HardenedSteel, retoaccess1 experiment with first ever public Haveno networks on mainnet

HardenedSteel¹ and retoaccess1² have separately started running the first two ever public Haveno³ networks⁴’⁵ on Monero’s mainnet, only 48 hours after woodser⁶’s quick start guide⁷ was published:

HardenedSteel's "haveno-mainnet":
-Fees: 1.5% (0% maker, 1.5% taker)

retoaccess1's "haveno-reto":
-Fees: 0.6% (0.5% maker, 0.1% taker)

Traders that want to test the software can either run available pre-built binaries⁸’⁹ or clone the repositories.

Initial reactions from the Monero community include calls for vigilance and warnings against multiple fragmented Haveno networks which could potentially bring about chaos:

We need to be very vigilant right now, as we are about to witness the very swift rise of a major power broker in our community. We don’t want to start using a Haveno network run by scammers or authoritarians. Each network is it’s arbitrators, and soon, the merchants on each one. (mister_monster)¹⁰

More networks are not better. More networks are more or less catastrophic. [..] I hope that people come to senses, stop talking about letting a hundred Havenos bloom, understand what a chaos that would be, and unite to build a very small number of networks, if more than 1 at all. (rbrunner7)¹¹

Note: use at your own risk and only trade with small amounts that you can afford to lose.

This is an ongoing story and the report will be updated when new information is available.

Update 24/5/14: note that HardenedSteel has temporarily (?) stopped working on their Haveno network - ‘Stalled development at this moment, don’t use.’¹²; Nihilist has published a Haveno tutorial for face-to-face fiat to XMR transactions¹³.

Update 24/5/26: new public Haveno network ‘HavenoMain’ heavily criticized by the community¹⁴.