The Hxro you know and love today is not the Hxro it once was. In fact, the origin story of Hxro Network begins in 2018, pioneering the merge of gambling and DeFi (“gamblefi”). More than a year before the Solana blockchain went live.
Hxro v1 wasn’t a liquidity layer, or even on-chain. It was simply an app. An app that merged crypto trading with skill-based social gaming, bringing the excitement of crypto trading into a simplistic and gamified UX.
For those who have been around for a while, you may remember Hxro’s first product offering: MoonRekt.
The premise of MoonRekt was simple: bet on whether the price of $BTC would go up (Moon) or down (Rekt) over a 5-minute timeframe. Crypto markets don’t close, so neither did Hxro; MoonRekt games ran 24/7/365.
Hxro v1 was thoughtfully constructed to embrace the degeneracy, price movement, and associated game theory of traditional markets.
- All players were given a username and the opportunity to fight for a top spot on the Hxro leaderboard.
- When placing bets (Moon or Rekt), users could see the size of the HXRO pool before the contest began, while the bets being placed on each side remained hidden.
- Players were able to view the ratio of Moon vs Rekt entries from previous contests, introducing an interesting psychological component to the game. The longer $BTC went in one direction, the more likely it was that players would start taking the other side, chasing a big win with long-shot odds, while others remained betting with the trend.
- The Trollbox: an in-game chat box where players can users can squabble and discuss games in real time.
2019 – Hxro v1 Goes Off With A Bang
Closed testing of the Hxro platform by a group of ~600 users started in January of 2019. By March 2019, the first iteration of Hxro opened its virtual doors to the public – 35,000 emails on a waiting list of 115,000, to be exact.
At launch, the platform allowed minimum bets of 10 HXRO (equivalent to less than $1) a token that, at the time, was native to and only usable on the Hxro platform.
By August 2019, MoonRekt had grown to 37,000 registered players. Hxro made the decision to add BTC as a payment method, upping the ante and more closely aligning the platform with the very market it was based on. The platform also added another feature, a game named Muhbags, that allowed players to create hypothetical long/short crypto portfolios and compete based on their performance.
2020 – Hxro.Trade
With the turn of a new year came a new version of Hxro, elevating the degenerate fun of the original product to a more polished offering by the name of Hxro.Trade. Like Hxro V1, Hxro.Trade successfully attracted a diverse global userbase of traders with an updated UI and four key offerings:
- TIX Options – Also known as barrier options, TIX Options are a simple way to take an odds-based position on whether or not the price of an asset will Close above or below a specified price (the “strike price”) on a specified date (the “expiration”).
- WIX Options – Also known as one-touch options, WIX Options offer an exciting, odds-based, way to take a position on an asset’s volatility, by allowing users to take a position on whether an asset will touch a specified price (the “strike price”) at ANY time prior to the contract’s specified expiration.
- Parimutuels – An expanded version of v1 MoonRekt, Hxro.Trade Parimutuels allow users to bet on short-term price volatility of popular cryptocurrencies including $BTC, $ETH and $BNB over several timeframes (1-min, 5-min, 15-min, 1 hour, and 1 day)
- Hxro Bot – A powerful automation tool for Parimutuels that allows users to design sophisticated trading strategies using an intuitive interface and deploy those strategies to operate automatically, around the clock.
2021 and Beyond – The Hxro You Know: On-Chain Liquidity and Market Infrastructure Powering Derivatives and Betting dapps
In 2020 came the launch of Solana – a low-fee, high-TPS blockchain that could support the high-frequency trading commonplace in derivatives markets. For Hxro Co-Founders, both 20+ year veteran derivatives traders, the launch of Solana provided the technology necessary for bringing the derivatives markets they know and love on-chain.
Why On-Chain Derivatives?
Bringing derivatives into a transparent and decentralized on-chain marketplace creates a more inclusive market and allows for fully transparent market data and risk for all participants. Most importantly, decentralization of derivatives markets facilitates the disintermediation and dispersion of systemic risk, an issue pervasive in traditional markets throughout financial history.
Supporting the formation of on-chain derivatives markets requires ample liquidity for traders, and the construction of the underlying infrastructure to facilitate those markets. Think exchange, risk, margin, and settlement functions. Creating that plumbing requires vast resources and market expertise. That’s where Hxro Network comes in.
From then on, Hxro Network would evolve from a single centralized trading platform to a decentralized network that provides builders of on-chain derivatives trading applications with the market infrastructure and liquidity they need to succeed from day 1. But Hxro Network doesn’t just support derivatives trading dapps
An ode to its roots, Hxro also aimed to provide decentralized betting and gaming applications with on-chain infrastructure and liquidity. Why?
Betting on events (sporting events, asset price movement over discrete timeframes, horse races, etc.) and the broader $68B igaming industry faces many of the same issues found in traditional derivatives markets, such as lack of transparency and slow settlement.
In order to fulfill its mission of bringing derivatives and betting markets on-chain, Hxro contributors developed the following protocols:
Hxro Derivatives:
- Dexterity protocol – An open-source collection of smart contracts that provides the exchange, risk, and settlement functions needed to launch and maintain any type of derivatives contract market (perps, expiring futures, and options).
- SPANDEX Risk Engine – The first protocol to use a portfolio-based methodology to assess users’ margin requirements and overall account health in real time.
Hxro Betting:
- Parimutuel protocol – Provides builders with a comprehensive framework for creating peer-to-peer betting markets.
- sAMM Protocol – A “smart” automated market maker native to Hxro Network that provides on-chain liquidity to dual-outcome parimutuel markets.
Developing these protocols from scratch was no small feat, but they were all created by core contributors who have deep expertise in both TradFi and crypto derivatives markets.
In May 2021 the first component of Hxro Network as we know it today, the Dexterity protocol whitepaper, was published.
…So, what’s happened since then?
Fast Forward – Hxro Network Today
As of 25/07/2023:
- All core protocols listed above are live (see here for Hxro Network docs)
- Over two dozen Hxro-powered dapps are live or currently in development
- Total Network Volume has surpassed $321,000,000
- 40,000,000 $HXRO has been allocated to a volume incentives program that rewards all wallets contributing to perps trading volume on Hxro-powered dapps (~$8,000,000 at current price)
- A 5,000,000 $HXRO Grant Program to support developers of Hxro-powered derivatives trading and betting dapps is now live (~$1,000,000 at current price)
Oh, and don’t worry… the original MoonRekt game you know and love has been reborn on-chain and powered by Hxro Network’s Parimutuel protocol via Iconic Markets
Suffice it to say that while Hxro in itself is not “new,” its latest evolution positions the network to become a foundational part of DeFi in the years to come, powering a variety of exciting derivatives trading and betting apps now and in the future. Follow along with the latest updates as the Hxro ecosystem continues to grow by joining the #HxroNation community Discord and following Hxro Network on Twitter.