Horizon State is returning with its token - an update from our team.
Hello Horizon State Community,
It’s been a while since our last update, but we’re still here, and we bring exciting news that we hope you’ll appreciate.
The past few years have been challenging for us, and our activity has been quieter than we’d hoped. Our goal has been to expand our voting platform into an on-chain SaaS product that can be used by anyone to create and verify their own elections, which could also integrate directly with DAOs.
Unfortunately, timing was not on our side in that endeavour. Back in 2020, we aimed to raise at least $250k up to $1m AUD through a crowdfunding campaign exclusively for Australian investors (a requirement by law through the platform we chose). We had lined up several industry investors who were set to cover most of this minimum target. But just before we launched the campaign, the crypto market took a significant downturn. Many of these investors, having lost substantial amounts of money, withdrew their support. As a result, we lost nearly $300k in promised investments from more than five investors, and we didn’t reach our target.
Over the years, we’ve also had to pass on two investment offers from venture capital firms and private equity groups. One outfit didn’t like us having so many shareholders from the community and was set on us removing them to progress (which we didn’t agree to), while the other fell apart after we couldn’t agree on payment terms after settling on a valuation.
Despite the challenges, we’ve had some positive moments. We successfully conducted another election for the South Australian State Government, a local council, several political parties, and multiple surveys. We also worked hard to secure large contracts with national and regional governments to be their election technology supplier, but understandably, many countries prefer locally developed software, and online elections have often not abided by the country’s constitutional law.
One request we’ve repeatedly received from our community over the years was to reissue the HST token. Initially, this didn’t align with our strategy as we were focused on traditional investments and lacked the resources for token deployment, promotion, and exchange listings. At the time, a tier-2 exchange listing required a minimum of 100k, usually more. But we do understand it was hard for many of you to watch us not deploy a token during the 2020/21 bull run.
With the rise of decentralised exchanges and lower transfer fees on newer protocols (like Base), as well as Ethereum updates reducing gas fees for airdrops, the process is now much easier. Our platform, which was initially built for crypto, can now more easily include everyone and integrate with the crypto ecosystem again.
We are exploring the possibility of launching a new token, and in the next few days or weeks, we may announce a date when holders of the previous HST token will receive an airdrop of the new HST token. Additionally, we will provide details on the launch of a small liquidity pool, allowing the new token to be traded. The airdrop will include anyone who held tokens in a private wallet, but unfortunately, those who stored their tokens on exchanges will not.
We have intentionally excluded former Horizon State team members and organisations that received payments from the company’s treasury in the past and/or were responsible for its past problems before we owned it. We manually reviewed the records, identified the wallets we were able to, and excluded them from the airdrop.
Starting with a strong technology base, our immediate goal is to gradually enhance our voting system, incorporating an on-chain voting engine where clients can build custom elections, make changes, view results, and pay with crypto all on their own. All revenue from this platform will be used to either purchase and burn HST tokens, creating a deflationary effect over time, or increase the tokens liquidity pool.
For now, we are happy to manually create elections on behalf of clients, accept payments in HST (or buy the HST ourselves on their behalf), and burn all tokens received as part of our effort to reduce the total token supply gradually.
We want to be fully transparent about the airdrop, which is completely free for all recipients. Here are the key details as we currently see things:
- A total of 500 million tokens will be issued (up from the previous 48 million).
- 50% of the total supply is allocated to former token holders (60% if you include tokens the company held). This consists of:
- 35% of the total supply will be airdropped to the top 2500 wallets that held more than 200 tokens on August 19, 2019, at 11 am Australian Eastern Standard Time. This is currently planned to be done in three tranches spaced 90 days apart, but we are also considering a market cap target for each airdrop.
For those who held tokens on exchanges or who don’t have access to their wallet we are airdropping to, we’ve set aside 15% of the total token supply into a pool, which can be manually claimed by providing evidence such as transaction history, blockchain records that prove deposits/payment, screenshots of your trading history, and relevant conversations. Please note, this process will be administratively time-consuming, and claims are unlikely to be processed at a one-to-one token basis. This pool will also have a time limit, and we will decide later how any unclaimed tokens are treated (airdropped, used, or sent to an address where they can’t be recovered, etc.). If you don’t have sufficient evidence that you lost tokens, there won’t be anything we can do for you. You can read more in our FAQ below.
- 35% of the total supply will be airdropped to the top 2500 wallets that held more than 200 tokens on August 19, 2019, at 11 am Australian Eastern Standard Time. This is currently planned to be done in three tranches spaced 90 days apart, but we are also considering a market cap target for each airdrop.
- 10% of tokens are reserved for the community members who invested in the Horizon State company. They contributed nearly $200k to support the company’s purchase and further development.
- 10% is allocated to the management team and future contributors to incentivise continued progress.
- 15% is set aside for the company’s treasury, bringing the total treasury allocation to 25% of the total supply.
- 5% is set aside for the liquidity pool to be used as required. This pool may grow if many tokens are left unclaimed.
We understand there may be many questions, and our team on Telegram will help as they’re able. If you have criticisms or ideas on how our plans could be improved in a way that benefits the community, we ask you to respectfully communicate them.
One point we want to emphasise is that we will not tolerate abuse or unhelpful comments intended to derail our goodwill, particularly those rooted in historic grievances against the previous management team. To be very clear: the current management team is separate from the former one, and none of us benefited from the old company’s treasury. We have excluded those who did from this airdrop.
We don’t know how the token will go, but we believe it’s the best way to re-engage the community and move toward a model where the community can hold a stake in the platform itself. We are putting the token out there and allowing the community to decide how to support it. With a lot of discussion around the world about the US Government considering blockchain elections going forward, now is a good time to capitalise on growing interest in our technology, especially in our region of the world.
We hope this marks the beginning of a resurgence of the incredible HST community we had years ago, and we’re excited to reconnect with many of you soon.
See you in our Telegram channel
Warm regards,
The Horizon State Management Team
Frequently Asked Questions:
What is the token distribution?
Once all tokens have been issued, the token distribution is planned to be as follows:
- 10% allocated to the management team and staff
- 25% for the company (an increase of 15% of the total supply)
- 10% for the company’s shareholders who supported its survival
- 35% for the airdrop
- 15% set aside in a claimable fund for individuals who lost tokens in the past
- 5% for the initial liquidity pool (with potential for future increases)
How will the airdrop work, and when will it happen?
We plan to launch the token shortly and distribute the airdropped tokens to previous addresses in three equal tranches, with each tranche representing a third of the total amount allocated to the airdrop. These distributions will occur every 90 days, though we may also set market cap targets that could trigger additional tranches.
I lost tokens in the past on an exchange, what can I do?
We understand how frustrating this situation can be. To help, we have allocated 15% of the total coin supply to assist individuals who lost tokens on exchanges or who no longer have access to their wallets from 2019. Our team will review any evidence you have to prove ownership of tokens from around or after August 19, 2019. This evidence could include block explorer links showing your personal wallet transactions to the exchange where the tokens were lost, screenshots confirming wallet ownership (such as logged-in views showing the receive address), trading history from exchanges, or even screenshots of conversations mentioning the lost tokens.
Please note that reimbursements are unlikely to be done on a one-to-one basis, and each case will be evaluated individually. The best way to proceed is to join our Telegram channel for HST Claims and submit your evidence where the group admins will review.
Make sure you have all the necessary documentation ready before contacting us, including links to your wallet on a block explorer. Please do not only send screenshots and expect us to extract your wallet address manually; we will not process requests that are not properly documented.
How long until claimed tokens are paid out?
In some cases, your claimed tokens may be distributed immediately. However, it’s more likely that your tokens will be queued for the next airdrop tranche. This approach allows us to process claims in batches, which helps manage the administrative workload.
How long can we claim tokens, and what happens to unclaimed tokens?
Tokens can be claimed for up to six months. After this period, we will consult with the community to determine what to do with any unclaimed tokens. The most probable options include using them for promotional purposes, sending them to an unrecoverable address (burning them essentially) or adding them to the liquidity pool if it is required.