SEEDS and Hypha anatomy

I deliberately don’t separate them into two articles, as they are actually the same people, teams, and technology. I will start with a little about the global difference, and then I will write information cleansed of ideology. I have been involved in this project since 2019, but nevertheless, it is in this article that I will try to give the most detached analysis possible, and in the next article, a conclusion based on personal observation of internal processes.

Quick facts

Token Type: Utility

Blockchain Operating System: EOSIO 

Key Dates:

  • July 2017: Original White Paper
  • November 2019: Token launch
  • November 2020: Ecosystem launch

Total Supply (until Go Live intended 2022): 3,141,592,653 Seeds (100%)

Max Circulating Supply (until Go Live): 1,256,637,061 Seeds (40%) 

Current Circulating Supply (January, 2022): 1,387,479,079,165 Seeds (4,36%) (click for current stats)

Tokens sold each round: 1.1M Seeds per round sale 1 (50 rounds), 939K Seeds per round sale 2 (50 rounds).

Price increase per round: 3.3%

Starting sale price: $0.011 per Seed

Round / Current Sale Price (January, 2021): >69 of 100 / $0.096 per Seed (click for current round and sale price)

100th Round Sale Price: $0.273 per Seed (Price of Seeds if Hypha sales both rounds)

Weekly purchase limits: 25,000 Seeds for Visitors, 250,000 Seeds for Residents.

Presence:

What is the difference between DAO and DHO?

Just ideology. Technically it is the same as the DAO. This is what confuses newcomers, who try to google DHO and do not get a clear answer. The name is unique, but completely unindexed even years later. DHO stands for Decentralized Human Organization (contrary to DAO – Decentralized Autonomous Organization), and the second DHO meaning is Decentralized Holonic Organization (it did not become clearer).  

Idea was to pull the humans back into the decision process (spoiler – it was failed), to put them at the center, and let them guide and build the relationships inside this organization.

Even after years, DHO term is not recognized by Google

Why it was called DHO – Decentralized Holonic (Human) Organization (Organism)?

Hypha aimed to create a place where everybody is comfortable using DAO technologies because that’s the big difference between autonomous organization versus human organization, computer-generated versus human-generated. Holonic piece is based on some of the sociocratic structures, a way of building organizations from the ground up, without hierarchy, top-down approach and subsequent boxes underneath, that are vertically aligned, have vertical command and control structures. All these don’t exist in a holonic society, and that’s why this model was used as the basis. 

What is Hypha DHO on practice?

Did sociocratic principles work?

The heart and driver of an organization is its community. Hypha and SEEDS have a very active community, even too active. In the second half of 2021, activity decreased. A lot of documentation, content, knowledge bases, calls – everyone who can generate something, do it in full and often for free, just to be heard and recognized. And very little important information. You get to an important call (judging by the title and description), and yet of the scheduled hour, 40 minutes is spent meditating, sending rays of kindness to each other, and very lengthy conversations in response to clear questions that are not answered per se. 

When activists, but without a professional background, became much more numerous – they began to make decisions (vote) on issues in which they do not understand and act out of emotion or personal preferences. Thus, equal rights and deprofessionalization significantly degraded the quality of the product and stunted it. 

So many talented professionals have left or been “asked” out of the Hypha as an organization and SEEDS as the project in 2021, leaving essentially nothing but dialogs. To rehabilitate the situation, SEEDS was rebranded to SEEDS Commons, Redwood Seeds – which is also not clearly understood. There is a funny practice in my country – if everything is ruined and there is nothing to present to the people – start changing street names, it will distract them. 

Yes, blurred perspectives and unclear conditions are the main problems for most users. But in this case, even if the token-holders are confused as to how the project will evolve, and what the tokens are, they hold on to good faith. But most of the holders and contributors left the project, so, from almost 2,500 users on the Discord server, less than 150 are involved.  

And this is a huge problem of implementing this particular DHO – the work is boiling, but the roles are blurred, and if you are wondering who is responsible for SEEDS Instagram account, Zoom call scheduling, domain renewal, corporate email – there is no such person, and finding out can drag on for days and weeks. Perhaps the corporate culture, which is demonized by the adherents of equality and lack of vertical power, is not so bad? At the very least, there should be a balance, in which sociocracy does not turn into anarchy, and it would not be worth mixing up the concept of corporate responsibilities and corporations in general.

What is the difference between Hypha and SEEDS?

Ideologically, Hypha is a sort of organization that’s sort of the umbrella; the word “hypha” itself is a kind of related to mycelium, the wood network in the earth that’s trying to connect a lot of things. The idea of Hypha is a connector-based soil to grow a lot of the activities and things and entities out of the ground by building this. Versus SEEDS is just not an organization but the entity that regenerates currency, an enabler for building some of the value flows with the system. So Hypha is an organization that creates a lot of tools as a DAO (or DHO). In the scenario, SEEDS supposedly hired Hypha to build its platform. 

Which came first, Hypha or SEEDS?

Even though SEEDS is a Hypha project, from the beginning SEEDS was the center that brought together:

  • Professionals: hired developers, specialists, lawyers, content makers, managers-anyone needed to work in typical IT companies, although comparisons to typical companies were not encouraged.
  • Activists: conventionally, all sorts of hippies who are focused on resource regeneration, world peace, and have a skeptical attitude toward all things mundane. Most of them learned about SEEDS through the grapevine. Almost always contributed to the idea, much and unprofessionally, but with all the heart.
  • Crypto-enthusiasts: those who were not part of the team or active members of the community, but kept a hand on the pulse just in case, waiting for token X’s and tothemoons. 

For now, most of the community are activists. SEEDS plays a secondary role, all the tools development is almost frozen, and the focus is on Hypha as DAO tools builder. But, that’s my very personal opinion, I think that the main goal of SEEDS was to become just a big piece of portfolio for Hypha, moreover, it was planned to use the same technologies in Hypha (of course, without SEEDS identity before) as for DAO SaaS. Also, Hypha is concentrated on DAO itself, but not DHO, so, there is no ideology anymore. Hypha does not like to be seen as the dominant party within SEEDS, preferring to characterize itself as being hired by SEEDS community to build tools for them. This is largely an aspirational framing because many of the users don’t understand the system and have only bought the tokens because they were encouraged to do so by the Hypha team.

  • August 2017 – SEEDS is established, full-time R&D comes with it.
  • July 2019 – the core blockchain functionality is live on Telos.
  • August 2019 – Hypha DAO live. The decentralized organization behind SEEDS is open for anyone to propose membership in.
  • September 2019 – alpha release of SEEDS Global Passport app. The mobile app allowed becoming a SEEDS Resident, reputation earning, discussing ideas, meeting other users.
  • November 2019 – beta release of SEEDS Global Passport and Preseeds – a fixed supply token that precedes Seeds, are distributed to the world through launch partners and campaigns for regeneration, good deeds, etc. Preseeds are scarce and are designed to increase in value. Exchanging Preseeds began.
  • January 2020 – Seeds token live. Seeds are listed on ChainRift, Bancor, and in the Passport app – available to be bought, sold, and exchanged. 
  • February 2020 – Seeds begin to be distributed through campaigns and alliances. 
  • April 2020 – beta and public release of SEEDS Global Passport.
  • August 2020 – the start of the rounds of the Seeds sale. Seeds price dynamics were predefined – each round price of Seeds has gone up 3.3%. Rounds are also visible on the contract here. According to the SEEDS tokenomics, the price was going up 3.3% every moon cycle (about 1 month) or also going up every 1.1M seeds sold from the contract. It had a wow effect – numbers in the wallet increased constantly, so people swept Seeds off the shelves. Sometimes, the planned volume of Seeds for the round was bought very quickly, and new rounds came twice a week. After round 50, fewer Seeds (939,393 Seeds) need to be sold per round. 
  • October 2020 – ecosystem ready. 4th and final milestone for Hypha – major features the Citizens need to govern, evolve, model, exchange are deployed. Final economic and security tests ran.

2021 was the year of stabilizing, another one rebranding, reforming, and it is still ‘pre Go Live’ stage.

  • June 2021 – Seeds were wrapped into Ethereum and as pSeeds added to Uniswap to provide liquidity. Totally were added Seeds in the equivalent of about $2,250K.
  • July 2021 – rounds slowed considerably, Seeds sales decreased. Treasury was almost emptied, one of the reasons was unoptimized roles policy, that took place in April-May.
  • September 2021 – pSeeds were removed from Uniswap, one of the reasons was manipulations with Seeds, granted from community campaigns. Seeds swap telegram channel, where people could swap Seeds P2P, also was paused because of designing new SEEDS Redwood branch.  
  • October-November 2021 – Hypha team significantly reduced because of lack of funding, SEEDS ecosystem was not in focus anymore. Hypha is trying to concentrate on finding investors and creating dApp toolset. Those community members who have held roles in other processes are encouraged to start their own DHOs, but there is still not a toolset. 

Tokenomics and tech aspect of Seeds cryptocurrency

The initial action was to create a blank Seeds token, brand it as a ‘regenerative crypto-currency’, and sell it in an invite-only manner to adherents for fiat. Proceeds were used to pay salaries and build an infrastructure for the SEEDS token as apps, website, widgets, engines, etc. 

Hypha team used EOS blockchain system to mint 3,141,592,653 blank tokens, branded as Seeds. 

These tokens were initially attributed to a few Hypha addresses on the system – digital warehouses where the team stores the tokens. A few warehouses are locked (so-called ‘deferred’ Seeds, dSeeds, Harvest), waiting to be opened in the future, while two are open (‘liquid’ Seeds). 

The first open warehouse holds 5% of the tokens, and these are slowly sold in batches to members of the public to raise money for the Hypha team. Also, these tokens are periodically transferred to a smart contract that sells them to the public and the proceeds of those sales go to the Hypha team. But there are rules as to how many tokens the team can sell, and on what conditions: they sell them in batches of 1.25%, and are only allowed to sell the next batch when they achieve certain development milestones (such as building the app). This means they have to prove themselves to the Citizens before being allowed to sell the next batch for more money.

Sales are closely regulated and operate by invite-only. The team sets the price at which the tokens will be sold according to Seeds price methodology, and has sold the earlier batches of tokens to early buyers for much cheaper than later batches, to incentivize people to buy in early.

The second open warehouse holds 1,099,557,429 Seeds, which are 35% of the tokens, intending to slowly give them away to regenerative projects that get voted on by the Citizens.

The locked warehouses have different purposes. One of them is for Hypha Members (DHO Rewarding Contributions), it holds 20% of the tokens as a kind of bonus for Hypha, on the condition that they complete all the milestones. Another is for Organization Partnerships (Allies) and holds 12%, and another one – Community Referrals – holds 8% to give away to SEEDS Ambassadors who bring more people into the project. Another account is as a Bank (SEEDS DeFi), which holds the remaining 20% of the tokens, and can then be used to assist in market-making, secondary-price stabilization, interest-free loans, acquiring assets, and other decentralized finance (DeFi) tools after Go Live.

The locked accounts are intended to be unlocked after the so-called ‘Go Live’ event, which was scheduled to happen in mid of 2020, then – fall 2021, and now the new date is spring 2022. The current phase of SEEDS is thus ‘pre Go Live’. 

So, token allocations are:

  • Community campaigns: 35%
  • Hypha milestone completion: 5%
  • Hypha members: 20%
  • Seeds allies: 12%
  • Ambassadors & Referrals: 8%
  • Seeds Bank: 20%.

When ‘Go Live’?

‘Go Live’ date is still to be defined. Initially, in 2019, it was planned to go live in Q2-Q3 of 2020. The next stages were planned:

  • Q2-Q3 2020: Go Live, Stage 1

“Go live” was planned to occur after SEEDS passes robust security and economic test and various growth targets are achieved, laying a healthy foundation for the algorithmic stable coin “Seeds”. Preseeds are exchanged for Seeds. Citizens were planned to be given a 30% immediate Harvest for the Seeds they ‘planted’ in their account. Seeds bank opens for business and the exchange value for Seeds starts to stabilize.

  • Q3-Q4 2020: Go Live, Stage 2

3 lunar cycles (about 3 months) after Stage 1, the Harvest protocols begin. Organizations and citizens start earning Seeds. The value for each Seed further stabilizes as Seeds become a better stable-coin.

  • Q4 2020: it was planned that from now on all updates and evolutions would depend on the citizens of SEEDS.

Who is behind SEEDS and Hypha?

Answering this question, SEEDS leaders are saying, that “SEEDS is owned by no-one and designed for everyone.” 

Hypha was co-founded with Rieki Cordon and Alex Prate. Even though Rieki Cordon made a statement a few months ago that he is not the leader of Seeds and Hypha, because all are equal in this system, the community continues to see him as a leader, not because he decides anything, but because formally there is no one else to turn to. 

The core team consisted of quite professional people, with good management skills. In addition to the competent R&D guys, there were interesting guys and organizations involved in the development of Seeds, which, if approached intelligently, could add to the hype. For example, Stefan Rust, who was CEO at Bitcoin.com, was an advisor in Hypha from April 2020, to July 2021.

What is SEEDS hierarchy?

The notion of hierarchy is not welcome in this system, however, there are different roles within the app (ecosystem). Once you have downloaded the app, you are a Guest, and you cannot view information beyond the onboarding. As in Clubhouse. Once you receive an invitation from someone who is already a member, you can use it and then become a Visitor. The invitation, by the way, consists of Seeds – a minimum of 5, they are used to create your blockchain account. Also, you can import your Telos account, if you already have it.

By fulfilling certain conditions (transactions, inviting other participants), the Visitor can become a Resident, and then a Citizen. Citizen status that allows voting for governance decisions. A similar hierarchy was developed for Organizations but was not implemented.

At the moment (January 2022), SEEDS has: 8,947 Visitors, 790 Residents, and 464 Citizens, a total users since 2019 – 10,201. But the Citizens are not proactive – for example, to make a governance decision on Redwood Seeds economics to reach a quorum (20% of Citizens must vote, no matter downvote, upvote or abstain), team members asked each citizen whom they knew personally to vote. It caused some problems – not each citizen is presented on the SEEDS Discord server and could be recognized, and it was very difficult to reach at least 90 people to vote.

What are SEEDS dApps and ecosystem?

SEEDS tools for building dApps include:

1. SEEDS Global Passport – iOS and Android app, that includes Wallet (to use Seeds token – to buy, send or pay with it), Engage (forum), Vote (engine to cooperate governance decisions), Game of SEEDS (place to perform tasks and quests), Connect (PCN, personal connections network and messager) and Trade (marketplace) engines.

In fact: only Wallet, Engage and Vote are functioning, but usability is very poor. Game of SEEDS has no missions and quests. Connect and Trade sections were designed, but not developed. Wallet transactions are fast and fee-free.

2. SEEDS Light Wallet – both iOS and Android app, for just for Seeds transactions and governance voting. Hypha tokens are also visible in Light Wallet. 

In fact: despite being part of the same organization (Hypha), Light Wallet and Global Passport team are not connected and working separately, most of them even without knowing each other. Light Wallet is used as a reliable alternative to SEEDS Passport in voting processes because its performance is better.

3. SEEDS plugins and widgets – to be built into websites so the users can invite other users, pay with Seeds and claim rewards right on their websites. 

In fact: as there is no support team for it, and the feature was released crude – so it is not fulfilling its tasks and is not used.

4. QR-Codes & Stickers – codes to be printed and physically placed on the POS, so clients can scan it and pay with Seeds, redeem invite, etc. 

In fact: not implemented.

5. Smart Contracts wizards – tools to create own SEEDS dApp.

In fact: in Beta testing, but no information if it was developed at all.

SEEDS Library is not a tool, but a website, and one of the places, where contributors can post their articles, relevant to the movement and products.

In fact: everyone can register and post their article, but as it is almost not moderating, new articles are in limbo.

Hypha perspectives

For now, SEEDS is the main and single product implemented.

Negotiations are underway to use tools developed by Hypha in projects such as: 

  • 30-hectare village in Bali. Being set up by Sergey Solonin, founder of Qiwi Ltd., and CEO of Russian FinTech Association turned wanting to create new paradigm villages ALSO wants to use Hypha for this.
  • Seeditt – integrating Hypha into Shareitt, or mixing it in the new project. Discussion going forward with the CEO Arie Ben David. 

The key point is also to use these companies not as partners only, but as investors. 

What’s about investment, at December was $37K grant from Pomelo and Helios as an offering to bring Hypha to EOS – they don’t know if this is enough, and if it’s not Hypha could ask for a direct number. Pomelo is a recurring funding avenue for it, and in short, time would be setting up a similar campaign on Gitcoin and presenting Hypha as a scaling solution for ETH DAO’s. 

If all goes well with EOS, Hypha can expect a much more significant investment (not grant) from Helios to bring the DHO tools. 

How does SEEDS token – Seeds – differ from other tokens?

Just by its narrative. This is another endeavor to wrap a story around blank crypto-tokens. Some projects have fierce or aggressive visions, with token-holders inspired by gouging each other to fight for a very limited supply of tokens, while others, like SEEDS, come packaged with a pacifist concept of aiming Regenerative Renaissance. Still, they all hope that the story will be picked up by a community that will project it into the tokens. So, the token is money, and that the platform funds regenerative projects with this money.

Is it possible to get funding from SEEDS?

In a nutshell, Citizens have to publish a proposal with the necessary Seeds amount in the Vote section. To pass, it has to get 80% of the upvotes for at least 20% of the Citizens (quorum) within a certain period. 

If the proposal passes, once the proposer receives the tokens, he will have to try to sell them himself (!) for fiat, which is somehow necessary for the projects for which the money was raised. Let me remind you, there are no easy ways to sell or swap Seeds. For example, you want to create a vertical soil-based installation and receive Seeds in the right amount in terms of dollars to implement it. But then there is a deadlock – it is unlikely that equipment suppliers, engineers, and raw material suppliers will want to be paid in cryptocurrency, which is also unknown. And while the SEEDS team wants the platform to become a global economic renaissance coordination system and such a payment method would be possible in the future, for now, it is a utopia. 

What is Seeds token value and price?

Let me remind you that the rounds according to which the price of Seeds increases and changes in any way at all, froze at the September 2021 mark. This means that Seeds stopped being bought through the official “ATM,” that is, from the vault allocated to it. The P2P exchange option also disappeared due to the closure of Seeds Swap channels in the same September. Team members who had previously provided liquidity also stopped exchanging. Accordingly, there was a clear understanding that there were no real finances behind the numbers in the passport. 

When all the SEEDS swap channels were paused, and you don’t have an option to find somebody willing to swap, you can turn to someone you’ve swapped with before (if you swapped). But the rate is very low – for example, $0.007 per Seed, while sale Seed price in USD at that moment was about $0.0851.

seeds-p2p-swap

This caused waves of indignation, in response to which the channel for the exchange of Seeds was reopened, and at the moment it consists exclusively of reports of Seeds being sold by users, with little or no demand, or users offering a price X times lower than that stated in the official rate. 

Swap riot started
Swap riot started

In reality, neither the market nor the SEEDS team knows what the tokens should be worth because they are blank tokens that resist any formal valuation analysis. Seeds token-holders can move the blank tokens between each other, but there is no native service on the SEEDS network that can yet account for why that is useful or even more create a value for it. If there were specific things unique to the SEEDS network that could not be accessed elsewhere then perhaps the token might be seen as an access token for those, but that is not the case.

Whether the new economics will change anything is still unclear. There are plans to add Seeds to exchanges and re-issue it as a new token – Rainbow Seeds, but as stated above, this is probably nothing more than another rebranding. 

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