25,000 BTC registered, why HODL program, and details about the snapshot

Chris Dev

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June 13, 2019

Wanted to give an update on the BTC registered for the airdrop. As of right now, 25,000 BTC has been registered for the MWC airdrop that is still at the addresses registered. There were a few people who registered, and then later moved their coins. We don't know if they re-registered or why they moved their coins since we don't collect ANY data other than the address, a signature and a password set by the user, but if they want to claim their MWC, they need to have coins at a registered address on July 19. We'll get a little more specific about how the airdrop will work later in this article.

So, why the sudden increase after hovering around 20,000 for a week or two? Maybe it's because we're getting closer to the deadline of July 19? Maybe it's because Grin's market cap has surged to ~ $50 million? Maybe it's because people are realizing that Mimblewimble is a massive technological upgrade to blockchain and that there will be winners (those who see that) and losers (those who don't)? Who knows, but I can't think of any reason why someone would not register since we are giving away a free coin that will help test out new features that may one day end up in Bitcoin. Absolute worst case is you spend 5 minutes or so registering and nothing comes of it.

Since I mentioned that we are giving away coins, as most people are aware, there will only ever be 20 million MWC and we're giving away 6 million on launch to people who register for the free airdrop to Bitcoin holders, we have a 2 million dev/pr fund, and 10 million will be mineable over the next 100+ years or so - similar to Bitcoin's emission schedule. But there are also 2 million coins allocated to the "HODL Program". This has been called a dividend, but in reality that's not what it is. It's not like we're operating some sort of business and if successful we issue a dividend to shareholders. No. We could have just given away 8 million in the airdrop instead of the 6 million, but instead we choose to reward people who HODL by giving them more coins. The full details of this program are not set in stone, but we will be using these 2 million coins to encourage HODLing over the early years of the launch. Likely you will need to provide a proof that you did not move coins for some period of time (3 months - 12 months) and if you register an output and don't move it during that time, additional MWC will be sent from this fund. So, it's really just a give away, but a targeted give away to people who support the coin by HODLing. Much like how we are targeting proactive Bitcoin holders who want to register for MWC we are targeting a specific type of HODLer to reward additional MWC. This ties into part of the theory of how the coin was created.

The idea is that in order to best fund development of a new protocol, like Mimblewimble you need to form a capital base of holders first who have an interest in the coin. Grin choose to ignore this reality, and that's why we decided to launch MWC. This capital base leads to availability of funds for development and maintenance of the coin and the cycle repeats as new features are implemented, etc - we get a network effect. We think it's a superior model, but let's see maybe we'll be proven wrong or right. I'm open to either one actually, but I think it's a model at the very least worth trying because it makes sense to me. Why not try it right? The HODL program further incentivizes this model by encouraging this capital formation by encouraging long term HODLing and discouraging short term trading. So that's the story, it's not really rocket science or anything just simple logic.

Finally, I wanted to cover some details about the snapshot. As we have indicated from the start, in the white paper, the end of registration and snapshot date for MWC will be July 19, 2019, the three year anniversary of the Great Tom Elvis Jedusor's Mimblewimble white paper's release. But to narrow things down a bit, we intend to close registration at 1 pm EDT (New York time) and take the snapshot at 2 pm EDT (New York time). Please don't move coins immediately after that as we have a script that will run at that time that calculates the final allocations. The script should run very fast, but please give us a chance in case there are any complications. Shortly after that, we intend to publish the final allocations. You will be able to login and confirm the amount you will receive on our website. Those are the logistics for now and if we have more details we will update everyone. Thanks again!