Haveno network is now live ! : Monero | Torhoo darknet markets

This is a historic moment.

On May 12, Woodser, the dev of Haveno, wrote a new documentation file to explain how to run a maintest network (trades using the actual blockchain of monero).

It didn't want to launch the network himself, by fears of repercussion in light of the recent events of samourai wallet/tornado cash arrest. So the original Council of Haveno that would receive the fees (the part that was criticized for being too centralized) was dissolved.

A Haveno netwok can be started by anybody with their own rules about fees and other parameters.

First, there was a new network launched by hardened_steel. But because the fees set for arbitrators was high (3%) and because he was the sole arbitrator of his network, another network was setup by a more serious and apparently anonymous team that called themselves Reto.

Reto Haveno network has low fees (0.6% for maker and taker combined, 0.15% for arbitrators). They plan to remove the fees of the taker for small amount, so that someone without xmr can still get some on this network.

They launched their network on May 14 and after a few things to fix, the first trades completed a few hours later. Woodser is still present to fix things when needed.

You can connect to the Reto Haveno Network right now if you are not afraid of finding bugs, since it is very new.
For this, you can:
download releases from github (but you need an account): https://github.com/retoaccess1/haveno-reto/actions/runs/9081479642
OR
compile it yourself following these instructions: https://codeberg.org/Reto-HavenoDEX/RetoConfig

If you wait a little (days, weeks ?), surely the Reto will make a public release with easier ways to install Haveno.

Understand that anyone can setup a Haveno Network with their own rules, and that they won't be able to communicate to each other for now. There is an open issue discussed about possible solutions: https://github.com/haveno-dex/haveno/issues/901

In practice, there is only one network today, the Reto one, since hardened_steel network has been abandoned both by users and creator.
It makes me smile because that's a little bit like the beginning of Monero where it was a fork of ByteCoin to have (amongst other things) a fair launch.

TLDR: Haveno is live, you can use it now or wait a bit to have a better user experience.