Huckleberry AMA Dec 21st 2021 — Moonriver Unofficial Telegram group

The AMA was hosted in the $MOVR Unofficial telegram group (https://t.me/moonriverunofficial) on Dec 21st 2021.

Lucky (LL): — Hey Finn! Awesome to have you here mate, thanks a lot for coming! :)

Finn: Thanks for having me! Really cool to see that you’re startin’ to do AMAs!

LL: Good stuff! Must feel great to be the guest of the opening one! So, can you give us an opening pitch on Huckleberry? :)

Finn: Haha! I’m the guinea pig! And sure! Hello to all the MOVRines! For those who don’t know me, my name is Finn. I’m the founder of Huckleberry, a community-focused DEX on Moonriver with a crosschain twist.

Huckleberry was started as a kind of passion project. The whole founding team has been in crypto for what seems like forever, working for mid/large crypto projects, and we wanted to build something a little more agile on a promising blockchain like Moonriver

Our goal is simple — make a DEX that follows the will of the people, and that prioritizes creating value for users at every turn. We do this in lots of different ways, but we can share a bit more about that later :)

LL: Passion is the best driver! An user oriented approach definitely adds a ton of value in crypto!

I saw you’ve been making more and more integrations and partnerships recently. What’s on the works for Huckleberry’s near future?

Finn: something that is sorely lacking in the world! Ya. You know, Moonriver, as an ecosystem, is so so young. From the start, I felt it was important to help build up the other solid projects — at least as much as we could. That’s why you’ve seen us partner with so many native Moonriver projects — Kafe, MoonBeans, 1swap, RivrKitty, H2O, RivrDoge, etc. In these early days, I really feel we’re best served working together

We’ve got lots of things coming up. We just wrapped our 12 days of Christmas campaign, where we had 1 announcement a day for 12 straight days

LL: Absolutely! Moonriver is so young and with amazing potential. Sticking together and building as a whole is key!

Halaster (Hal): Yes, I have followed that closely. There are many ties between you and the native projects.

Finn: This saw us add major features like single-sided MOVR staking, a new wave of audits, a NFT collaboration with MoonBeans (coming 2022!!) and so much more. We also have a lending platform — one that builds value for FINN holders — right around the corner — probably closer than some of you might imagine!

LL: Wow that’s some fresh alpha Ser!

Finn: When you meet good projects along the way, you can’t help but want to collaborate

Hal: Indeed, lending is something that in my opinion is a missing puzzle piece on Moonriver so far

LL: Agreed!

Who composes the team that is driving Huckleberry forward?

Finn: It was a little surprising to be honest… although there was Neku for a little while….

This is always a trickier question that you might imagine haha. We’re an ever-growing team at Huckleberry, now with at least 20 people includin’ our fine Drifter Guides (Community Managers). I’d say the core team is smaller — 10 people including 6 devs, and up to 7 Drifter Guides recruited from the community.

But as I mentioned, all the core Huckleberry team have other jobs in the industry, so we pull from our networks as necessary. To give you an idea, last month, 12 different devs contributed to Huckleberry in some way. Its really a community effort. In more ways than one!

LL: Always great to have such a diversified array of people working with you! Everyone has a different input!

Hal: That is interesting indeed, I often wondered how much manpower is behind Huckleberry

Finn: We are definitely not understaffed haha. But just to clarify, this isn’t 20 people working full time on Huckleberry. But we have lots of people pitchin’ in :)

Hal: I got your point

Wizard: I like that communtiy effort !

Finn: Maybe one day we’ll have 20 full time developers on staff after Moonriver and Moonbeam take off

$FINN is Huckleberry’s reward and governance token. It’s really at the center of the whole project. Unlike with some other farms, $FINN isn’t just give as a reward with no hold/buy pressure in place. This is something we focused on in the original design, and is also why we decided to give $FINN a passive’ sailin’ function

$FINN is a 1% reflect token, meaning that 1% of every $FINN transaction gets shared to all other $FINN holders, proportional to their holdings. So if you hold $FINN, you’re constant earning $FINN.

(We call it passive sailin’ as its more fun haha)

Then, we make sure to have $FINN included in as many of our rivers (farming pools) as possible, so people aren’t inclined to just dump their rewards

LL: I like the easy n’ lazy passive income approach!

Finn: We also encourage users to stake FINN for $TOM, which allows $FINN holders to benefit even more from the DEX by sharing a portion of fees and FINN will also let users vote in our governance platform once it launched in 2022 so $FINN is really in every part of our project. There is no Huckleberry without $FINN

LL: Smart way to keep it more sustainable and healthy!

Hal: I like to raise a point: I am really interested in security when I invest so I have a specific question as we had several security issues in crypto lately. How does Huckleberry ensure the security of funds for their users? And furthermore as you have been audited: How did your audit influence actions towards safety and security?

Finn: We’ve actually completed 3 separate audits! $TOM and Huckleberry Excursions (single-sided staking) were audited as part of our 12 days of christmas campaign haha (give the people what they want!)

But to answer your question more directly, we have security at the forefront of our minds at all times as well (who doesn’t). So we design our contracts in such a way that we don’t give ourselves any super admin privileges. This means we can’t access users funds even if we wanted to.

Then, with this design goal in mind, we audit everything so you don’t have to take our word for it. Leave it to the professional accredited independent auditors to review the code

But of course, our code is also on Github for tech savvy users to review if they want to… even if this sometimes ruins the surprise of new features we’re planning!

LL: So for now you’re using snapshot or a similar tool for governance and to vote on emissions, reward distribution per river, etc?

Or governance is not implemented yet?

Finn: The formal governance platform isn’t launched yet, so we’re still doing it informally in our community. The formal governance platform will launch in 2022, and users will be able to make proposals and vote using $TOM

LL: Great to know security is a top priority in your development! I’d say that’s an absolute must in DeFi!

Finn: No argument there!

LL: Really cool to have your own platform to give a voice to your holders! After all, holders own a share of the project! :)

Finn: We’re also able to do this since we had a 100% fair launch. no private investors, no resales, no pre-minted tokens for the team

LL: I saw that you mentioned $TOM here. Can you dive a bit deeper into the dynamics between your tokens $FINN and $TOM?

Matching Moonriver’s motto there!

Finn: So because there aren’t VCs or other investors that got in ahead of time, there aren’t any conflicts of interest when making decisions about the DEX. We’re free to listen and execute on community feedback in a way we wouldn’t be without the 100% fair launch.

Hal: Maybe you like to share some hard facts? How many holders of $FINN are we speaking about atm?

Finn: That’s right! $TOM is an incredibly powerful part of Huckleberry. You can think of $TOM as being the staking receipt for $FINN. The $FINN/$TOM relationship is very similar to the JOE/xJOE relationship on Trader Joe

So all users can stake $FINN in Tom’s House, and they receive $TOM. $TOM always grows in value against $FINN as it receives a portion of DEX fees. It will also receive part of our lending protocol fees. So holding $TOM is a good idea. Even cooler is you can then take $TOM and stake it for other tokens — whether it be our partners like BEANS, KAFE, 1SWAP, etc… or you can even stake $TOM for $FINN and create a fun little loop. $TOM is all benefits as there’s no impermanent loss in single-sided staking.

We should be a little shy of 4000 holders now

LL: Interesting to see the dynamics you’ve created between the two tokens!

Finn: I think so! It’s not a completely original creation, of course. It’s heavily inspired by JOE/xJOE. But we take it a bit further since TOM can be used for governance voting (since TOM doesn’t have a 1% reflect).

LL: The recurring cascade of yields sounds good!

Finn: Like I said at the start, everything Huckleberry does is to create value for our users and FINN (or TOM!) holders

This is just one of many examples

LL: I like the way you think Sir!

Getting endorsed by the foundation was definitely something to cheer on! Do you have a roadmap covering your long term objectives/vision?

Finn: That was certainly nice of them to add us to the website! So a big thank you to the Moonbeam/Moonriver team for that

We’ve got lots of things planned for 2022 (including publishing a proper roadmap!), but here’s what we’ve shared with the community so far:

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — Recent & Upcomin’ Milestones
Upcomin’ Rivers
You tell us!
DEX

✅ Tom’s House

✅ Excursions

✅ Stake $TOM for $FINN

✅ $MOVR single-sided staking

Optional Eco Tax

Dual river rewards

Integrated crosschain bridges

Better sortin’ options for Rivers

More trees

You tell us!

Community

2022 roadmap

Custom guides about DEFI concepts such as Impermanent Loss

✅ Complete CoinGecko listing

Complete Coinmarketcap listing

Launch Huckleberry Discord

Launch formal Governance

You tell us!

Other

Huckleberry X MoonBeans functional NFTs

Incredibly secret collaborations with other Moonriver projects

New DEX backgrounds

A platform where users can deposit collateral and procure other tokens against that collateral

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Hal: Wow that’s much on the plate

Finn: You can see things like the formal governance platform there, a lending platform, a fun collaboration for a series of functional NFTs with Moonbeans. and of course, each piece will build value for Huckleberry’s users :)

Hal: I have a question concerning your roadmap that will surely be of interest for our Moonriver community

Finn: Is it about the trees?

Hal: No :-) Will you remain on Moonriver only or do you intend to extend to Moonbeam as well?

Finn: our most requested feature… animated trees for the DEX background lol. The second most often asked question!

LL: The million dollar question! Great input

Finn: We have plans for Moonbeam, but we’re still discussing how best to deploy (only bridge existing $FINN, mint new tokens that are fungible with existing tokens, mint completely new tokens on moonbeam, etc). If anyone was in our TG channel today, you’ll have seen we were discussing all these topics with the community. because ultimately, the Huckleberry community will decide together

Hal: In the end it is up to governance to a great extend

Finn: But no matter what things look like on Moonbeam, it won’t be at the expense of Moonriver, or the existing community

LL: Awesome. So will it be voted upon governance to some extent?

Finn: Ya

LL: Nice to hear that!

Finn: Even though formal governance hasn’t launched yet, everything we’ve done has been influenced (i’ll stop short of saying decided) by the community. once governance launches officially, then I can say “decided by the community” haha

Hal: Community is crucial to success so this is the way

Finn: Its the single most important piece of the puzzle. no hesitation in saying that

LL: What would you say are your main challenges going forward?

Finn: Great question! And one that deserves a thoughtful answer. The whole journey is a challenge in a way. I personally spend a lot of energy making sure we don’t forget why Huckleberry exists (to create value for our users) and the reason we had a 100% fair launch.

Maintaining the community feel that we currently have, as we continue to grow, is another big concern of mine. We really have a great community right now, and I want to preserve that as long as possible.

From the technical side of things, our devs are so incredibly accomplished already that I don’t worry too much about it but there’s always managerial challenges to keep everyone on the same page. Nothing out of the ordinary for anyone who’s ever had to manage teams before though! Haha

Hal: I like the confidence you have in the team! It seems the setup for Huckleberry is well set.

Finn: It helps that I’ve worked with a lot of the people before in other capacities, so the trust is there

LL: Indeed mate! Love to see it! We will now open the chat to your questions, MOVRines! The chat will be open for a bit so you can ask your question to Finn. We will then mute the chat again so Finn can pick the 5 best ORIGINAL questions (no copy pasting :) ) 5 winners will win $180 in $FINN each!

Q&A SESSION Q1: How did you come up with the Huckleberry theme? Really original Idea when compared to other dexs.

Finn: Thanks! I also think our theme and narrative helps set us apart, and also serves as inspiration when designing new features. The original idea for the name came to me early on when we were just thinking about launching the project on Moonriver. I was listening the song “Moonriver” by Audrey Hepburn, and there’s a line where she says “My Huckleberry Friend”. So that’s where the name came from. From there, it was an easy pivot to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as there’s a little more lore to pull from!

Q&A SESSION Q2: When you started Huckleberry you stated that the project was supported by a “small team of like- minded drifters (…) workin’ on a volunteer basis”. Based on your previous answer I guess this is no longer the case or is this still the case. Have you evolved to a dedicated team paid for by Huckleberry?

Finn: Seems like you were really paying attention! At the start, since we didn’t pre-mint any tokens for ourselves, we really were all just volunteering our time and paying for everything out of pocket. Now, I guess it isn’t accurate to say we’re volunteers anymore. The Huckleberry team receives a small portion of the FINN token emissions, which I distribute to the team on a monthly basis.

Q&A SESSION Q3: Do you have an official relationship with Wanchain? Huckleberry has a great respect for Wanchain’s community and even the latest $FINN airdrop had a greater share allocated to $WAN holders.

Finn: Depends what you mean by official! We aren’t formally partners or anything like that (yet!), but we do speak to the team. They even sponsored a $WAN Excursion (Stake $TOM, Earn WAN). We’ve also connected them with other projects on Moonriver who needed some custom crosschain support.

Q&A SESSION Q4: Could you tell more results about partnership with Beefy?

Finn: Working with Beefy was great. It was awesome to learn from such an established project and they were really generous. 100% would recommend!

Q&A SESSION Q5: What is the different roles of $FINN and $TOM ? What kind of benefits does the holders get and Can we participate in the governance by holding tokens?

Finn: $FINN is Huckleberry’s primary token. $TOM is a receipt for staking $FINN. The relationship between $FINN/$TOM is basically the same as JOE/xJOE.

When you hold $TOM, you constantly earn more and more $FINN as $TOM receives DEX fees, passive sailing and eventually lending protocol fees. You can use $TOM to earn other tokens (even $FINN!) by staking it in our Excursions (like syrup pools). $TOM is also what you people will actually use for voting (since there is no 1% reflect associated with it). But $TOM itself isn’t really traded, you just redeem $TOM for $FINN at any time.

If you want to just try out $TOM, we’re currently running a Huckleberry $TOM Giveaway on Twitter (https://twitter.com/HuckleberryDEX/status/1472629828952150016)

LL: Thanks a lot for the amazing AMA @Huckleberry_DEX ! Awesome having you here mate!

F: Thanks for the invite! This was great!

Hal: Really, I learned a lot today. Thanks for having you, Finn!

F: Finn, Huckleberry Finance
LL: Lucky Luciano, Admin Moonriver Unofficial
Hal: Halaster, Admin Moonriver Unofficial
Wizard: Wizard of Crypto, Admin Moonriver Unofficial