Despite past trends, HBD spending is now growing much faster in Nigeria than it did in Venezuela.
We still have our largest and most active userbase in Venezuela, but growth of HBD usage hit a ceiling at some point. I can only give my feelings as to why, not prove with hard data, but I suspect that the way Venezuelan users adopted Hive culture positively actually hurt growth in the long run - by expecting every little visit to the store to be a proper blog post, we introduced effect barriers to entry, making it not worthwhile for most people unless you already have an established connection with the community.
The benefit of HBD as money is the lack of transaction fees. It's about making things smooth and trouble free. The usage of HBD has to be as frictionless as possible, even when we encourage its initial growth with rewards. Don't lose sight of the ultimate goal for Hive, which should be building the largest, most powerful, most connected and inclusive financial network in the world.