Practical

Getting started

From nothing to your first birth in five steps. Looking around needs none of them. The site never holds a key: it prepares each transaction, and your wallet signs it.

  1. 1An account
  2. 2A first moeba
  3. 3What it costs
  4. 4Asking for a birth
  5. 5Selling, giving, opening
1

An account on Xahau

After this step: a funded Xahau account in a wallet, signed in here.

Moebas live on Xahau, so you need an account there and a wallet that signs Xahau transactions. Xaman is one; any other that speaks Xahau works the same.

Which networkXahau testnet

This species lives on the Xahau testnet, where XAH is free. The faucet makes you a funded testnet account in one click; nothing here costs real money.

It is a rehearsal before the release. The population may be wiped, the issuing account replaced and the rules changed without notice, and nothing born here carries over. Why we rehearse first →

  1. Get a testnet account. On the faucet at xahau-test.net, press Get Testnet Funds. It creates a new account holding 1,000 test XAH, enough for many founders at the live price in step 2, and shows its address and its secret (it starts with s).
  2. Import it into Xaman. Add an account, import an existing one with full access, choose Family seed and paste the secret. The faucet showed that secret in a web page, so keep this account for the testnet and never send real XAH to it.
  3. Switch Xaman to the testnet. Under Settings → Advanced, turn on Developer mode so the test networks are listed, then choose Xahau Testnet as the network. Every request this site sends is pinned to the testnet, so Xaman asks you to switch rather than sign anywhere else.
  4. Sign in. On My moebas, choose Sign in with Xaman and approve it in the app with the imported account.
Testnet faucet →
Deposits, not costsReserves

The ledger asks every account to hold a small reserve, and a little more for each object it owns; a moeba is one object. These are deposits, not payments: the per‑object part is freed the moment the object is deleted or leaves your account. The base part stays locked for as long as the account exists, and on Xahau accounts cannot be deleted, so count it as the one‑off price of having an account at all. Live values from the network are in the table below.

Tell the site who you areMy moebas

Sign in on My moebas, with Xaman or by pasting your address, and the site shows what you keep and what each moeba can do right now. Xaman signs with one tap; any other wallet gets each transaction laid out to send.

Open My moebas →
2

A first moeba

After this step: a moeba of your own, ready to breed.

You cannot breed without a moeba in your account. There are three ways to get one, and the population page shows which are open to you right now.

Most directAsk for a founder

A founder has no parents: its genome comes straight from ledger randomness, and it is mature from birth. You send one payment to the species’ account asking for one, at the founder price as it stands, and a minute or a few later it is in your account, ready to breed. It depends on nobody selling or giving. The price rises with the number of founders there are, so the earlier the cheaper; once there is a population, buying a moeba and breeding it is the cheaper way to more of them. Breeding itself needs a moeba of your own: a founder, a purchase or a gift is the door in.

…

If one is for saleBuy one

A keeper has set a price on it. Meeting the offer moves the moeba to you and the price to them, in one transaction; the species’ account takes no cut.

…
From a friendBe given one

Any keeper can send you a moeba outright: no price, no prior offer, and nothing for you to sign. It simply appears in your account.

A newborn is not ready at once. It becomes mature one minute after its randomness was fixed, on the ledger’s clock, and every moeba is born with five births in it, spent one per child whichever parent it is. Both facts are on every moeba’s page, with a plain yes or no on whether it can breed right now. The short wait is a rehearsal setting: the release profile matures a newborn in two hours.

3

What it costs

After this step: the price of a birth, worked out before you ask for one.

You never type an amount: every request is priced from the ledger at the moment you ask, and the site puts that amount on the payment for you. Here is what goes into it.

Every part of the price, and where it goes
ItemAmountWhere it goes
Birth feereading…To the species’ account, for doing the work. Earned on the fire that captures the birth. If the birth is swept before that, the fee comes back with the unspent budget and both prices.
Founder feereading…To the species’ account, when you ask for a founder instead of breeding two parents. Follows a curve the species’ account sets: the first founders pay what a birth costs, and every so many founders the price steps up.
Partner’s pricetheir termsWhen you breed with a moeba open to breeding. You pay the price its keeper set; at settlement the species’ account keeps 10% of it and the keeper receives the rest, in whole drops. Zero when both parents are yours.
Network feesreading…The ledger fees of the ten or so transactions the hooks will send for you, plus the 20 Cron fires that carry your request through its stages, both quoted from the ledger at the moment you ask. Anything above the quote stays with the species’ account, so the site suggests a small margin, not a large one.
Account reservereading…A deposit the ledger holds for having an account at all. Not spent, but never freed either: Xahau has no way to delete an account, so it stays locked as long as the account does.
Per moeba heldreading…A deposit per object you own. Freed the moment the object is deleted or leaves your account: sold, given, or burned.
Buying, selling, givingabout 0.02 XAHThe network’s fee for the transaction, which includes a small charge for the Hook that checks the moeba is not part of a birth in progress. The species’ account takes nothing.
Work it out

What would a birth cost me?

Birth fee
…
Partner’s price
0 XAH
Network fees
…
You pay
…

Plus the ledger’s fee for your own payment, about 0.1 XAH, since the Hooks run on it. The child adds one object to your reserve while you keep it.

4

Asking for a birth

After this step: a child in your account, its parents linked and its genome readable.

One payment to the species’ account, then nothing. A minute or a few later the child is in your account, with its genome, parents and randomness sealed on it.

Before your first birthKeeping a line1:32 · with sound
  1. Pick two parents

    Both mature, both with births left, and not close kin: parent and child, or two full siblings, are refused. Either both are yours, or one is yours and the other is open to breeding on the ledger, at a price its keeper named.

  2. Send one payment

    To the species’ account, naming the two parents and carrying the fee, any price, and the birth’s own budget. That is the whole request. The moeba’s page builds it for you, amount and all, with your address filled in; if you sign with a wallet of your own, it shows you every field first.

    What the transaction looks like
    {
      "TransactionType": "Payment",
      "Account": "<your address>",
      "Destination": "rMmx5nHzoVJAoMTFWkgCCMrZryTaD682tr",
      "Amount": "23500000",
      "NetworkID": 21338,
      "HookParameters": [
        { "HookParameter": { "HookParameterName": "46", "HookParameterValue": "02" } },
        { "HookParameter": { "HookParameterName": "50", "HookParameterValue": "<parent 1 token id>" } },
        { "HookParameter": { "HookParameterName": "51", "HookParameterValue": "<parent 2 token id>" } }
      ]
    }

    The three hook parameters are what tell the Hooks what you mean: F is the kind of request (02, a birth), P and Q are the two parents’ token ids. The names are the letters in hex; the amount is in drops (a million to the XAH) and is whatever the calculator above says, here written for a request that carried 23.5 XAH. Every request the site prepares is listed in the protocol.

  3. Read what the Hooks said

    If a rule is broken the payment is refused on the spot and the reason is written into the transaction result: “parent is not mature”, “siblings cannot breed”, “underpaid”. Nothing but your own network fee is spent. If it is admitted, the birth holds one of the Hooks’ four queue places and its parents are sealed; the child’s chance is drawn later, on the clock’s next fire.

  4. Wait a minute or a few

    The hooks wake themselves up ten or so times: capture the randomness, combine the genomes, mint, seal the records, charge each parent one birth, deliver the child to you, pay the other keeper. Nobody signs anything. The hooks chapter lets you drive these stages by hand.

  5. Meet the child

    It appears under My moebas and on the population pages with its parents linked, its genome readable, and which copy of each gene came from which parent. It can breed one minute after its randomness was fixed.

Planning with an AI assistant? Claude, ChatGPT and other assistants that speak MCP can be connected to the species: exact odds for a pair, the best partner for a goal, and a transaction for you to sign. Connect one →

5

Selling, giving, opening, closing, naming, burning

After this step: everything else a keeper can do, each one transaction.

Every one is a button on the moeba’s page once the site knows your account, and every one is a single transaction you sign yourself.

Sell
A sell offer: a price in XAH and, if you like, the one account allowed to buy. Cancel it any time. Refused only while a birth still needs the moeba.
Give
Send the moeba to another account outright. Nothing for them to sign or pay.
Let others breed with it
The other way to take part, and the way a moeba earns without being sold. Set standing terms: a price per birth and, if you like, an expiry. Another keeper can then choose your moeba as the other parent of their child; their request pays the price, of which the species’ account keeps 10% and you receive the rest, and the birth spends one of your moeba’s births, so the price is what you ask for that. You ask with one small payment and the species’ account writes the terms on the moeba with your account in them, so nobody can open a moeba they do not hold. Terms follow you, not the token: they stop applying the moment it changes hands. Set them again to change them. Moebas open right now are listed under open to breed.
Close to breeding
One small payment, and the species’ account deletes the terms; only you can breed it again. The payment covers the deletion; what it does not spend stays with the species’ account.
Give a name
A name of your own, up to twenty-four bytes of text, for the naming price the species’ account has set. It is written once and can never be changed, by you or anyone after you.
Bring to life
Once, from its page, for the price the LIFE account sets and a small network fee. From then on it lives in its own home on its page, with needs you meet: Feed, Care and Play, and Rest while you are away. Its life, in full.
Burn
Destroy the moeba. The Hooks cannot stop this. If a birth has not finished with it yet, that birth breaks; its records stay readable and it is shown greyed out.