New milestone reached in Hodl Hodl’s development:

On the previous week we announced public testing of contracts on the Lightning Network at testnet.hodlhodl.com

At the end of May, we’ll introduce contracts on the Lightning Network at hodlhodl.com

This prompts us to consider returning to the US — the only country, for which we restrict citizens/residents from accessing our platform. Previously, we attempted to expand to the US market, but later closed access for US citizens/residents, and this has remained the case, up until this moment.

Now, we want to learn about demand & understand how interesting it would be for the public, if Hodl Hodl became accessible for all United States customers again.

We’d also like to explain how this relates to Lightning Network & the nodes.

Let’s get everything in order.

Why return?

Lightning Network implementation.

We’re now one step away from introducing contracts on the Lightning Network at hodlhodl.com, and this is the main factor that makes us think about the US market.

Currently, the United States has the most Lightning nodes & highest capacity of every country in the world.

Considering this, we truly believe Hodl Hodl returning to the US would be interesting for people as we’re implementing this technology on our platform.

2. Source of traffic by country.

In 2018, Hodl Hodl restricted US customers from using our services. Despite this, from that moment on, almost 25% of all visits to our exchange have been from the United States.

That’s an insane number, and it’s the highest percentage of visits by any country to Hodl Hodl.

3. Global availability.

The United States has the 3rd largest population in the world, and one of our main ideas and core values has always been worldwide and mass availability.

Hodl Hodl has always sought to expand globally: we have partners in different locations in the world, and we are constantly adding new languages to the exchange, etc.

Thus, we would like to change the fact that the United States remains the only country that we restrict citizens/residents from accessing our services.

Challenges we face

It’s worth asking “Why not just open access for US customers?” Fair enough, but we face a challenge (the main challenge we face) — regulation. We always seek the latest news, laws, and guidance related to the US market, which is the reason why we have not yet opened access for US customers.

The United States is famous for its strict laws and measures, and by expanding to this market we would like to be sure that we are complying with every single law and doing everything right, in order to mitigate risks.

Therefore, this decision requires deep study and a lot of resources. Since Hodl Hodl is a start-up with limited resources, we would like to better understand whether there really is demand from US customers for our services.

Now, we would like to launch an initiative

called “Vote with your node”, which would show us whether there is clear demand for our services in the United States.

If we receive a positive response to this question, we promise to devote all of our resources towards allowing US customers to have access to our services in the shortest possible time frame.

How to vote

To cast a vote, you have to connect to either our TESTNET or MAINNET node, that is open and setup for clearnet only. For this, you would need your own Lightning Network node to be set up and running.

TESTNET pubkey:

0316314db4eb542d17b9a7ac6f6651fcb319fd3da279197d4f09a890fc303ecf2d@178.63.16.7:9737

MAINNET pubkey:

030bde3ee226b7cf456703811976e4241a929d11e5fc0549e9a1c6d10a8e23a738@178.63.16.7:9735

LND example:

1. For mainnet environment use Hodl Hodl Lightning node pubkey to connect:

lncli connect 030bde3ee226b7cf456703811976e4241a929d11e5fc0549e9a1c6d10a8e23a738@178.63.16.7:9735

2. Confirm connection using listpeers:

lncli listpeers

Vote will end

On the 31st of May, we will look at the results to better understand whether there’s demand from the US community for Hodl Hodl services.

We kindly ask you to share this to attract as many people as possible.

Reach us

Hodl!