed to work well for me.
The python code that makes up the new CLI functions is easier to read for me, and so I did. It looks pretty good. They seem to be pretty serious about security and are signing and authorizing all API calls. In fact a quick read through to me suggests that the main weak point is probably how much processing their auth mechanism uses and that if their backend is properly secured they could be vulnerable to a DOS. I spoke to them, they are aware of the risk point and have controls in place to deal with that. Very professional. This should all be open source when the program launches.
I haven’t had time to do a full security review, and the product isn’t even launched yet so they are hoping to discover any contract bugs now before they do. But so far I like it. I have no idea how they plan to get around the idea that these are investment contracts that they are selling, but I’m not a lawyer. I like that team though and I don’t want to see any regulatory ugliness befall them and I trust that they have that part figured out.
