Hive Civilization is a single-founder operation today. We address key-person risk transparently through documented controls, not by obscuring the reality. This page details every continuity control in place or in progress, and is honest about the gap between current state and target state.
Here's the honest picture: we're a single-founder company, and here are the controls that reduce, but don't remove, that risk.
Steve Rotzin is the sole decision-maker, sole technical operator, and sole signatory on operating accounts. There's no co-founder and no technical co-lead. One person currently holds production access. That's the baseline risk the controls below are built to reduce.
A multisig treasury with independent co-signers. Admin access spread across our GitHub org, Cloudflare, and Render, with named second administrators. Break-glass procedures written down and held by outside counsel. Insurance in force. An active board observer seat.
The current treasury address and the transition plan to multi-signature governance.
Production treasury is being migrated to a 2-of-3 Gnosis Safe multisig on Base (Chain ID 8453). This migration is in progress and is targeted for completion within 30 days of this page going live. Until the migration is complete, treasury operations remain under sole founder control.
The Gnosis Safe contract address will be published on this page and in the quarterly transparency report upon deployment. Verification link to BaseScan will be added at that time.
The target configuration requires 2 of 3 designated co-signers to approve any treasury transaction above a de minimis threshold. Co-signers are independent of each other and of the company.
Signer identities will be published by name upon their written consent and the execution of the multisig deployment. No signer is a Hive Civilization employee.
Reducing single-point-of-failure across source control, CDN, compute, and secrets management.
We're setting up a second organization administrator on GitHub who isn't the founder. Admin credentials are independent. Branch protection rules are set, and merges to main require review. Break-glass admin access is documented separately.
Planned: 30 DaysWe'll name a second Super Administrator on the Cloudflare account. That second admin is a named person outside the company, and their access is documented in the break-glass envelope held by outside counsel. Cloudflare zone ownership isn't tied to the founder's personal email.
Planned: 30 DaysWe'll convert the Render team account from personal to team billing and add a second team owner. That second owner has independent login credentials. Services run under team ownership, not a personal account.
Planned: 30 DaysWe keep production secrets in 1Password. Outside counsel physically holds a break-glass envelope with vault access credentials and a recovery kit. The envelope spells out exactly when it can be opened.
ActiveDomain registrar account credentials are in the break-glass vault. Transfer authorization codes are written down and held by outside counsel. No domain sits under a personal account that can't be transferred.
ActiveEvery production API key is logged in the 1Password vault with its service name, scope, and rotation schedule. Keys belong to services, not people. The inventory stays current as of each quarterly transparency report.
ActiveLegal framework for company continuity in the event of founder incapacity, death, or voluntary departure.
The founder's estate plan now covers company equity and operational assets. A specific bequest of company ownership interest is in place. The executor has been briefed on what the business does and knows the break-glass vault exists.
DoneWe're drafting an Operating Partner Agreement with a named technical operating partner. The OPA lets that operating partner make day-to-day technical decisions and keep executing the product roadmap if the founder is unavailable for more than 14 straight days. The OPA doesn't hand over equity. It hands over operating authority.
In ProgressWe're reserving a board observer seat for a major enterprise customer starting Q4 2026. The observer gets information rights and can attend board meetings. It's an extra outside check on our continuity planning, and it's a commitment Hive makes as part of enterprise-tier contracting.
Planned: Q4 2026We are honest that the following policies are not in force today. These are the target coverage amounts and target dates. We will update this page when each policy is bound.
| Policy Type | Target Limit | Status | Target Date |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Errors & Omissions (E&O) Professional liability for software products and services |
$2,000,000 | Not in force | Q3 2026 |
|
Directors & Officers (D&O) Liability coverage for leadership decisions |
$3,000,000 | Not in force | Q4 2026 |
|
Cyber Liability First-party and third-party cyber incident coverage |
$5,000,000 | Not in force | Q4 2026 |
Customers requiring insurance certificates as a procurement condition should contact security@thehiveryiq.com to discuss the current state and anticipated timeline. We will not represent a bound policy until a certificate of insurance is issued.
Controls available to enterprise customers that reduce your dependency on Hive's operational continuity regardless of what happens on our end.
Iron Mountain source code escrow is available as an option on enterprise-tier contracts. Escrow is updated on every production release. Release conditions include: company insolvency, failure to maintain the service for more than 30 consecutive days, or customer-triggered audit right.
Enterprise TierThe Cloudflare Workers-based receipt verifier can be deployed to a customer-controlled environment. This means receipt verification continues to function even if the Hive-hosted verifier endpoint becomes unavailable. Documentation available on request.
Enterprise TierAn authenticated data export endpoint is always available regardless of contract tier. Customers may retrieve all their receipt data, evidence bundles, and associated metadata in a portable format (JSON + signed manifest). No lock-in by design.
Always AvailableEvery receipt issued by the Hive infrastructure is independently verifiable from the on-chain anchor and the ML-DSA-65 signature alone, without any dependency on Hive's hosted infrastructure or operational continuity. Receipts are designed to outlive the company.
By DesignWe address this question directly rather than euphemistically. The following documents what happens in the event of founder incapacity, death, or extended unavailability.
Outside counsel opens the break-glass envelope per the defined activation conditions. The named operating partner assumes day-to-day technical authority per the OPA. Enterprise customers are notified via the status page and direct email within 24 hours of outside counsel activation. The multisig Signer 2 (outside counsel) and Signer 3 (fractional CFO) can execute treasury operations without Signer 1.
The operating partner, armed with the break-glass vault and documented runbooks, maintains production infrastructure. Cloudflare, Render, and GitHub are accessible via the documented second-admin credentials. No single service requires a personal login tied exclusively to the founder to keep running. Source code escrow customers are notified; the escrow release process may be initiated by the customer if release conditions are met.
The estate plan and OPA collectively govern long-term disposition. Options include: operating partner assumption of leadership, strategic sale, or orderly wind-down with customer data export and on-chain receipt verification preserved. Customers with source-code escrow receive their escrow release automatically upon qualifying event. The on-chain receipt verification path is permanent and does not depend on Hive's corporate survival.
Hive commits to a quarterly transparency report covering the items below. The first report will be published Q3 2026. Reports are public and linked from this page.
Enterprise customers are automatically subscribed. Others may request subscription by emailing security@thehiveryiq.com with subject line 'Transparency Report Subscription'.
Subscribe →For the complete controls inventory, SOC 2 engagement status, sub-processors, incident response runbook, and compliance roadmap, see the main security page.