MWC HODL Program

The entire HODL Program has been distributed.

Distribution history can be found here.

HODL Program Background and Purpose

The guiding purpose or aim of the MWC HODL Program was to maximize value for both the buyers and hodlers of the MWC product by providing an economic incentive to check for hidden inflation.

Although MWC is a pure proof of work coin the initial stock had to be created somehow. Options included mining, a fork, an airdrop or some other method. Because MWC is a product built by Bitcoin holders and for Bitcoin holders, therefore, a method was decided upon that would maximize value for both buyers and hodlers of MWC and any Bitcoin holders who willfully chose to participate.

As discussed in the first version of the whitepaper in January 31, 2019, 10,000,000 MWC would be proof of work mined and 10,000,000 MWC would be created in the genesis block. 2,000,000 MWC were immediately distributed to the developer team, 2,000,000 MWC were allocated to the HODL Program and 6,000,000 MWC were allocated to be airdropped to any Bitcoin holders who successfully registered and claimed.

Using a different method, like purely mining, would have resulted in a highly inflationary product that would be extremely detrimental to the financial interest of buyers and hodlers and, therefore, be inferior money because it would lack characteristics of good money.

Good money in the Information Age is (1) recognizable, (2) scarce, (3) censorship resistant, (4) durable & indestructible, (5) extensible, (6) salable, (7) portable, (8) fungible, (9) private and (10) divisible.

Just look at fiat currencies that are used by billions of people daily, many forks like Bitcoin Cash or XRP and it should be apparent that the market does not appear to value the method for the creation of the initial stock of a monetary good or product but only whether its current characteristics provide usefulness as good money.

Just because a large supply of MWC was created in the genesis block on November 11, 2019 does not mean that it had any value in the market. A market formed and willing buyers and sellers began trading. In fact, shortly after the first airdrop funds were distributed MWC hit an all-time low of $0.25 on December 3, 2019 with a market capitalization less than $2m.

That is how price discovery started to happen for MWC.

It will be an interesting market process to see what price is required to get Class 1 MWC hodlers to sell. Perhaps some will never sell? After all, many Bitcoin hodlers have been able to not only keep but also increase their Bitcoin stacks because of forks and airdrops. Forks or airdrops for MWC hodlers, specifically targeting those loyal hodlers in Class 1, could act like a perpetual HODL program.

And it should be kept in mind that once MWC are moved out of Class 1, and they can be at any time by the user so they are fully liquid and part of the circulating supply, then they can never be moved back in. In Silicon Valley speak, Class 1 can be converted to Common but not the other way around.

The primary purpose of the HODL Program was to act as avery important check and balance on the possibility of a hidden inflation bugbeing abused. This would manifest itself as more MWC being registered than aresupposed to exist under the consensus rules.
For example, if someone were able to find and abuse a hidden inflation bug andthen attempt to financially profit by selling on an exchange then it is likelythat a buyer would withdraw the coins and register them in the HODL Program.Because the GRIN supply is created solely through mining, therefore, it is notpossible to check for hidden inflation using this type of economic incentive.
Consequently, MWC flawlessly proves itself, as the coins created in the initialblock have been successfully distributed. No issues have been reported and theinitial stock has been established.

Keep in mind that this would be made manifest to the public in near real-time unlike the Zcash hidden inflation bug which could have been abused by the Zcash developers without detection. As reported by Bitcoinist, “In October, eight months after discovery, the bug was surreptitiously patched during a planned network upgrade. Although Zcash have stated that they do not believe the bug was exploited, they cannot be certain.”

HODL Program General Details

The HODL Program consisted of multiple phases including registration and claiming. Only registered wallets were included and registration only needed to happen once. Claims required some user activity in a timely manner to receive, sign and finalize the transactions. The process functioned similar to the initial airdrop.

A user could register by using the QT GUI wallet version 1.0.15 or later, clicking on the HODL tab and following the prompts to Register.

HODL Program Specific Details

Since the first version of the MWC whitepaper in January 31, 2019, the HODL Program was expected to last approximately 2-4 years from the launch of mainnet. Mainnet was launched November 11, 2019. However, the entire HODL Program has been completely distributed on June 1, 2020.

HODL Program Classes

HODL registrations were divided into classes based on the confirmation of an output. Classes were divided by the emission rate changes in the network consensus rules.

Class 1 starts at block 0 and ends at block 212,580.
Class 2 starts at block 212,581 and ends at block 385,380.

HODL REWARDS DISTRIBUTED

As of block 291,350, all 2,000,000 MWC had been successfully claimed from the 2,000,000 HODL Program fund.

June 2020. 1,495,765.602 MWC claimed. Based on output balances registered at the time of the output scan which completed at 2020-06-01 16:35:12.0. UTC. Registered Class 1 and Class 2 MWC Hodlers could claim and receive 0.175 MWC per MWC registered. Claims started shortly before block 290,000 and had to be submitted by block 330,000. This claim included both HODL and unclaimed airdrop funds.

May 2020. 774,065.022714794 MWC claimed. Based on output balances registered at the time of the output scan which completed at 2020-05-19 01:03:50.0 UTC. Registered Class 1 MWC Hodlers could claim and receive 0.10 MWC per MWC registered. Claims started shortly before block 273,000 and had to be submitted by block 314,760.

May 2020. 7,699.727304863 MWC claimed. Based on output balances registered at block 254,000. Registered Class 1 MWC Hodlers could claim and receive 0.001 MWC per MWC registered. Claims started shortly before block 255,500 and had to be submitted by block 305,000.

HODL Program FAQ

  1. Do I have to register to receive HODL Program rewards? Yes.
  2. Is there a deadline for registration? No. And there will probably not be one in the future either.
  3. Is there a deadline for claiming? Yes. Each reward period will have its own deadline. Reward periods will likely be monthly or quarterly and there will be a significant amount of time and publication of each claim period deadlines.
  4. Does a user have to claim? No. Claiming is an affirmative action a user must take. HODL rewards unclaimed by a claim period deadline may be returned to the general HODL Program fund. Users that do not claim may be removed from the HODL program but they can always register again.
  5. Are MWC registered for the HODL Program 'locked'? No. Any MWC registered for the HODL program may be sent via transaction by the user at anytime. The GUI wallet may include a 'lock' feature where outputs can be toggled to prevent inadvertently sending them but the user will always retain the full ability to turn the 'lock' on or off.
  6. Is the wallet private seed at risk with registration? No. Only the wallet public key is sent to the HODL server.
  7. What privacy implications are there from registering? The wallet public key will enable the HODL server to see *all* outputs of the wallet instance. The HODL server will track these outputs on a regular basis to calculate aggregated HODL Program registration statistics. If a user sends MWC to a different wallet instance that has not been registered for the HODL Program then, because of how Mimblewimble works with CoinJoin and Confidential Transactions, there is no way for the MWC to be further tracked. The MWC Team recommends when a user no longer wishes to participate in the HODL Program to send all MWC from the registered wallet instance to a new wallet instance that is not registered so their privacy is enhanced.
  8. Will restoring from seed result in a different class? No.
  9. Will restoring from seed require a new registration by the user? No. Without user input, on startup the wallet will check the HODL server and find the root public key has been registered. Then the GUI wallet will display the registration results in the HODL tab.
  10. Will moving MWC to a different account in the same wallet result in a change of class? Probably. Keep in mind that any transaction that gets confirmed on the blockchain will be treated as a new output and the previous output will be spent on the blockchain. Example: not spent in block. Example: spent in block.
  11. How many wallet instances can a user register? As many as they want. The MWC Team recommends registering multiple wallet instances for several reasons including so the user does not inadvertently send any outputs which would result in them going into different classes than intended.
  12. If a user buys MWC then which class will they be in? That will determine on what block the output is included in. If the wallet has registered then it will automatically include in the registration any future outputs received.
  13. How will HODL Program funds be dealt with in the event of a fork? If there is any fork that does not have the consensus of the MWC developer team then any outputs created on any fork that are associated with either the HODL Program or the Unclaimed Airdrop Program will either be burned or added to the developer fund on those fork(s).
  14. How will HODL Program funds be dealt with in the case of outside intervention? If there are circumstances that prevent or make impossible or illegal the MWC Team distributing the HODL Program rewards then they will most likely and preferably be provably and verifiably burned.
  15. After a claim is submitted when can confirmation of the transaction on the network be expected? Usually a claim period will last for about 30 days and the first batch of transactions will be done in the first few days, other batches during the claim period as claims are submitted and a final batch after the claim period has closed.