Project & Team History

This article gives a brief history of the Haven Protocol team and project, and how it evolved into what it is today.

Haven was conceived in Jan 2018 by two anonymous developers, attempting something considered by many as impossible. A decentralised algorithmic stable coin based on Monero. The idea was for a private coin that anyone could use anywhere with no 3rd parties, with the ability to convert between currencies in your own digital vault. Many described it as the ultimate expression of what a cryptocurrency should be. Critics thought this to be impossible due to the complex cryptography and mathematics involved and the codebase’s default privacy.

You can read more details on how Haven works in the Whitepaper

For the next few months, several attempts were made, and technical challenges overcome. The first iteration made it to the testnet stage before technical challenges overcame the developers. The original developers took a pre-mine of approx 90k XHV at the start of the project and the price of XHV increased dramatically before the testnet launch, and then crashed when the project came to a standstill. It appeared that they sold large amounts of XHV through various channels before giving up. At the time the new group took over the project there were no funds left from the pre-mine.

Before the developers disappeared, the community’s calls for transparency on the situation went unanswered, and the project appeared abandoned. Some thought it was a scam, but the current team disagree. It’s possible to see in the original code genuine attempts to make it work. But the original developers didn’t have the skillset required to finish the project and deliver the product. This situation prompted a small group of community members to take over the project’s management and development. They felt that the idea was just too important to be left unfinished.

This new group of core contributors came together on the shared belief that everyone should have the right to financial privacy. Success required a wide range of skills and experience. Fortunately, the community included experts in; cryptography, maths, system architecture, development, community management, entrepreneurship, economics, product design, blockchain analysis and infrastructure. You can read more about the core contributors here

After many weeks of discussion and debate Haven 2.0 was born and the task of moving all the comms channels and existing code began. The new group are committed and community-led, focusing on collaboration, transparency and honesty, which is why the project is now open source.

Given the project’s rocky start, the new group considered a rebrand, to give Haven a new lease of life. We decided to keep Haven as it is, building on the legacy, community and original brilliant idea.
Many months of coding, social networking, wallet and website development followed before xUSD went live in July 2020. We are proud to have launched the world’s first Private Stablecoin.

xUSD was the first significant step in an ambitious plan to help Haven meet its full potential and it’s true to say that the contributors and community have never been so confident that we will get there.

You can read the project timeline since then here