_{Cover image: custom SVG illustration, rendered to PNG}

Why I Built Keelhaven

Today I'm launching something I've been building: Keelhaven, a community pool for EDSI holders on Hive.

For a long time I held EDSI just like many of you. I collected my dividends, checked the price now and then, and that's it. But every time I opened the order book, I saw the same thing: EDSI going a little above 1 HIVE, then a little below, then back again. Up, down, up, down. And my EDSI just sat there watching it all happen.

So one night I asked myself a simple question: what if my EDSI could do something with those ups and downs, without me sitting in front of the screen all day?

That question turned into a bot, the bot turned into a pool, and the pool now has a name, a website and a home. Since many of my Hive friends hold EDSI too, I decided not to keep it for myself only. I opened the gates so you can come aboard as well.

What Is EDSI, and Why Does It Drift?

Before the fun part, let me explain the basics for newer Hivers, because without them the rest won't make sense.

EDSI is a token on Hive-Engine, the token layer that runs on top of Hive. It's a fund-backed token, which means its value is tied to a pool of real assets. Because of that, its price keeps coming back to around 1 HIVE.

EDSI holders also get dividends, paid in HIVE, from the @edsi-pay account. Most of the time they come on Mondays, but sometimes on another day, or after a skipped week.

Now here's the interesting part. Even though EDSI always comes home to 1 HIVE, it doesn't stay glued there. Buyers and sellers push it to 1.02, then 0.98, then 1.05, then back again.

In simple words: EDSI is like a boat tied to a dock. It never floats away, but the waves keep moving it up and down.

The Idea: Turning the Waves Into Extra EDSI

The idea behind Keelhaven is very simple.

When EDSI is cheap, below 1 HIVE, the pool picks some up. When EDSI is expensive, above 1 HIVE, the pool lets some go. Every round trip leaves a little extra in the pool, and that extra belongs to everyone in it, by their share.

_{Illustration only, not real price data}

That's it. No magic, no leverage, no 100x promises. Just patiently using the waves that EDSI already makes every week.

Why the name? A keel is the long fin under a ship that keeps it steady in rough water. A haven is a safe harbor. Together, Keelhaven is a steady harbor for your EDSI, a place where the waves work for you instead of just rocking you around.

Idle EDSI vs EDSI in Keelhaven

Same EDSI, same dividends. The only difference is whether it sits still or works the waves.

_{Same EDSI, two very different lives}

Idle EDSI is like a boat tied to the dock. Safe, but it goes nowhere. EDSI in Keelhaven is the same boat, but with someone at the wheel, catching the waves while you sleep.

How It Works for You: Four Simple Steps

No app, no sign-up, no website login. Everything happens with normal Hive transfers and clear memos.

1. Send EDSI. Send EDSI on Hive-Engine to @dlmmqb.com-5 with your own Hive name as the memo. That memo is your receipt.
2. Settle in for 7 days. Your deposit waits for one week before it starts earning. I'll explain why in the rules below.
3. Own units. After 7 days, your EDSI becomes pool units. You keep the same number of units, but each unit's value grows when the pool gains.
4. Collect dividends. Whenever EDSI dividends reach the pool, your share is sent straight to your wallet in HIVE.

Units in simple words
Think of a jar with 6 coins. The day you join, each coin is worth 1 EDSI. After some good waves, you still have 6 coins, but each one is worth a bit more. Nobody needs to count anything again. Your coins just get heavier.

_{Same number of units, more value inside each one}

House Rules and Fees

These rules are the same for everyone, including my own deposits. Yes, I'm also in the pool with the same rules.

• EDSI only. Deposits are EDSI with your Hive name as the memo. A friend can deposit for you by putting your name in the memo. A blank memo credits the sender. If someone sends another token by mistake, I return it by hand.

• The 7-day settling period. New deposits earn nothing for their first 7 days. This stops anyone from jumping in one night before a dividend and jumping out the next morning, taking a share they didn't earn.

• Dividends in HIVE, any day. Whenever @edsi-pay pays the pool, the dividend is split by units and sent to you as HIVE. Tiny amounts below 0.001 HIVE wait and carry over, so nothing is lost.

• Withdrawals in EDSI. Ask for all or an amount. Your units stop earning at that moment. You get the EDSI that's available right away, and if the pool is holding HIVE after a rise, the rest follows as the pool buys EDSI back. Every transfer memo tells you what was sent and what's left.

• Changed your mind? While part of a withdrawal is waiting, you can cancel it. The unpaid part rejoins the pool with a fresh 7-day settling period.

Dev Log: One Long Night in Karachi

Now the behind-the-scenes part, for those who like to know how the sausage is made.

I built Keelhaven with help from Claude, and honestly, most of the time didn't go into code. It went into thinking. Before a single line was written, we spent hours arguing about rules: who owns what, what happens if someone joins the night before a dividend, what happens if my laptop is off for a whole month, how to make it so nobody can game the system.

A few decisions I'm proud of:

• No cloud bills. Hive-Engine volumes are small, and cloud servers can easily cost more than the bot earns. So Keelhaven runs on my own laptop, quietly in the background, every 10 to 20 minutes, using only about 11 MB of memory. My laptop has many other bots to babysit, so this one had to stay light.

• Nothing is lost if my laptop dies. The code and the pool's ledger are backed up to GitHub after every single run. If my laptop is stolen tomorrow, I clone it on a new one and the pool continues exactly where it stopped.

• It remembers where it left off. The bot doesn't read the whole blockchain every time. It keeps a bookmark and reads only what's new, even after a week or a month offline.

• Tested before trusted. Before touching real EDSI, the system went through 10 tests on a simulated blockchain: deposits, dividends, withdrawals, a month-long gap, even crashes in the middle of a payment, to make sure nobody ever gets paid twice.

Around sunrise, I did the first real test: I sent 1 EDSI into the pool and asked for it back. A few seconds later it landed in my wallet with the memo "withdrawal complete". That tiny 1 EDSI round trip felt better than my morning chai.

Challenges Along the Way

Of course, nothing goes smooth in one go. Here are the bumps I hit, in plain words.

1. "Same in, same out" vs sharing profits. My first idea was simple: whatever you put in, you take out. But the moment the pool sells your EDSI on a high, that EDSI doesn't exist anymore to give back. The fix was the unit system: everyone owns a share of the whole pool, and withdrawals that can't be paid at once get paid in parts as EDSI comes back.

2. The dividend snipers. We realised someone could deposit on Sunday night, grab Monday's dividend, and leave on Tuesday. That's unfair to people who stayed all week. The 7-day settling period closed that door.

3. The window that refused to hide. The bot was supposed to run silently, but Windows 11 kept popping up a black terminal window every time it started. Turns out Windows Terminal ignores the "hidden" setting. Even worse, my fix didn't save the first time, so I kept reinstalling the old version and wondering why nothing changed. Lol. A different launch method finally made it invisible.

4. Running a command from the wrong folder. The next day I proudly typed the command to check balances and got a scary red error. I was simply standing in the wrong folder. Classic midnight-coder mistake.

5. The 404 website. I uploaded the website, opened the link, and got "There isn't a GitHub Pages site here." My heart sank for a second. The fix was one dropdown in the settings that was still set to None.

None of these were dramatic, but each one taught me something. And documenting these dumb little struggles is exactly what turns a frustrating night into something useful for the next person.

The Website

I wanted the rules in one clean place, so anyone can read them before trusting me with their EDSI. So Keelhaven got its own home:

muhammadqasimbutt.github.io/keelhaven

_{The Keelhaven home page}

The theme is a calm harbor at night: deep navy water, sea-glass teal, brass and a warm moon. Every illustration on the site is a hand-drawn SVG, from the ship with its long keel to the two jars of coins that explain units.

On the site you'll find the side-by-side comparison of idle vs pooled EDSI, the four steps, all house rules, the fees, and an FAQ. It works nicely on phone too, so you can read it while waiting in a queue. And it's hosted free on GitHub Pages, because I already told you how I feel about paying cloud bills.

The Honest Part

I'll be straight with you, because you're my Hive friends and not customers.

• EDSI's price isn't guaranteed. It has always come back to around 1 HIVE, but there's no promise it always will. If it falls and stays down, the pool falls with it.

• Gains depend on waves. In a quiet market there may be few trades, and some weeks nothing extra at all.

• Withdrawals can take time. If the pool is holding HIVE when you leave, part of your EDSI waits until the pool can buy it back below 1 HIVE.

• Dividends can be a bit lower. EDSI that the pool has sold earns no dividends until it's bought back.

• I hold the keys. The funds sit in one Hive account that I control. You're trusting me, my code and my laptop.

• It runs when my laptop runs. If my laptop is off, deposits, dividends and withdrawals wait for the next run, which can be days later.

Not financial advice
Keelhaven is an independent community pool. It isn't run by or affiliated with the EDSI project or @edsi-pay. Only put in what you're comfortable leaving for a while.

How to Join

Joining takes one transfer:

• Say hello to me on Discord first, so I know you're coming.
• Send EDSI on Hive-Engine like this:

token   EDSI
to      dlmmqb.com-5
memo    your-hive-name

• Wait for your 7-day settling period, and you're aboard.

Want to know your balance anytime? Just message me, and I'll share your units, their value in EDSI, any dividends waiting, and any open withdrawal.

Stay safe
Keelhaven will never ask for your keys. You only ever send EDSI from your own wallet using Hive Keychain or your usual wallet. If anyone DMs you claiming to be Keelhaven and asks for keys, it's a scam.

Over to You

This is the first version of Keelhaven, and I built it the Hive way: in public, with friends, and with lots of chai.

Do you hold EDSI? Would you rather keep it idle in your wallet, or let it work the waves? And which part of the rules would you change if it were your pool?

Tell me in the comments. I'd love to hear your angle, and the best ideas might end up in Keelhaven 2.0.

Thanks to @spiritsurge (Founder of Surgent Gaming Studio for Sponsoring Claude subscription)