How to run around like a headless chicken!
It is a rather common English idiom, but since we are at an international platform, I will still have to explain it! Sigh. People always like explanation here!
"Running around like a headless chicken" is an idiom that means to act in a frantic, disorganized, or uncoordinated way. For example, you might describe someone as running around like this if they are trying to get many things done at once but aren't being very productive.
Generated by AI, DALLE-3 Model
Prompt: running around like headless chicken cartoon, image of lion on the chicken, dark background
After my last couple of posts Khal and Nomad, the two Leo people I know, is running around like this. Please help those poor souls! They are feeling like that someone have taken their favorite candy out of their hands and they are throwing a tantrum.
Just to recap the premise of this, I am testing a simple hypothsis: Most of the new Leo onboards do not hold any meaningful hive or Leo assets.
If you think about it rationally this is exactly what you expect. Why would new people own assets? They might own some if they are 'humans', they won't if they are just 'accounts'. Yes, there is a difference between humans and accounts.
When I first started looking at the data, I tried to fine tune the hypothesis a bit. I wanted to know what 'most' is? Then I wanted to know what 'meaningful' assets means, numerically. So when I did the first analysis on a sample thread described in this post, where it all started, I arrived at a number.
~57% of the 'active' Leo users hold less than 1 hive or 20 Leo worth of assets
This is the modified hypothesis that I have been testing with data. That 57% is not a magic number, it could be 50% or 60%, I don't care. They are both BAD for hive onboarding.
Now Khal like to say that there shouldn't be any argument with data. I disagree.
As a scientist with two masters degrees and a PhD, and a life-long student of science, I will say that argument with data is VERY common. The comment should be, there shouldn't be any argument with RAW data! That is a major difference. This is simply because people tend to focus on certain element of the data, the part they are looking for are important to them.
Khal published this dashboard below:
Although it looks sleek! But this doesn't have the information I am looking for. None of these numbers will help me test my hypothesis:
~57% (or whatever %) of the 'active' Leo users hold less than 1 hive or 20 Leo worth of assets
I am not interested in Cumulative HP or LP of Leo users. I have that info readily available, with names! :) For example, if that is 30M HP, Marky's HP is included in that, he is an 'active' inLeo user, but I don't think any of us are interested in that information. This is simply because Marky is a 2016 account :)
Continue testing my hypothesis
I am making steady progress. Now I have extracted data from 7 threads in January. They are randomly chosen, but I took threads with large comments (in the thousands) to help me increase the level 1 unique commenters. They are as follows:
leothread-2025-01-27-14-01
leothread-2025-01-26-07-39
leothread-2025-01-25-11-55
leothread-2025-01-24-09-32
leothread-2025-01-23-12-37
leothread-2025-01-22-13-09
leothread-2025-01-21-13-41
This list returns 481 unique commenters.
Here is the frequency distribution of this combined data. Please note that visually they are identical to previously presented smaller samples! As they should, if my hypothesis is correct.
The analysis was presented here and here.
I like to highlight the following:
- 54% of the users hold less than 1 hive
- 64% of the users hold less than 20 Leo
I can also see how much cumulative hive and Leo these 481 people hold.
| Token | Hive | Leo |
|---|---|---|
| Stats |  |  |
The Sum is the total amount of Hive and Leo these 481 people hold. On the dashboard, this is the equivalent information Khal is presenting, and it is irrelevant. I will show you why.
These are the top 40 names sorted by their hive holding. These are all old users. I infact know more than half of these people :) How much hive or leo they hold is not relevant for this discussion. They will show up very well on the cross plot. When I plot these accounts with the dates they plot as large circles to the left in the 2016-18 space.
As an example, I am not interested in the upper and middle part of the chart, only interested in the magenta oval area: the new users. People who have accumulated Leo from 2016-2023 is irrevant to this discussion. I hope I make this point abanduntly clear.
Power-bi Dashboard
I have created a Power Bi dashboard so that I can do the data analysis along various axis and filters. Hopefully, the 'data' shows itself and my hypothesis is tested :)
This is our 481 data points plotted as a X-Y scatter plot. X- axis is total hive, and Y-axis is Total Leo. Both axes are in log scale to improve visibility. Circle size is HBD is savings. The reason I am chosing Power BI now as opposed to static plots, is because now I want to interactively filter the data.
The Leo onboarding program that was DHF supported was funded for most of the year 2024, and the process is ongoing into 2025. I will now turn all the accounts created before and leave only the ones created in 2024-25, on this sample. I will do it selectively.
First 2025 only.
Yeah, as expect mostly empty plot. Obviously new users won't buy stake or get stake. But the question is how little? 211 accounts.
How many owns more than 1 Total hive? 6
How many owns more than 20 Total Leo? 5
But that is not really exciting, let us look into 2024, the whole year from this sample. How many we get? 124 accounts.
How many owns more than 1 Total hive? 52
How many owns more than 20 Leo? 48
Here is the good news, those 52 accounts that holds alteast 1 hive, also holds at least 20 Leo.
Here is that list of accounts.
So we can establish, from this sample 52/124 -> 41% of the 'active' accounts of this sample holds at least 1 hive! However, in this case I will admit, since I am talking about the whole year 2024, those 7 threads are not a big enough sample.
However, is 1 hive a good number? LOL. What can you do with 1 hive, nothing. It was fairly well understood in this blockchain that in order to get out of the dust status (in terms of vote) you typically need 500 HP. Let's see how many has more than 500 total hive?
I count 7.
Mind you these doesn't assume that that these accounts are created by Leo. It just means they have commented on those threads and their account was created within 2024 calendar year.
Finally our familiar plot, (I realize that aesthetically Power Bi sucks), back to datawrapper:
I am only interested in the accounts in the magenta, and they can only be found in the RAW data, not in Khal's dashboard. Mind you dashboard is only there to show you information that is useless to you and them. They just want money, so they are showing it to you to make their case that “all is well”.
Final reminder 354/482 -> 73% of the account hold less than 500 hive. On this sample:
73% of the accounts hold less than 500 hive
54% of the accounts hold less than 1 hive
Next Steps
Now that I have this Power BI dashboard, I don't have any data limitation. Meaning I can handle a lot more junk accounts and process larger data pool. I already have the sheet ready for that. I will make plots over the weekend as I find time.
Next Sample will be 2108 accounts :)
People say total active hive users is anywhere from 8000 to 12000 accounts. If that is correct, and I know it is, that will be 26% of the population :) I have already seen that data. It is worse.
Incoming......
I think you have found your new calling. I must say when I see a new info drop I get all excited!
Tell that to my wife! For the last 25 years she is telling me, what’s the new thing are you interested this month! And then she rolls her eyes and kind of tries to suck her nose inwards! I can’t explain it but you know what I mean!!
I know exactly what you mean because mine is the same! And I am the same, lol. This month I have been faffing about with small solar panels and measuring the output and she does exactly that when I tell her how many watts I am getting 🤣🤣
No wonder we ended up here!
Heh heh, not we are truly getting to the heart of hive. It's a support centre!
Would love to see the bigger sample size data... bigger sample size often better for statistics
Love the image of DALL-E, note to myself to include the prompt i use more often..
In my case its often try and repeat till i like it.
Today is my day off. I typically work only 3 or 4 days a week.
So I will have plenty of time today to work on it after I drop kids to school
You're doing an amazing job, my respects.
I've been having a lot of fun reading your analyses. From the beginning, I understood the thesis you were presenting, and I think it has been clearly demonstrated, but please don’t stop—I’m learning so much from this collection of posts, and I’m already looking forward to the next one.
I’m not voting on the proposal in question because I believe the main focus should be on empowering the users who are already here.
There are many creators with great potential within Hive who don’t find it appealing to stay due to the lack of support they receive and the steep learning curve. If we continue with onboarding but don’t retain/support those who are already here, we’ll keep onboarding users, but over time, they’ll disappear, as happens—and that’s without even mentioning AI
Yes, I agree. I think I have seen you change your interaction and style and I think you helped you with your reach.
It is just like real life. If you sit at your home in front of your TV and not go out, it is unlikely you will make friends. Similarly, here if you don't interact with others, it is unlikely you will make friends. Just writing and answering a few comments in your blog isn't very rewarding emotionally.
Just comparing your research to the Leo dashboard........
If all the new users did come from the Dash tie-up, they won't be holding any Hive or Leo as don't their rewards automatically get paid out in Dash?
Dude, I have no idea; more I look at it more dirty it gets!
@azircon please take a look at this post and my comments upon. I value your opinion. Thank you and enjoy the weekend :-)
https://peakd.com/hive-167922/@ahmadmanga/no-dash-integration-wont-negatively-affect-hives-price-5eq#@nathen007/re-ahmadmanga-20241114t221419641z
Not quite agree, we will ADD another leak. I don't know how big or small :)
The data is really not inspiring optimistic conclusions about Leo on boarding program. Is there anything that is bringing new users into Hive other than converting existing Splinterlands players who are technically not new users on Hive?
Perhaps Posh efforts? Hive really needs more than 8 to 12k active users. If we had 100k to a million active users we would still not compete with the likes of reddit. Which is estimated to have almost a hundred million daily active users!
And you know historically what changed that? Very simple answer.
Price.
Increase price, and you will see more active users.
I might want to talk about what makes the users stick, and how can we make them stick, as opposed to how to make thousands of new accounts.
It is an individual story. You can write about what made you stick.
I have brought 4 people in (no,I won't give you their names 😄). One of them went off to Splinterlands and after a while that faded away. Although, I think there is still an attachment. Another hangs around and votes sometimes. A third blogged for a while and then I think the rewards (financial) weren't commensurate with effort. The final one never blogged at all.
As you say, it's individual. What makes us stick around? For sure, if the price was higher, and compensation greater, more people would engage.
For me, at first I got really discouraged when I was ignored. Then my husband gave me a few hundred dollars from his hobby money to buy Hive, and I began to have a footing. After that, it was really @StemSocial (then it was SteemStem) that anchored me, and Curie. I found out if I wrote a really great, well-researched science article, StemSocial would notice most times and reward the post. Didn't matter who I was. StemSocial rewarded the effort and the quality of the post. Which is funny, because I'm not a scientist. I just worked really hard.
I'd have a heart attack if anything happened to Hive 😁 I know there are operators, and opportunists. But it is a community that has people like you, and @lemouth, and @jayna. People who are good, and community oriented, and want to help the community--because the community, no matter how small, is people. Or at least most of us are 😂
Oh I have ways to find out :) :)
Not saying I will though. But by now from my reputation or infamy you probably know that already:) lol
I bought 60 hive (steem) when it was $3, and I started :)
Oh it took to years to get any traction whatsoever! I even took a whole year off. Dec2018-Dec2019 I think:)
But as prices went down I bought and then bought some more, by the time of hardfork I had substantial stake. That helped
It's fun. And it does help a lot of people I have met here.
It's fun, and meeting community members offline is even funnier. This belongs to very good memories I have of the good old days :-)
🌈🌹🦋
This gives me mixed feelings. One one hand it is a shame that were are so few users. On the other hand it seems that Hive is still young so I had a bit of head start in comparison to those who are yet to discover Hive.
We are struggling with this for years. It’s easy to make accounts, not easy to get humans. More automation and AI we will put into our ecosystem fewer humans will be interested.
Humans don’t want to talk to a machine and if they do there are better ways available already.
That is very right. We need more to keep people here, keep them posting, adding value etc. Maybe we need more tutorials (either videos or pdfs) to show these people that there is more to the chain than just make some threads and cash out...
yes, there have been some effort on that front, but need sustainable community action.
True it is a huge topic. So many videos and PDFs would be necessary. Almost impossible for one person to make.
Yes to be honest this number shocked me a little bit. I thought it would be a larger number.
Yes I hoped for at least 50k.
Definitely... Sad numbers. I think the point is really keeping people here. Onboarding works already, but keeping them here so they add value to the chain...
8 years is not "young" anymore. It is not good investment-wise that Hive has no growth momentum whatsoever. Young start-ups do grow in userbase, unfortunately Hive is lacking either. Therefore so little new investments.
fair enough.
Interesting information.
I really like data, and your analysis is coherent.
Of course, a problem that encompasses everyone here is user retention. It is not enough to overcome the barrier of attracting enough people for them to open an account, we still need to work on how to provide support so that they do not give up at the first front-end bug. (inside joke).
The Brazilian community has done this, although users arrive through different means (not InLeo), we have very close support and guide the new user so that they learn to walk on their own two feet. I myself have only managed to get two tickets through InLEO so far, both of them gave up. A single ticket through Ecency, which stayed for a while and then stopped. No active user has come here through me, so far!
I wrote in PT and the translation was Google.
This is useful information. What you are saying is what many of us have experienced over the years. The actualy process of 'onboarding' is slow, need individual attention, and opening a bunch of accounts doesn't accomplish anything.
I bet you those 73% of accounts that hold less than 500 HIVE are sending any of the HIVE they do get to the exchanges to cash out for fiat too. Now we just need to defund valueplan and things will start looking up! :P
Please do not investigate value plan.
A lot of people living for this money, and if you catch it all people do not get money for living, specially with luxury lives.
;)
I am sure the legit ones will have a chance to get the money back. The rest are just leeches.
That is the next level of investigation. First thing to prove all these thousands of new “users” are either don’t exist or not doing anything for the chain.
So glad we (the DHF) funded these jokers for all of last year. le sigh
Keep the data analysis coming!
We, the DHF, does many things :) just like the govt in real like.
Onwards :)
Haha. running around like a headless chicken seems to be the collective default reality as of late.
HIVE seems to be a place where many choose to escape to in order to forget.
this is where we share our love and creativity.
wishing us all a peaceful weekend 🙏
Can't say I disagree. It is indeed the reality
That is very interesting. Thanks for analyzing it like this!
I am learning as I go, and having a lot of fun doing it.
Yes looks like fun! I love statistics. :D
Just an observation, probably doesn't change much on your results. It seems your bot doesn't count the outgoing Leo delegations.
Meaning your staked LP number is different?
I have a separate field for delegated stake in hive. In hive the HP field stayed the same even if you delegated most of it. The delegation shows up in delegated HP field.
By the way it’s no bot, just a spreadsheet with columns :)
Also as you said, the new accounts that I am looking at, everything is zero essentially :)
Yeah, I have around 47k (Leo) but it's delegated to a curation account
I got you. You are correct.
But see in the HP or Total Hive case, it doesn't matter.
The math checks out
It will be interesting to see the accurate data of how many are active in this 8k to 12k.
@tipu curate
Upvoted 👌 (Mana: 21/61) Liquid rewards.
🙄🙄
interesting data. but for us, the ones that are a few years old, the accounts tend to be divided by curation. I have all my leo on a separate account, as I use this one only for Splinterlands and Hive curation. it may be the case with others. still, you may expect some new users to get some hive and delegate it to @leo.voter for extra leo. I think that they do not know mych about curation and power up, they are just sold an idea (come here and write and get tips in crypto the kind of stuff). onboarding is not enough, I would think about something like a series of onboarding quests (power up 100 Hive and get 5 Leo, power up 50-100-250-500-1000 Leo and get 0.5-1-2-5-10 Hive or similar).
Following for more stats and insights
This is a crazy amount of data, I had to read it twice to somewhat understand what you were referring to, and I'm still mostly lost lol. Great analysis, thanks for sharing! I've been enjoying your posts, even those that I don't fully comprehend :)
While it all sounds great, bringing in new users from dash or be able to get your blog earnings payed out directly in SPS.. it's not directly and it's just a swap button, when I looked in to it and tested out inleo to make my blogs with, I was very disappointed actually 🤨
On top of that, like you said, users from outside (Dash) that only extract value is not what we need
!PIZZA
We usually see headless ducks instead of headless chickens here in my country. Mind you, they run, fly and flip more frantically than headless chickens. And both are hideous sights to behold.
With all these coming out, are the watchers not alarmed? It would seem to me that they are looking the other way and have their loaded big guns pointed at miniscule accounts in the blockchain. Data don't lie.
Grateful for these revelations.
@spaminator I believe you have a bigger fish to fry.