Tokenomics

Hacken Sold 13 Equity Slots for Tokens. The Cap Table Doesn't Show Them

8Blocks audited HES, Hacken's tokenized equity: 37/100, grade CCC. The business is profitable, but the share register shows no token holders.

8Blocks Team··3 min
Cover of the 8Blocks article on the HES audit: a turquoise Hacken coin on a glass platform

In March 2024, Hacken, the Web3 security auditor, let HAI holders swap their tokens for HES (Hacken Equity Share). There were 100 slots, each presented as 0,1% of the company, priced at 1M HAI per slot. Brickken ran the issuance.

Hacken sold 13 slots against a soft cap of 30. Two and a half years later, we ran HES through the 8Blocks audit template for RWA tokens on private company equity.

The result: 37/100, grade CCC. This token is risky.

The business is real. The token's claim on it isn't proven

Hacken OÜ files annual reports with the Estonian business register. In 2024 it booked €5,8m in revenue and €1,2m in profit. That's the strongest block in the audit, 8 out of 15.

The problem sits one step earlier. Register data, which we pulled through the aggregator datreal, splits 100% of Hacken OÜ among nine shareholders. Founder Dmytro Budorin holds 62,34%. No HES holder, nominee, or Brickken appears on the list.

No public document ties the token to a share. Holder rights live in marketing copy: "tokenized equity," dividends, access to board meetings.

Until that document exists, HES proves you joined an offering. It doesn't prove you own equity.

Nobody has said which company a slot belongs to

The 2023 announcement named 10% of Hacken OÜ. The offering page adds "Benefit from our UK PLC holding," with no name for the holding and no map to the Estonian entity.

What usually sits on page one of a term sheet is missing too: share class, number of shares per slot, anti-dilution terms. If the group restructures under a UK holding, "0,1% of what" becomes the holder's main question.

HAI's price set the valuation

A slot cost 1M HAI. There was no fiat price. Hacken itself warned about "varying fiat prices due to asset volatility."

We ran the numbers. On March 13, 2024, HAI's market cap stood at $57m with 645,7m tokens circulating. One slot cost roughly $88 000, which values the whole company near $88m. At HAI's peak on March 24, the same slot was worth about $221 000, or ~$221m for the company.

For context, in 2023, the last reporting year before the offering, Hacken OÜ posted €2,5m in revenue and a €1m loss. We found no independent valuation behind the slot price.

Within a single month, two investors could pay prices 2,5x apart for the same 0,1%.

In the Emirates the register question becomes a licensing condition. VARA and the ADGM regime treat a token representing equity in a private company as a security, and expect the holder-to-share chain to be documented before distribution: a nominee agreement or register entry, a stated licensing basis, and an exit with a date or formula.

Three exits promised, none open

Hacken offered holders three routes out: an IPO targeted for 2027, an authorized secondary market "soon after the round ends," and buybacks in future investment rounds.

As of Oct 26, 2026, there's no secondary market. The buyback is phrased as "consider seizing exit opportunities," with no price and no timeline. We found no public sign of listing preparation.

A HES holder's exit depends entirely on future decisions by the controlling shareholder. There's no contractual right to it.

The HAI incident raised a question about keys

On June 21, 2025, an attacker compromised a key with minter rights over HAI on Ethereum and BNB Chain and minted about 900M HAI. Hacken put the loss at roughly $250 000 and admitted the bridge ran without multisig.

Afterward, Hacken announced plans to merge HAI with company equity. It hasn't disclosed how that affects HES holders. We found no public HES contract address and no code audit.

Five checks for any equity token

HES matters beyond Hacken. Before you buy an equity token, look for:

On public data, HES doesn't fully meet any of the five.

What would move the score

If Hacken publishes a document tying HES to equity, an independent valuation, and its dividend history, the score rises to about 53/100, grade BB.

Hacken has a right of reply. Once we receive documents, we'll recalculate the audit.

Full audit: full HES audit

Audited under 8Blocks methodology v2 on public data as of Oct 26, 2026. v2 scores aren't comparable with v1 audits. This is not investment advice.

Audit sources

We run these structure reviews out of Dubai, so if you are issuing a token on private equity here, we can go through the ownership chain, the holder document and the exit mechanics before the first sale.

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