The HoloDEX Exchange represents a pioneering step in the evolution of decentralised finance. Leveraging the Holochain framework, HoloDEX introduces a novel approach to trading that promises to revolutionise the way we engage in transactions.
Adam Thompson, the HoloDEX’s lead architect, has been involved in the Holochain ecosystem since before the ICO in 2018. At the time he was living in Melbourne and knew David Atkinson, Philip Beadle and Mike Gamble. With his background as a senior IT project manager for organisations such as Telstra, Australia’s largest telecoms company, he had the knowledge and experience to foresee what was being spawned. Adam’s project, The Meritt System, a virtues-centric mutual credit currency, was started then. His desire to offer a place where it can be converted to other currencies led to his work creating the HoloDEX. Along with David Atkinson and some key collaborators that make up the HoloDEX team, he has been waiting for Holochain to reach the necessary stability to allow a currency exchange to operate reliably. With the release of Holochain Beta and the Holo RC, those crucial milestones have been achieved, paving the way for the launch of a robust and dependable currency exchange.
Here’s how it works: Each user runs a copy of the HoloDEX application on their own device and all transactions are computed using only the devices involved in an exchange. Much like when we use cash between us, it’s only those of us involved at that moment that are needed to complete the peer-to-peer transaction. When our requested and offered values align we’re automatically matched and the exchange is completed using the security of the HoloDEX.
HoloDEX excels in managing the intricate web of multi-currency relationships we are familiar with in Web3. Banking and blockchain exchanges limit users to trading within predefined asset pairs, which can be costly, restrictive and inefficient; often requiring multiple accounts (and KYC processes) across various centralised and decentralised exchanges. HoloDEX, using Holochain’s P2P framework, allows users to swap directly between them with any currency, without being constrained by the pairing dynamic.
Each user downloads their own copy of the HoloDEX modules on their computer or smartphone. The HoloDEX is actually made up of two core elements; a wallet, and the DEX core which completes all of the checks, calculations and transfers on the user’s behalf. To these, each user adds the currency modules they want to trade.
So, if we want to buy Holofuel with $USDT we install their modules to our wallet. Now, with both currency modules installed we can swap with anyone else who also has both the $USDT and Holofuel modules installed in their wallet.
HoloDEX cleverly aggregates the exchanges by processing them using its internal accounting currency ∂DEX (I’m using ∂ in this article to denote the DEX ‘currency’). It’s somewhat like a promissory note used to simulate exchanges rather than a traditional currency or crypto token. It has a stable value against which all listed currencies are compared and calculated.
When trading our $USDT for Holofuel we can choose to swap at the live market rate or at a predefined price in our order book on our device. Once we find an agreeable price our DEX core processes and completes the exchanges with the other users and the proper amounts are distributed to each of us.
This omni-∂DEX structure between all currencies makes the market more much more fluid and accessible as large liquidity pools are no longer required for each listed currency. Each exchange is based upon a credit and debit within that currency’s module. When combined with the benefits of the ∂DEX accounting base, liquidity is utilised to the greatest extent possible across all of the exchange’s listed currencies and transactions.
At its heart HoloDEX is fractal, inspired by naturally repeating patterns, as each module has its own DNA and membranes. Each module can work without the others but combining them creates the HoloDEX. The membranes act like a semi-permeable permission layer between the modules sharing only specific information according to predetermined rules. Its fractal nature means it will continue to function as long as there are agents using the modules.
Each HoloDEX module ensures all users are honest by utilising Holochain’s validation protocols. As each module has a unique DNA, and we all download a copy of the same module, they can be compared. Any user who tries to use a module with a different DNA can be ignored and excluded from exchanges. In fact, the transaction history of each item exchanged is fully verified by your core DEX module prior to completion.
By deploying as a modular framework, resilience and adaptability are built into the exchange. All of the exchanges completed using the HoloDEX are completely peer-to-peer so they don’t rely on any centralised data validation. This means the HoloDEX can handle an unlimited number of transactions without compromising efficiency.
When we’re buying our Holofuel with $USDT from each other, why would we need to ask a third party to calculate and verify the transaction for us? If we trust each other (which we can because of Holochain’s DNA and membrane protocols), then we can complete exchanges without having to use resource intensive centralised services or replicate them across entire blockchains.
New types of currencies, tokens and value models can also be integrated to the HoloDEX without upsetting its functionality. Using a soon to be released template, currency modules will be easily deployed if they use a compatible ledger system (think blockchain, securities, fiat banking etc) and meet the H-DEX standard.
So, we’ve downloaded a copy of the Holofuel and $USDT modules as well as the core DEX module to our wallet. We can ensure that the people we’re interacting with are using the same modules and aren’t going to give us dud tokens. How do we know they have sufficient funds to complete the transaction? Each user’s currency transactions are recorded to their own immutable distributed hash table (rrDHT). The core DEX exploits the module membranes to perform an available balance query to make sure the requisite currency is available and prevent double-spending!
Another benefit of using an indirect accounting currency is that the HoloDEX aggregates all transactions to ∂DEX. This facilitates cross-module exchanges while preserving the integrity of the individual user’s transaction history.
We don’t need to interact with each other to buy the Holofuel using our $USDT, the HoloDEX facilitates that privately. When your parameters are met, the complexity of multi-peer matching is managed on your behalf to satisfy your order book, trades are made and then the appropriate $USDT is dispersed to each account that sold you some Holofuel. You receive your Holofuel in your wallet and everyone’s DHT is updated with the appropriate records. So if you buy 100 Holofuel for $100 USDT the Holofuel you receive might come from multiple trading peers: 5 from one, 10 from another and so on..
Since the HoloDEX uses its internal ∂DEX currency as its value base and can access wallet data through the membranes cross-validation of the transactions can be achieved as the totality of debits and credits, across all modules, must be equal for the exchanges to take place. Combined with regular multi-peer matching this makes for a very robust validation of the user base, exposing bad actors promptly, and maintaining user privacy without having to hold an exploitable centralised database.
∂DEX can be used to aggregate the relationships across all currencies enabling swaps between $USDT to Holofuel even with people who are not directly trading either $USDT or Holofuel. All that is required is a relationship between the traded currencies, no matter how indirect.
Think of it as a marketplace where everyone buys and sells using $USDT. You can buy anything you want so long as you have $USDT or someone wants to purchase your product which will give you $USDT. ∂DEX is used as this universal settlement currency for the exchange and the final $USDT (or other currency) amounts are then updated in your wallet.
So how does the HoloDEX value alternative currencies such as mutual credit currencies? Adam Thompson stated:
“Often towns, regions, initiatives or endeavours suffer due to the lack of a marketplace to facilitate trade or provide a price discovery mechanism. To meet this need the HoloDEX can be cloned to become a fractal targeted to meet specific requirements.
For example, the creation of an energy DEX (EnerDEX) in tandem with IOEN (for example) could allow anyone with solar panels or a battery, or just the IOEN currency to participate in creating and trading energy in local, regional, national or international markets. The ∂DEX currency at the centre of the EnerDEX fractal accurately represents the value of energy in that market and is able to be traded in other marketplaces across HoloDEX fractals. Because all of the fractals can be interconnected, energy can be purchased with HoloFuel, or SynergyFuel from Coasys, or KudoFuel from Weaver Networks, or any other traded currency in any interconnected HoloDEX fractal.”
Blockchain to Holochain bridging is where individuals within the community can participate in the HoloDEX. These individuals would be known as Guardians. They run nodes which act as decentralised trusted oracles. Guardians are rewarded for validating the integrity of the blockchain ledger they monitor and report on, as well as providing the partial signatures that, when consensus determines, combine to unlock the smart contracts that release funds. The considerable costs of maintaining transaction history across a blockchain would be a thing of the past when tokens are wrapped as Holochain currencies and added to the HoloDEX.
By harnessing the power of Holochain, HoloDEX looks to be the first agent-centric distributed currency exchange. Its fractal design, modularity and infinitely scalable currency trading are all geared towards creating a seamless experience for users. Performing the transactions locally on your device allows for instant settlement between peers, at a fraction of the cost, in comparison to a monolithic centralised processors like Visa.
How much less expensive is the HoloDEX and how is it sustained? Well, a 0.1% transaction fee will be implemented which will go to the HoloDEX Foundation for the purpose of advancing and maintaining the HoloDEX. To be clear, no one owns the HoloDEX, it’s open source software that’s powered, owned and operated entirely by its users. It's up to the people using the HoloDEX to comply with relevant regulations in their locality. Those Guardians, who act as the oracles to third party ledgers, they’re rewarded with the proceeds of the transaction fee in the currency they validated. Of course, if the Guardian wants to convert it to another currency, they can using ∂DEX.
Adam shared where he sees the HoloDEX fractal leading,
“DEX fractals could be used to facilitate the creation of value for towns or regions by providing a convertible and tradeable measure of their productive capacity. This is particularly useful for places that have the productive capacity but lack the money to convert that productive capacity into the things they need.
I would like to see local, regional and national DEX'es that represent the tradable capacity of those areas, culminating in a National DEX currency. It would be a good solution for the BRICS countries. A common DEX Currency for a trade alliance, properly backed by the productive capacity of their respective members.”
Adam is interested in hearing from those in the community who’d like to collaborate with him on the HoloDEX project, particularly developers with knowledge of Rust and blockchain programming as well as front end languages. You can connect with the team via their website, Telegram Channel or on the HoloDEX Discord server.
In a world where financial systems are often costly, complex and inaccessible, HoloDEX promises to change the way we exchange!
Useful Links
YouTube video explaining HoloDEX
YouTube video explaining The Merrit System
🌟 Latest News from hAppenings.community
A sincere THANK YOU to those of you who have subscribed (for any amount) to support hAppenings.community and “What’s hAppening?”! It helps more than you know, both to keep our bills paid, and to let us know you care that we do what we do. If you are open for a virtual hug, consider it sent!
If you’d like to support us with a paid subscription, we’d sure appreciate your support!
If you’re new to “What’s hAppening” and the hAppenings Community, WELCOME! We invite you to explore our website, hAppenings.community, we would love if you would join our Discord Server! You can visit as someone who is Curious, or have more options to interact and get deeper information by deciding to be an Advocate for Holochain projects! hApp Creators are also super welcome!!! Come check us out!
Also, if you’ve you’d like to see a type of retrospective of Holochain projects, check out the back issues of this newsletter. It’s rather amazing!
🌟 Latest Official News and Events from Holochain and Holo
Event: Holochain AMA #57 - July 2, 2024- 18:00 UTC
Got any questions about the Volla-Holochain app for mobile we showcased at Volla Community Days (see video above), or anything Holo-related? Don't miss your chance to ask David Atkinson, Arthur Brock, and Matthew Schutte all your questions.
Video: Holo Launch Brief #2 with CEO Mary Camacho
Check out the latest on the Holo launch with CEO Mary Camacho.
Video/C-Span: Public Knowledge Discussion on Decentralized Web Platforms (June 14, 2024)- panelist, Mary Camacho, CEO/ED at Holo Ltd and Holochain Foundation.
Spoke today at the EmergingTech2024 conference put on by Public Knowledge at the visitors center in the US Capitol.
After listening to others in the Dweb panel, and about Music innovation and issues with journalism, I'm thinking a lot about consent protocols like RSS. (Really Simple Syndication) and how different that is from algorithms that curate our digital experience.
I'm also happy to say that the sessions are filled with concerns and attention to privacy and well-being when it comes to understanding novel tech. - Mary Camacho
Video: Volla Community Days - with Matthew Schutte, Director of Business Development, Holochain Foundation
Privacy first mobile phone company Volla has developed a mobile chat-app built with Holochain, shipping natively on their new Quintus phones.
Blog: Regenerative Investing - Finances for a Better Future, by Rosalind Marino
How can we invest in a better future? Can data provenance transform carbon credits from greenwashing into verifiable benefits for our climate?
There is a new push into ethical funds which are meant to avoid these pitfalls, but these funds are limited in their investment opportunities and the tools for you to audit their activities are in their infancy. This article seeks to expand perspectives on better investing.
Job Opening: Rust Developer - Holochain
The Holochain Foundation is looking for a developer to join our Holochain core team. 100% remote work. (Click the link above for more details.)
Event: Collaborative Finance 2 - June 30-July 4, Ezemaal (LANDEN), Belgium
We (Holochain Foundation) are sponsoring the Collaborative Finance Retreat by Crypto Commons Association (CCA). All who are interested are welcome to join their community in re-imagining investment, ownership, pensions, money, cooperation, supply chains, and resilience.
Event: DWeb Camp 2024 - August 7 - 11, 2024, Camp Navarro, California
The Holochain team will once again have a strong presence at DWeb Camp this August, to explore the theme of migration and how we can move together toward the Web we want and deserve. DWeb Camp is a five-day retreat set in the beautiful redwoods near the Mendocino coast of California, for builders and dreamers to connect, learn, share and have fun as we work towards building a better, decentralized web. Please join us!
Join Holochain.org’s Developer Portal: https://developer.holochain.org/
For a complete listing of all of the Holo Ltd and Holochain Foundation events go to their ‘Upcoming Events’ page!
🌟Latest News from the Holoverse:
Article: Keys are Not Identities by Rosalind Marino, Designer and Writer at the Holochain Foundation
The premise of this article is:
-Wallets and Keys are Not Identities
-Collapsing Keys and Identities is Dangerous
-Decentralized Key Management is Tough but Powerful
Public/private key pairs have been around for a long time. Useful for encryption and addressing, they are a cryptographic way to ensure that data is flowing between the right entities. While this article touches on public key infrastructure (PKI) and decentralized public key infrastructure (DPKI), I want to focus on the user perspective more than the systems of authentication.
This is an article about user safety, socio-technical systems, a new technology.
Article: What is an Economy of Specificity?: The Coffee Shop and Starbucks by Rosalind Marino, Designer and Writer at the Holochain Foundation
Corporate extraction is eating everything. The tech monopoly is destroying us. The unicorn startup model is broken. We need economies that support collective flourishing.
🌟Other Related News & Events
Event: Selling Community Adaptation : Turning a social change, community engagement initiative into a product - July 4, 2024 12:00-1:00 pm AEST (Free Zoom Event)
Kiri Bear from Amble Studio tells the story of The Adaptation Game. A collaborative, storytelling board game and community building initiative about adapting to the impacts of climate change. Developed in partnership with Good Morning Beautiful, TAG has become a marketable product rolling out in local governments across Australia.
This is a story of design, collaboration, science and fun with plenty of bumps and hurdles along the way. Register Here.
Event: IETF 120 Vancouver, July 20-26, 2024
The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), founded in 1986, is the premier standards development organization (SDO) for the Internet. The IETF Hackathon and IETF Codesprint take place on the weekend. Events to help new participants get the most out of IETF meetings begin on Sunday afternoon. Participants should plan their travel accordingly. An introduction to IETF meetings provides an overview of how to prepare for and get the most out of sessions all week. Holochain Foundation’s Paul DAoust will be one of the presenters.
Event: Leading ProSocial, Sept 9 - October 29th, 2024
Leading ProSocial is a course designed to strengthen your facilitation skills and sharpen your knowledge of ProSocial concepts and practices.
Over 8 weeks, participants will learn how to help groups work together more effectively to achieve their goals.
By the end of this course, participants will have the foundation and skills to work with groups of all sizes, in all contexts, at all stages. Register your interest here.
Announcement: Launching the BioFi Project
Several participants in this project have or are working on Hylo.com, a Project using Holochain. We want to support their efforts!
(On) Solstice we launch(ed) the The BioFi Project - a collective supporting bioregions to design, build, and implement Bioregional Financing Facilities (BFFs) that connect financial resources with regenerators.
The BioFi Project will partner with bioregional organizing teams and Indigenous communities around the world to apply the BFF templates and capital raising and allocation approaches laid out in the book, "Bioregional Financing Facilities: Reimagining Finance to Regenerate Our Planet" (Free Download).
I could not be more grateful to be founding this initiative with the visionary, hard-working Edward West by my side as my co-founder. And with an incredible team of 10 of some of the most thoughtful and brilliant people I know, all of whom have a deep commitment to catalyzing the shift to regenerative, bioregional economies around the world and ensuring that finance is put in service to life (Tyler Wakefield, Taya Seidler, Clare Politano, Aaron Brodeur, Sarah Ashley Baxendell, Matt Jorgensen, Mia Diawara, Kevin Bayuk, Tibet Sprague, and Faith Flanigan). - Director, Samantha Power
Do You Have News & Updates?
If you are a team member of a Holochain Project and would like to let us know your latest news and updates, please contact us here!
🌟 And, find more at hAppenings.community!
Are you Curious and want to learn more?
Are you an Advocate for Holochain and the projects being built on it, do you want to be?
Are you a Creator of Holochain Projects? Whether you are a developer, designer or have just a GREAT idea, this would be your place to begin. Explore our Holochain Project Database.
And be sure explore ways to:
If you have a question, request, or simply a desire to connect more about hAppenings.community please click the link above!