A New Journey for Hacken Starts Now. Announcing Our Token Migration to VeChain, Partnership With the CREAMethod Incubator and the Unveiling of HackenAi

13 min readAug 2, 2019

Letter to the Hacken Community

My first dive into cryptocurrencies was back in June 2017. This life-changing experience coincided with the largest ransomware cyberattack in history, “Petya”, which tremendously affected the US and many companies across Europe, with a total damage of more than $10 billion. This event was the catalyst for me to lead our team of cybersecurity experts and a community of thousands of white hat hackers and crypto enthusiasts to fight back. We made the decision to form the crowdsourced security platform — Hacken.

We immediately began working on the Hackenproof bug bounty platform, which, with the help of the community, resulted in world-class white hat hackers protecting more than 200 companies and projects including The US Department of Defence, AirAsia and TradingView to name a few. Together with our in-house cybersecurity engineers, we have prevented hundreds of cyberattacks and protected our clients from financial losses in the millions of dollars if not billions. I can’t thank the community enough for all the support and contribution towards Hacken. I truly appreciate it. This is just the beginning of our path to change the cybersecurity landscape, and in turn, change the world.

As an established leader in the traditional and blockchain cybersecurity industries, as well as the vast amount of data and experiences we have access to, we are in a position to be able to identify problems that others won’t see. We noticed that individual cryptocurrency holders became the primary target of fast-growing black hat hacker groups — in fact, many black hat hackers are putting all of their focus into crypto-hacking, as there are so many new unwitting, unprotected targets to be exploited. Every day, an average of up to $23million worth of cryptocurrencies are lost to scams, phishing, and hacking.

According to the Deloitte 2019 Global Blockchain Survey, cybersecurity risks remain one of the main hurdles for global enterprise blockchain and cryptocurrency technology adoption.

As it stands today, we re-evaluated our position and came to the sobering realization that it was time to break ourselves down and rebuild a new Hacken. For this, we needed expert guidance — we realized that it was absolutely integral to be partnered with CREAM to guide us towards our new journey. We are going to announce something that will certainly improve Hacken, from the inside out, which at the same time, sets ourselves up on a new and important path. Together with the help of the community, we can revolutionize how people interact with cryptocurrencies and crypto platforms. We will announce Hacken’s elevated strategic plan to build a new product to guide and assist users in proactively preventing all known cyber risks. There will be a focus on cryptocurrency platforms and applications, to proactively protect users’ crypto assets every minute. Furthermore, we will announce and proclaim a completely new and innovative mechanism called “Cyberprotection Mining”. I hope you are as excited about our complete makeover as our private investors!

I am grateful and humbled by the Hacken community members for sticking with us through thick and thin, everyone at Hacken is at your service. I also invite new members to join our cause, to be a pillar of our community, and to grow with us in this new era, to achieve a worthy goal, to make people’s lives a bit less hectic.

Dmitriy Budorin

CEO @ Hacken

A Brief Introduction on Hacken

At Hacken, we invest time and effort into crypto transparency and accountability research. We have a proven track record in the history of our organization, protecting over 200 enterprises and over 50 cryptocurrency projects. We run the most successful bug bounty platform in the entire blockchain space, HackenProof, with clients utilizing our 2000-strong whitehat hacker community to ensure that their projects are safe, secure, and trusted.

Hacken’s Selected Blockchain Industry Enterprises Clients.

Hacken’s Selected Traditional Enterprise Clients.

Besides the focus on cybersecurity and hack prevention, Hacken is also a truth seeker. Our research team relentlessly works on the analysis and research of cryptocurrency exchanges. In fact, we are the only cybersecurity partner of Coinmarketcap DATA alliance.

https://coinmarketcap.com/data-transparency-alliance

We are proud to be recognized as the industry’s best, in terms of crypto cybersecurity.

We want to announce that we will be spending resources to build a research business line which will focus on exchange legitimacy and blockchain security. We will publish reports and rankings depending on our own independent research. A predecessor of such business line is already released, CER.live.

We will improve upon CER and we will make this line of business more robust and systematic, while creating valuable insights for the crypto community:

Exchange trading volume legitimacy: Does the exchange have real buyers and sellers? Or is it mostly wash trading?
Exchange cybersecurity: How secure is an exchange? How well protected are they against hacking and phishing attempts?
Exchange backend trading analysis: To scientifically determine if an exchange is solely acting as a standalone exchange, or is it actually involved in market making, or even buying or selling.
Reliable blockchain protocols: Lots of projects made a decision to build their own blockchain protocols without strong developers. This results in an enormous number of hacker attacks on weak protocols.

As we have achieved leadership status in the crypto cybersecurity space, our attention is naturally focused on our own prospects and existing business model. After a deep dive, we found out that our core business model wasn’t able to leverage our strengths as a market leader, nor incentivize our HKN holder community.

Our business model, and our own tokenomics was really hindering Hacken to be as good as we could be. We wanted to fix this and continue to do what we do best: cybersecurity. In order to revitalize our business model and strategy, we decided to apply for the CREAMethod incubator for a complete restructuring and reevaluation of our core product offerings, business model and tokenomics.

We now want to share with our HKN community the results of many months of in-depth discussions and collaborative efforts with our new partner CREAM. Today, we announce the decision to migrate our ERC-20 HKN token to the VeChainThor Blockchain, as well as introducing a brand new cybersecurity product that will allow any cryptocurrency holder to take their security to the next level: HackenAi.

Why CREAMethod?

CREAM is a leading strategic coaching, incubation and investment firm utilizing blockchain technology and crypto-economics, unleashing the potential of enterprises and start ups around the world.

Being a member of the CREAMethod incubator means that Hacken has been and will continue to receive valuable strategic advice and planning, business restructuring and business model upgrades. We will be able to strengthen the existing core strengths of Hacken through a collaborative effort, while allowing for a restructuring of the business strategy to allow for optimal long-term success for all stakeholders.

Already, the team at CREAM had been working with Hacken’s senior management team for many months, and has been instrumental in our efforts to restructure and revalue our existing product proposition.

CREAM and their CREAMethod incubator program has a proven track record. CREAM is a strategic advisor of the VeChain Foundation, the premiere public blockchain platform, adopted by dozens of enterprise clients and high level organizations and governments. CREAM has been instrumental to VeChain’s success.

In order to become a member of CREAMethod Incubator, Hacken will be migrating onto the VeChainThor Blockchain. All blockchain-related operations, including transactions, storage, smart contract development and token minting, will all be done on the VeChainThor Blockchain.

Why VeChain?

For the past year, the Hacken team has evaluated migration options to all major blockchain platforms. With the help of CREAM’s guidance, we looked into the VeChainThor blockchain, and as of right now, without a doubt, it is the best available option for us in the blockchain market for the following reasons:

Security. Hacken was a security auditor of the VeChainThor blockchain protocol. VeChainThor’s Proof of Authority consensus is one of the most secure methods to protect its users from currently known hacker attacks.
Technology. Unlike any other blockchain, VeChainThor’s Multi-Party Payment (MPP) and Multi-Task Transaction (MTT) brings greater accessibility, and will be important enablers of mass adoption. MPP is incredibly important for a smooth user experience, key for mass user adoption of blockchain technology. MPP allows for HackenAi to sponsoring of users’ transactions, making it more user-friendly for an audience that may not be blockchain-savvy enough to calculate the amount of gas they need in their wallet
Enterprise adoption. DNV GL, PWC, Deloitte, and many other corporations are actively working together with VeChain in pursuit of blockchain mass adoption. Hacken shares a similar enterprise client; we understand it takes a lot of professionalism and trustworthiness for enterprises of that caliber to lend their name.
Values and ethical principles. It’s no secret that most of the Hacken and VeChain core team have professional experience with Deloitte and PwC. We share the same values and ethical principles, allowing us to collaborate effectively.
VeChain Ecosystem. VeChain has an active community of projects built on the VeChainThor blockchain, like OceanEx, 8Hours, Plair, Safe Haven, and more.

Already, Team CREAM had been working with Hacken senior management for many months, and has been instrumental to our efforts to restructure and reevaluate our existing product proposition. Together, we are proud to announce today a brand new solution to a HUGE problem.

The New HackenAi SuperApp and the HAI Token

Old-World versus The New-Digital Age Problems

Have you ever imagined what would happen if your entire digital asset portfolio was hacked? Do you have any preventative measures in place? How secure is your wallet? How good are your cybersecurity habits, when you are dealing with passwords, private keys and other crucial personal info? How well do you know your weaknesses? What about the precautions you need to take for each individual crypto platform?

With the domination of centralized applications on the Internet, people have largely become complacent in terms of personal cybersecurity. For example, the money on your bank’s website is essentially just a display of digits. If your bank account is compromised by a withdraw hack, there is usually a way to reverse this charge or credit your account through an internal, behind-the-scenes process, which often involves back-dating or some kind of insurance scheme.

However, the new digital age that brought about the advent of distributed ledger technology and cryptocurrencies has changed the landscape. The “Digital Assets” you are holding are not just numbers anymore, they are actual assets which can be irreversibly stolen. This fundamental change in the actual substance of actual digital asset holdings brings a new landscape filled with dangers for new users, as well as opportunities for those at the forefront of the cybersecurity industry. With decentralized applications, such as cryptocurrency wallets, private keys and passwords are required to be remembered and protected by the end user.

Thanks to distributed ledger technology, we are at the forefront of a new digital revolution. Decentralized applications are about to play a major role in everyone’s lives; end users can no longer rely on third parties, and must take the security of their cryptocurrency wallets and passwords into their own hands. Because of the decentralized nature of blockchains, cryptocurrency enterprises (exchanges, wallet providers, etc), as well as individual users, have an ever-present need to proceed with extreme caution and due diligence. Without proper insurance providers, government guarantees, and transaction reversal methods on these immutable blockchains, funds can be lost forever.

Coupled with the inevitable mainstream adoption of cryptocurrencies, including Facebook’s Libra and San Marino’s Innovation Token, the world will be facing massive financial losses without a proper solution.

En masse, black hat hackers are adjusting their aim from conventional bank-associated platforms to those centered around the storage, trade, and transmission of cryptocurrency assets.

Source: Hacken Research

As leaders in the crypto cybersecurity industry, we at Hacken aim to solve the aforementioned problems with our new product, HackenAi.

HackenAi — The Essential Security Companion

The HackenAi (pronounced Hacken‘Eye’) product is designed in every way to fit into every facet of the modern cybersecurity landscape. Developed with all our expertise and experiences in this industry, HackenAi is a revolutionary B2C product aimed at solving long-standing problems, old and new in the cybersecurity space.

The key features of the HackenAi product are:

Preventative philosophy — The Healthcare industry has subscribed to this philosophy for decades, why not Cybersecurity?

HackenAi is a 360° cybersecurity companion product that incentivises users to learn good cybersecurity habits, so users can feel it’s simple, easy and even fun to protect themselves.
HackenAi also takes ownership of user cybersecurity, by consistently watching all potential threats and malpractices, and immediately prompts users with timely, detailed information, and even suggested steps to take in mitigating the risks of exploitation.

Proactive approach

At Hacken, we believe it is paramount that individuals actively take charge of their own cybersecurity, achieving a 99.9% level of protection against all known cybersecurity threats.
Using gamification incentive models, HackenAi guides and motivates users to take the small, but necessary steps toward a sufficient level of protection.
CyberCare Boot Camp as an innovative, proactive and fun solution for all internet users. Completion of the boot camp results in the user exceedingly improving their personal cybersecurity knowledgebase, as well as receive a cryptocurrency reward, in the form of increased status and privilege, and more directly in the form of HAI tokens.

HackenAi Introduces a new concept: “CyberProtection Mining”, powered by the new HAI Token.

Introducing the HAI Token

By migrating to the VeChainThor Blockchain, a transition will take place from the ERC-20 HKN Token to the VIP-180 HAI token, minted on the VeChainThor Blockchain.

For all of our loyal HKN holders, HKN will be swapped at a later date for HAI tokens. Stay tuned for the token swap ratio of HKN:HAI. In fact, as it stands today, as we write this letter, HKN holders will be substantially better off swapping to HAI. We truly appreciate the support, and we regard you all as family. As of the writing of this release, HKN token holders are in a comfortable position to benefit from HAI’s release.

The new HAI tokenomics and incentives are designed to reward loyal (HKN) holders in every way possible.

HAI will be the utility token that is needed to power various activities on HackenAi Platform:

HAI will be rewarded to users for joining the HackenAi platform and performing various incentivization tasks within the HackenAi environment.
Cryptocurrency Enterprises would need to stake HAI tokens to enlist Hacken’s professionals, research or White Hat community to perform services.
White Hat hackers can earn HAI to perform various tasks on the platform.
HAI is needed to subscribe to certain value-added services within the HackenAi application and ecosystem.
Holders of HAI will receive benefits from both HackenAi Platform, as well as our white hat community.
HAI Staking nodes will be embedded in the HackenAi application.
Much more! We will continue to announce features and utilities of the HAI token as we progress through the coming weeks.

New Token Issuance (NTI)

In addition to a tokenswap from HKN to HAI, an additional amount of HAI will be minted and exchanged for BTC and VET, for the purpose of application development, business development, marketing, community-building, bounties for White Hats, as well as a small reserve. A major mistake we made in our previous tokenomics of HKN was to not hold any extra tokens within the Foundation’s reserve, for the purpose of funding ongoing operations, but rather, we distributed all of the tokens.

As mentioned previously, as of the time of this writing, all HKN Holders will be rewarded for being loyal community members. Be a part of this new endeavor, and together, we will lead the crypto security revolution.

The HAI token will have a total supply of 1 billion, with an initial circulating supply of less than 30%, and our initial market cap will be kept relatively low with lock ups. We will publish additional media releases to explain more about the details of our NTI. Meanwhile, we want to start engaging the private investors, whom have been eagerly awaiting our launch, to encourage them to invest and claim their HAI right away. We already have a lot of interested private investors that are extremely excited, and after today, we will be able to start taking in private investors, at a 5 BTC minimum investment.

If you are willing to support this major opportunity in the new crypto cybersecurity industry, and you’d like to have enough supply for enterprise level staking later on, please join us in this upcoming private fundraising round. Please email support@creamandpartners.com or d.budorin@hacken.io for details.

The additional token sale will comprise of 3 major rounds, with smaller tranches for different groups. As we are officially joining the VeChain ecosystem by migrating our token, CREAM has taken the initiative to strongly encourage us to reward VeChain X Node holders. X Node holders are the most loyal community members and supporters of the VeChain Ecosystem and will have the very first public sale opportunity for the HAI fundraising.

A small portion of the HAI tokens will be made available for crowd sale at a later date. After the private sale and X node Holder sale, another small portion will be available for an additional special round, either dedicated to large buyers at a higher price, or through an IEO process. Yes, we are already in discussions with multiple exchanges for the listing of HAI.

Once again, we would like to take this opportunity to thank our loyal holders, as we would not be where we are today without their support. We are also excited to merge our communities with the CREAMethod Incubator and VeChain Ecosystem. Together, we can all create a safer, stress-free digital future, and we welcome everyone to come along on our journey.

Hacken Foundation