The Berlin start-up Herdius wants to reduce the barriers to entry into crypto currencies with a cross-block trading network. Compared to existing blockchains, the Herdius network should offer more scalability, speed and security. The ICO planned in the first quarter of 2018 is in coordination with the Financial Regulator.
Herdius founder and CEO Balasz Deme has big goals: The 20-year-old wants to establish an infrastructure for the entire ecosystem of cryptocurrencies. "We want to improve the transaction speed, security, and usability of established crypto currencies and enable immediate data exchange between different blockchains," explains Deme. It should enable a transaction level that lies between the user and the underlying blockchains of established crypto currencies such as Bitcoin or Ethereum.
Cryptocurrencies transferred to the Herdius network should be tradable much faster than the established blockchains. The time advantage is to be achieved, inter alia, by the application of a block-of-blocks architecture (BoB), which allows vertical expansion of blocks. In dealing with private keys Herdius wants to open a third way with distributed, virtual wallets, in addition to offline storage or safekeeping in online wallets. "To put it simply, the idea is to cut up private keys and store encrypted pieces of content on the network until they're needed again," says Deme. "That would be as convenient for the user as online wallets, but much safer."
In view of regulatory warnings of ICOs and public criticism of this financing model, the Herdius project should be legally secure. The start-up operates as a German GmbH, the ICO plans were disclosed to the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin). "We want to protect our token buyers," explains Deme. As part of the ICO, scheduled for the first quarter of 2018, users can purchase Herdius tokens up to a limit of € 30 million against Ether.
If a threshold of five million euros is not reached, Herdius promises the return of all funds to the token buyers. Among other things, the Herdius token is intended to enable acquirers to validate transactions, as well as participation in voting on the development of the network. At the request of BTC-ECHO, however, a Herdius spokesman makes it clear that they are utility tokens: "The acquirers do not determine what Herdius GmbH does," says Thomas Euler. The spokesperson emphasizes that the Herdius ICO complies with the current regulatory requirements: "But if supervisors should come up with new rules, we will adapt to them," says Euler. Until the ICO Herdius has been accompanied according to his information by the venture financiers Medici Ventures and Catena Capital.
The development phase of the Herdius Blockchain should start after the end of the ICO, a first demo version is due for publication in January according to Thomas Euler. An alpha version will follow in the third quarter of 2018, the fully functional Herdius Blockchain is to be launched in the second quarter of 2019.