As I mentioned in my previous post our community and the others we are supporting are being slammed lately which is great to see as so many migrated fast and became active quick both users and dapps+services. This has though resulted in our voting power getting rekt, I can't remember last time it has been this low (~50%) so I decided to put my money where my mouth is and power up some Hive and delegate it to @ocd.
Alright so now this is obviously not financial advice and looking at the past and considering I'm a bit in debt at the moment you really should not put any money into my advice that you can't afford to lose, but hear me out.
There's a lot of talk about DPOS not being great, some pointing out to what happened to Steem with the governance through voting with the big Steemit stake, some point towards exchanges and how they did the same thing with their customers funds and many other DPOS currencies (many even way bigger than ours) are in danger of the same thing happening to them not to mention the cartels and votetrading that forms over there where producing blocks is the only inflation. No blockchain is perfect, what we lack in security we make up for it in flexibility, speed and scalability but at the same time you could notice through the rallying of votes we went through to vote in real witnesses that when things matter and are being pointed out how important they are people will pull through and show the strenghts of this technology that we have here.
With the move to Hive now we have eliminated one of the biggest attack vectors and then some considering the powering up that occurred by the central authority that was attempting to win the voting battle not realizing that's not the war. As for exchanges I am hoping we can get them to perform the action of opting out from voting for governance permanently and then the only attack vector is of course money. Someone or a group of someone's buying up so much stake that they can overtake the governance again but for that to happen there have to of course also be sellers on the market and on the market things can get dangerous; there's always a bigger fish in the sea meaning that someone attempting to manipulate a certain market may end up getting rekt by someone else who may have noticed what they're up to. This is of course speculative and doesn't happen often unless you're margin trading and wonder why these big swings keep occurring so often and why the price of Bitcoin and others isn't more stable - they're out for your and other "dumb" money and by moving the markets is how they get it, they may not even care about Bitcoin and it's future to be able to do that. So with a higher price attempting to lure people to sell more and more also remember that the big fish that are here will have way more funds to play with and maybe manipulate their manipulations. On top of that in the next HF there will also be the 1 month cooldown timer for accounts recently powering up before they can vote for governance and proposals.
To get back to the point of this post, after four years of thinking that things will go well with a central authority guiding this blockchain and our community into the future I think it became quite clear that it wasn't working. Who knows, maybe if it had been someone else in charge who wasn't as in it for the money things could've gone differently and a big authority like Steemit with their share of the supply could've made wonders for Steem but that was clear it wasn't happening. Now we enter untested territory, not completely untested of course cause there are some currencies such as DASH or DeCred who also work with a DAO and are way more decentralized in the decisions of funding and how to move the currency further in development, marketing, etc. Needless to say they've been doing better than Steem did. I'm not going to talk about Steem and its possible future with the people in charge of it there by the way if you were wondering about that.
Source
Now then, we are finally free from the chains of centralization and the work we've put in all these years didn't have to go to waste that much, only a name change/rebrand which in crypto is usually a good thing from what I've experienced.
In this post I just want to make everyone aware of what it is they are holding and the possible value of it. This is Steem the way it was meant to be, free, decentralized, without fear and without censorship. While many keep saying that the promises of the ill-gained stake should not have been held accountable I can tell you first hand that I know a lot of investors who I've talked to directly who invested and stayed invested because of what I mentioned above; they thought this central authority was working for the best outcome of the economy and users and was being an advantage on the platform instead of turning into a disadvantage which proved to have been for personal gain all along. All those investors who didn't invest because of the Steemit stake turned out to have made the right decision in the end but do note that once they hear things are different now and distribution is better they may not feel the same way any longer.
Coming to distribution, as someone who has attempted to assist distribution of this currency as well as he has been able to through the ups and downs the past 3+ years and am happy to say that due to some of my involvement it may have improved and I consider Steem to be one of the best distributed currencies out there throughout the whole world. I realize there are many content creators and users on Hive now who rely on their rewards and have to make a difficult decision of which one to use for their day to day spendings and I'm personally at least going to try my hardest to hodl Hive as much as I can. Of course I realize everyone would prefer to be a hodler but some just can't and are grateful for the opportunities to exist here that make their life easier and that's okay. I'm talking more about those who may feel that this airdrop means "lol free coins I can dump and go to vegas for a fun weekend", it doesn't take a genius to check exchange accounts on the block explorer to figure out that there is buying occurring and many whales who can are powering up. It also goes without saying that some users from a certain location in the world who missed out on the airdrop are doing their best they can to sell their airdrop they had on exchanges as soon as they can while Hive is just on one exchange right now to make it look like the opposite version of it is doing much better but here it's not about who wins the battle but the long war and that war entails a lot of other things than just the current price and if you're instead focused on growing your hive account as much as possible than this is a very good opportunity to.
One thing I know and am certain about is that with this newfound freedom and developers coming back to Hive to create and assist in the further evolution of this currency I have never been more sure about where I am keeping my value. I realize that the next few months may not look great for the price but what you should be looking at is the development, growth and enthusiasm being put into the work by former projects, devs and users that are excited about this currency again. So what I want to tell you is just to be careful and not make any rash decisions. I remember there were a lot of people back in the day who got the Bitcoin Cash airdrop and just considered it as free money and even though the "flippening" never occurred there where BCH would overtake the marketcap of BTC with Hive and Steem things are way, way more different and I am personally looking forward the day when that occurs and I hope that means we'll just be valued more and not that the other gets completely rekt by a major stakeholder which would mean a lot of bagholders would lose a lot of money cause that's not something you would want to wish on anyone and at the same time competition is good for this space so bring it on. :)
It's not only investors. I went all in with my content thinking there was a roadmap and plenty of funding for development leading to an actual future. What I did on Steem was no different than a creator on Youtube. One wouldn't produce content on Youtube if they knew, eventually, there's not going to be a Youtube. I wanted to publish my work on Steem, build up a following on Steem, and still have a platform in five years, ten years, twenty years, so I could enjoy the benefits of working for that long, just like anyone on Youtube, or anywhere else for that matter. I'm hoping there's a future for a content creator on Hive, otherwise I'm literally wasting my time. There are plenty of writing and digital artist jobs in this world. I don't need to be here to make money. I just want to do it all independently to see if I could because I was bored one day and wanted a challenge.
This'll have to be my obligatory 'I powered up today' post as well since I don't have time to shit post. Over 40k now, so you guys better not
fuckscrew this up. (LOL)Yep, likewise for me I've not focused on being "an influencer" or whatever anywhere else during those years and only recently started using Twitter to promote content on the blockchain aside from using Reddit the past few years mainly to help the "steemit" subreddit... ugh, felt shit to even write that name out.
And yeah, although the money is a nice bonus I want something that'll last and not feel like a waste for having put time into it. I wouldn't even care if Hive never went past $1 as long as there were more people here and they all got to try it out and see what it is they're missing out on and what can exist today compared to the usual shit they're on. Oh and also mainstream adoption would mean a smarter crowd and less weirdos and way more fun comment section which is what I miss the most from Reddit.
For years I had that 'fun comment section' and for the most part tried to provide something the average consumer might enjoy. The plan is to keep going. It has been quiet lately though. Need to attract those consumers. Maybe we should start paying them? Oh, wait, never mind, we already do that, they just don't know.
I'd prefer to see the value much higher than a dollar. And not just from some random pump. Hundreds of thousands of consumers constantly staking small amounts and bringing new money in would help, tremendously. Of course those folks are not going to give shit unless they're provided with a quality product that interests them.
As a lifelong publisher, I could absolutely relate to this. Creating assets that yield passive income has been my go-to formula for years. Luckily, blogging does the trick. However, I loved crypto way too much and saw what was happening in this space.
Moved from blogging to crypto trading – and then back to crypto blogging. In between this, I rediscovered the platform. Decided to stick with Hive over everything else because of the community, engagement, and a good challenge along with this:
Looking back, I also wonder why we never caught the wind – and became as big as Medium (was a great opportunity). Hope everything gets better with Hive. No more fuck ups, please!
I tried the trading, had some fortunate beginners luck. These days it just seems like pointless gambling, so I stopped, because I don't like gambling unless it's poker. Not interested in guessing games.
Around here it's almost as if we're busking with our words, art, information, whatever. Our stuff is exposed to people the instant we publish, because there's a community around. Sharing content works really well in a social setting that pays, especially when you're offering a unique experience or perspective.
The vote selling was the main setback. Instead of consumers getting paid to look, suddenly they were getting paid to look away. Without eyes, the work is nothing, and I still find it to be funny how they were selling the idea of buying votes as a way to get visibility. The reality was, the paid votes destroyed the market, took the community element away, and there was nobody left to perform in front of. That went on for too long. I remember attempting the natural organic approach, working for eyes and the benefits that come with those eyes, and I couldn't even compete with a picture of corn on the cob because someone boosted that garbage up to the trending page, effectively pushing all the quality work down and out of sight. Anyone producing content knows if someone can simply cover your work up, there's no point in producing content for that platform. Hopefully some of those people who screwed everything up back then don't try it again with Hive.
We should have met earlier.
Right. What measures are taken now? I notice you have been around for long and everyone is seeing the value you offer.
I wish to work in full force. Though I have only started, I continue to question. In fact, for visibility, would you stick to "let's produce good content" or seek further assistance for votes (so that you can gain visibility).
Feels like good content pushed with votes... only gets better.
I never asked for support. For the most part, all I ever did was try to entertain people and keep things fresh. People come and go. I just keep working. Of course with consistent support, the last thing I'd want to do is let people down. Not everything is a hit. I here because I want to be here, not because I need to be here. The money is important but my focus is always on my work and doing things to get eyes. Eyes on the prize are the most important thing. For visibility, simply doing things to stand out works far better than doing things to fit in. I'm not really good at giving advice though, I don't think. What works for one won't always work for the next one.
you are super sayin 5 :)
Hooray for Hive!
Banzai! Manse!
Shame on Steem.
Boo! Hiss!
I do think most of your advice and opinions are honest and quite decent. I am watching from the sidelines for the next few months, forfeiting curation rewards as I powerdown to be able to act quickly.
I am also risking a sudden price increase, but I have my limits set to come out at least 1:1 sell ratio of Steem to Hive (ratio keeps improving :)
I will probablybstart delegating again when I come back. Curation is tough and OCD does a damn fine job at doing it properly.
Congrats on your new purchase. Hope it is a good one.
Nice! I don't have that much, but I have a little bit of it. My first 500 Hive.
I've become a lot more acquisitive about resource for my development on Hive. Every single thing finds a nice place, and I do not see myself any differently than thirty days ago. This is not to say I am stagnant, but I remember the mission, and acknowledge changes. You could say I'm even more apprised on what to do these days.
Looking to grow my biatch stake called Hive way up there to the Moon :)
I see all this JS mess as a unique opportunity, maybe some changes in DPOS like that one you mentioned about the cooldown of a moth to vote for proposals witness etc... will be effective I don't know but I'm quite confident that with the people that is trying to develop HIVE will be much better that Steemit was.
I'm not here by the money so I only expect this space will develop and make this community a model of governance. For that IMO changes and innovation are needed, what I see is that there is much more enthusiasm coming that what I could see in steemit in his last months. (I don't think it will survive much time)
(Warning, text wall below, it really is difficult fo me to be brief while writing in English since is not my native language lol)
IMO Steem & Hive are no longer targetting the same audience, before the split for a big chunk of the Steem userbase Decentralization was not of paramount importance. Also, centralized networks are not void of value (we might look at traditional social media and confirm that). So, I think that we need to define more clearly what is the target audience of Hive... because if it still is to onboard the masses, we need to realize what the average Joe wants if Steem and Hive will compete for this goal, the platform that successfully provides what the average user want will be the one on top.
I really like the challenge of building this place without being finger pointed by a big centralized brother, it will me more valuable if we end up succeeding at the end of the day. Thus I think that it's wiser for Witnesses/developers and Big players to work on a common road map and organize the milestones that we allow us to reach the level we want. Not only on a tech level, but also on new users rates, user retention rates, advertisement rates, branding, and so on.
Why I point out this to big players and witnesses/developers? well because decentralization is a stage by stage process and we have what can be thought as a decentralized council that is de facto dictating were this place is heading to... for instance, the defensive rally we had on Steem proved not only how a huge chunk of the community is willing to defend this place, it also served as a fire test for the leadership of some of the key players and it proved to be a successful model to get things moving... it should not be only used as an emergency tool it could also become and engine that drives us forward.
Changing subjects a little bit, I noticed your interest in Anime/Games, there's a great target for our platform... For instance, I have noticed how many players a 300$-1000$ tournament of Age of Empire gathers on Youtube... we already have some tools to make those things here as well... There are millions of Anime fans who expend hundreds of $ just to get some premium content of the series they love... Can we reach one of these guys and use some funds to give him an incentive to create unique content for Hive? It could work as a specialized front end that only allows users with a certain amount of HP to access the chapters... there are tons of other ways for our platform to thrive... but it requires the guys with big pockets or guys whose opinions are listened in this Hive to actually making the potential of this place into a reality.
I still have been unable to find some time to participate more on this place, most of my time is taken away by my job, my kid and other responsibilities with my family, but I really like this platform and it would be awesome to watch it unleash the potential it has.
Sorry for the never-ending comment, kind regards.
Can it be limited in code ?
Eventhough as you say the price is not going to be on our side in the comming months there are a lot of users that are commited to HIVE and are already buying. Once this stabilizes, the value will prevail and community is the value. We all know that community is here.
Peace.
I hope that the prices will not collapse too much. Considering that I bought my first 500 HIVE yesterday for 9 cents on ProBit, this is of course not a huge market value.
But probably, as so often, all speculation brings little and time will show where the price will go.
In this sense - wait and see
I’ve never been great at trying to time markets as such I’ve just been powering up a little here or there. Price is what I pay and I see a whole lot more value in Hive than what the current price is. So I’m fine with what I’ve been converting over and powering up. Steem to me now holds no value and only has an exchange price.
Some of my former bags are going into resupplying my crypto gaming fund. Lots of cool games out there to check out in the coming months and years. So it’s only fitting I shore that up a bit.
Interesting I was just thinking about DPOS and wrote a post about it. My thoughts being that it aint great for witness voting for the reasons of what happened with Justin Sun - surely one vote should equal one vote. Anyway hopefully this new Hive will be much better than Steemit. The vibe on here is pretty good and am really enjoying all the interactions!