After all the talk of crashes, kidnappings and privacy oriented crypto currencies I thought that today would be an appropriate time to change the direction and introduce a new company which is rapidly gaining momentum: Hawala Today.
While I may never have covered a story on Hawala Today up until now, I have personally been an early adopter of the platform and have been following them since being lucky enough to be involved with the introduction of their airdrop.
Many of you more dedicated and experienced cryptonites may already know of the company and their rise from freely distributed token to a serious competitor of the big boys in the cryptoverse.
As it stands Hawala tokens (HAT) sit relatively low on the marketcap tables on Coinmarketcap.com but, personally, I would not be surprised to see them make the top 100 by the end of this year, if their roadmap goals are met.
Currently the company are successfully carrying out a token swap event which allows users to convert their old HAT tokens to the new ones which are based on an ethereum contract which allows users to stake their stash, essentially taking their tokens off the market to invest them for the future. As with most staking projects the Hawala staking rewards scheme is tiered meaning the incentive for staking your coins drops as the total supply is reached (see below).
As you can see in the graph above, the Hawala team have coded their Incentive For Stake (IFS) contract to reward users with a generous 15% of their staked HAT tokens within the first two and a half years. With the current value consistently floating around the $10 mark this means that you can earn yourself a tidy sum on a yearly basis for doing absolutely nothing more than using their wallet and holding your tokens.
The Staking Model and Method
After reading the above you're probably quite intrigued with the possibility of acquiring a financial return on your investment without actually having to trade anything and probably would like to know more about the IFS model implemented by the Hawala team.
Well, you're in luck, I am going to do my utmost to elaborate on the staking model and inform those interested of how they can get involved with staking their HAT tokens.
Firstly, you're probably thinking it sounds too good to be true (getting what is essentially free money) so I am going to explain how this model can be of value to the Hawala Today company. Basically put, by staking your tokens you are essentially taking your HAT tokens (shares in the company) off the stock market.
Now anyone involved in the crypto business should have a rudimentary understanding of business or, at least, the supply and demand side of business. If not let me give you a really basic breakdown: as supply goes down, and demand rises, value increases.
So what is the relevance to Hawala's IFS model? It's pretty simple, really, as the supply of HAT tokens is increased you would naturally expect the value of them to drop, especially if the rise in supply is faster than the rise in demand.
This is where staking comes in. If all the major holders of the HAT token are staking their tokens in the Hawala wallet they are essentially taking them off the market and reducing the total circulating supply.
Remember what I was saying about supply and demand? As the company reaches its set out milestones demand for shares in the company will grow, pair it with the fact that the new tokens being generated are being staked and you have a model for a solid increase in value.
How to Stake Your HAT Tokens
So, after reading all this information about how distributing free shares can be profitable for Hawala Today you're probably asking how you can buy and stake your tokens. Let me explain.
First off you're going to need to acquire some HAT tokens, currently the only place to buy the stake-able tokens is on the decentralised exchange IDEX (click here to go to the exchange and buy HATs). Once you have bought your tokens you will need to take them off the exchange and transfer them to your own ERC20 compliant wallet, I personally recommend My Ether Wallet.
Now that you have your HAT tokens safely stored in your personal ERC20 wallet, which you own the private keys for, you are able to move onto the next step in the process, connecting your wallet with the Hawala Today app.
Once you have downloaded and opened the app you will be prompted to create an account and set a password. Do so and make sure your password is secure, using a combination of letters, numbers and special characters.
After creating your account you will need to click on the 'import wallet' button at the top of the app and fill in the details it requests in the appropriate text fields. As this app requires inputting your private key (something I usually would advise strongly against) I recommend creating a wallet which is strictly for Hawala. This way the rest of your crypto is never at risk of malware infecting your computer and attaining access to your other funds.
Now that you have imported your wallet which holds your precious HAT tokens you are ready to stake them and earn a healthy interest through the app. To do so you will need to click on the wallet which will appear on the right side of the Hawala app window and then click on the 'add stake' button which as a plus symbol on it.
Once you have followed this process you will be presented with a screen which asks you how many tokens you wish to stake, how much you wish to pay for the gas of the transaction and the gas limit you wish to set.
First off input the number of tokens you wish to stake and then you will need to move the slider to determine the gas which will be used. The 'gas limit' will be recommended within the app and the gas price is something you will have to determine yourself. Sometimes the Ethereum network gets clogged and you will have to pay more to ensure your transaction is processed.
I recommend taking a visit to ethgasstation.info to see what is the lowest amount of gas you can safely use for the transaction (staking your tokens is essentially sending a transaction to the Ethereum blockchain informing it of your intention to stake).
After setting the gas limit and gas price you are ready to hit the 'confirm stake' button and reap your rewards.
There you have it, you are now staking your HAT tokens. You do not need to keep the app open or do anything else to attain your free tokens, just leave them in the wallet and, when you're ready, you can withdraw them.
Buy HAT on IDEX
Please remember that this article is not to be taken as any form of investment advice and that you should do your own research before investing your hard earned cash into anything.