In March 2020 - almost a year ago now - I created my account on Hive. This was shortly after the fork of Steem, which was discussed in the media. After I had an eye on this platform from time to time, I finally made the decision to register here. Although I don't like to talk about my experiences, goals and developments on this platform every week, I think that a rough summary of my experience of the last 12 months and related thoughts have their place.
That's why you're now reading this post where I document my thoughts. Here's what I'm going to cover:
- My original expectations
- The experiences of the first months
- Why I expanded my stake after all
- General feedback & criticism
- The outlook
- Summary of my experience
My original expectations - back to the beginning
I didn't have any real expectations for this platform. For me, the whole thing was an experiment that I wanted to get involved with. Initially, I purchased 500 Hive and loaded it onto the account to play along a bit. In doing so, I only stayed on Hive.Blog in the beginning until someone pointed me to Leofinance.io at some point. Before that, I thought I could declare my Hive experiment a failure. The experience of the first months was not really exhilarating. The content that was flushed down my timeline was anything but interesting, plus I saw the same names over and over again. It became clear to me relatively quickly that these authors are long-time members of this platform, who automatically (through bot activity of the voters) end up in the charts with every blog. My impression was that the content of a blog doesn't matter at all and in the end what matters is who publishes it.
But well, so as mentioned I found my way on LeoFinance and was - at least to some extent - positively surprised. The content was more in line with my interests, I liked the UI better and the performance was much more pleasant. This led me not to stop my experiment prematurely, but on the contrary - to become more active. I have written over 700 posts and comments in this last year, which is a lot for me and shows that I gave it a true chance.
The experience of the first months
As touched on above, I spent my first few months mostly on Hive. I didn't know exactly how these Tribes worked, and I hadn't heard of LeoFinance either. At the time, I was playing around with animation programs and shared some insights on that. However, I realized that there was no appropriate audience here. The posts that flushed into my timeline weren't really interesting for the most part. Very much classic nonsense social media. It's not meant as harshly as it might sound, but I've never really been receptive to all this lifestyle, Instagram and hasn't-seen stuff. I had the impression that I received a kind of "welcome gift" at the beginning, as my first posts recorded above-average interaction and rewards. That was surprising at first and made me happy.
However, I did get one or two votes on the following posts, but the actual interaction I had hoped for did not take place at all. This led to some disappointment, especially since it was not easy for me to find good posts that interested me so that I could start this interaction.
It got significantly better after I came across LeoFinance. Sure, my graphic activities don't really have a place here. Unless of course you could use some help with your digital presence - I'm happy to offer my help there [You could check out an example at @taskmaster4450]. But as far as cryptocurrencies are concerned, I'm reasonably well served here, and at least I come across content here and there that I haven't encountered on my other channels. For example, on Travala.com - which is now also flushed into my Brave advertising - I initially encountered this project via LeoFinance. You can guess who specifically, if not you should find out as soon as possible.
But well, back to the matter at hand. Even after my first contact with LeoFinance I was not convinced to be on this platform much longer. It is simply due to the popularity that on other platforms such as Reddit (admittedly, especially r/cc is getting worse here) tend to find more and sometimes more interesting content. I have also noticed that some people here act as news outlets and try to sell slightly modified contributions from Reddit or established news sites as their own outpouring - even though the source is mentioned. I prefer the simple link to the original article to get a picture, if the author has no special additions or a corresponding own opinion on the respective topic to offer. I noticed this so strongly at the beginning because I mainly kept an eye on the trends on LeoFinance. Here, too, a few top authors appear increasingly, but the ratio seems less critical to me than on Hive. There are also constantly times completely new names that provide good input.
After these first months, my perspective was rather not to lose sight of this project, but neither to increase my stake, nor to invest much time here. I had by now a bit more than the first 500 hive, guess it was 2-3 thousand and also got tempted to buy a small share of Leo.
I bought 500 Leo tokens and that was a bit of a taboo break for me. Let me explain why. After taking satisfactory profits during the 2017/2018 peak, I still had some open shitcoin "positions" that I still hold to this day. As you can imagine, most of these Shitcoins made decent losses and lost 99% of their value in some cases. For me, the real cost here is felt to be zero, because I picked the money absolutely undeservedly from the Cryptotree in 2017, but still, after this experience I decided to be less diversified position and convert profits to BTC.
Now I was definitely interested in the Leo token, however I was put off by the fact that you could buy it solely through Hive Engine. Also the fact that I can't know my Hive or my Leo tokens (unless I convert them to wLeo) are safe on my ledger. Add to that the low volume and the associated high spread. In the end, however, I got my way, bought the aforementioned 500 Leo and decided to look further first. Possibly I also let myself be influenced a bit here, but good. It is what it is.
Why I expanded my Stake after all.
I like stonks. I like steaks. Joking aside - I've definitely spent a lot of time here the last weeks and months and can well imagine that this project - Leofinance in particular - will get a lot more attention in the long run than it currently does. The frequency of noteworthy updates on the part of the founder is really amazing for me and I believe that he really puts his heart into this project. That's a very important pro for me for now. After hearing about the planned release of ProjectBlank and LeoFi, this frankly filled me with a bit of fomo. I've been testing D.Buzz for the last few weeks and could well imagine ProjectBlank taking the whole microblogging theme to a new level. That's why I've been practicing a bit - I never tweeted before and only registered on Twitter after Hive - but these short posts are already saying a lot to me. In some cases I even get more interaction there than under my regular blogs. LeoFi could also be launched at the right time and attract some Defi disciples who have not yet made first contact with the platform. Since I have now taken various updates that several airdrops on LeoHolder coming I have so another Shitcoin position (So real Shitcoin, namely EOS - have been allowed to realize when selling again how crappy this EOS actually is.) liquidated and:
Increased my stake to 2800 LP.
Initially I started with 500 Hive, I have also expanded this over the last few months piece by piece, so that I now at least:
10,000 HP.
Sure, all are not huge sums, but now my vote on both platforms is at least a rudimentary real vote and my articles are more interesting for potential readers (since my readers know that I upvote almost every comment and am too lazy to use that slider that lets you set the percentages.
I'm considering liquidating another Shitcoin position in the coming week, but it might be worth holding, which is why I'm still mulling it over here. I guess we'll see how that turns out in the end.
So in summary, my opinion has changed in that I want to get more involved in this experiment and take the risk of falling back into older Shitcoin patterns. I'm excited to see how LeoFi and ProjectBlank go live in the foreseeable future and just want to be there. Yes - see what you made me do - you fomo preachers!
General feedback and criticism
Yes, the experience of the first months is already described in detail above. Here is a clean list of things that I find good and things that can be improved in my opinion:
Pros:
- Good communication from the LeoFinance team
- Partly unique and very instructive content
- Web3.0 application - but in terms of performance like Web2.0 (very big plus compared to other hive front ends)
- Less centered distribution of reward pool than on Hive (rough estimate, but should be true)
- Looking beyond - building bridges with bLeo and wLeo
- Long term expansion of intrinsic value of LP tokens through "follow-on projects".
Cons:
- Lots of content without real added value - challenges, daily updates on blockchain games, news outlets (e.g. at Tesla, one out of two users made a post about it) and off-topic blogs.
- Comparatively small community (which will hopefully change over time without bringing disadvantages to the platform).
- Cult of personality - partly I have the impression that posts get a certain reach not because of the quality, but because of the author. This probably also has something in common with autovotes. At least, this impression has partially arisen in me.
- LeoDex is not usable due to lack of liquidity.
- Partly there is too much content on the platform, that says "come on Leofinance". The crux is that this content outside LeoFinance could provide for new users, but inside LeoFinance can give the impression that you are dealing with a "religion". I have this impression with many cryptocurrencies when I look at the individual subs on Reddit. Find times should avoid this or at least reduce.
- Graphics of Leofinance - also the logo of LeoDex - are based on freely available vector graphics, which are probably massively represented in similar modifications on the net. This means that recognition value is lost and, from my perspective, it's not really professional either. Just as a hint.
- People on this platform sometimes seem to be interested exclusively in the rewards. (Otherwise I can't explain some reactions to some of my downvotes) But here LeoFinance directly can't do anything for it. I just think that in the long run there is a possibility to counteract this.
Outlook
I plan to stay active on this platform. I even "recruited" a colleague of mine yesterday and created an account for him. This was possible thanks to my 10k HP by using the resource credits. I remain excited about the new projects and will see to it that I also keep the airdrops and do not sell them, so that I really get involved in a longer-term experiment. I am also constantly trying to increase the quality of my posts. So I created a blog design specifically for this platform, which I am constantly expanding. I am also trying to get better in terms of frequency. I had briefly thought about writing a post here every day - but this doesn't seem possible in terms of time. At least not if I want to write something more than a means to an end - and that is definitely my ambition. With the release of ProjectBlank, I will continue to practice my MicroBlogging techniques and hereby invite you to follow me now to not miss any of the fun. If I will expand my stake further I don't know at the moment. Here comes time - comes advice.
Summary
In the last year my stake here has increased by 10k Hive and 2,8k LP. After some initial uncertainty I decided to keep an eye on this project in the long run and to become a more solid part of this community. However, I remain critical, both in terms of development, but also in terms of user activity on this platform. However, I am willing to put up with this uncertainty and see how things develop. If I will expand my stake again I can't say at the moment, let me surprise you. And leave a follow at this point, because - as you understood when you read this far - you might not get rid of me that fast.
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
i found you randomly on that hunt game that you made and thought you are an alt of someone who was here longer :D
Most of what you wrote is true. Discoverability is bad, always was. But it is hard to do it in a way that does not get us back to the traditional web. But that also makes it hard for new people.
You are also right about rewards and who is futured on trending pages, yet a lot of creators on youtube, instagram, twitter... are shit from my point of view and they still are pushed to a lot of people.
Communities are important for new people, but hard to find. Most people that stayed for a while found a "community" that they enjoy. For me it was photogames when i started. the organizer of it is now busy with peakd and other projects, photogames "died" but it was enough time for me to find other interesting stuff.
You already were involved in crypto, but i think there is no easiest way for someone new to dip into crypto waters then Hive. You are most probably more in the know as you were in the crypto space much longer than me, what other project offers you to start playing and learning crypto with 0 investment?
and i was sure that i was following you :)
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
Yes, I agree, Hive is a good start for people who have no contact. However, I would not suggest that initially. In the meantime, I recommend people (if they really don't have a plan and want to warm up to the topic somehow) to first deal with Bitcoin only and then proceed bit by bit. The altcoin rabbit hole has already swallowed many people. And I see the tendency to be negatively influenced here, especially with regard to Fomo. But if you don't get sucked in by it, you'll certainly be well served and will quickly have some "play money" together at the beginning, with which you can explore this space. There will probably also be a lot of newer people who cash out their rewards and use them to explore other projects - I think that's a nice option, too.
But there are certainly other projects that can give you that. When I think of my Brave Rewards, that was also very remarkable before it was shut down so much and the Ref program was paused.
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
you are right about FOMO especially if we get to above 1$ levels. new people thinking they will get rich fast is the worst thing for the space :)
Could be that you are right, i was going with my experience. Because dealing with Bitcoin means you learned about it and made a strong decision to invest. Or you did not learn about it and you make stupid decisions. just few days ago a friend told me about his collogue that invested 10.000$ in BTC, on Quadrig.
i vaguely knew about crypto before joining, but i think i would never invest in it if not here. The hassle i need to go through to buy crypto would probably be the step i would not take. But after trying to cash out to fiat, seeing that it works got me more interested.
Now that you mentioned brave rewards i can't even remember did i made a wallet for that? i probably did as i do have some 9$ of it. maybe i don't have it, as i don't remember making a wallet, so maybe i did and it is gone :D
Absolutely. Greed eats brains. That's what happened in 2017. In 2018, many then became disillusioned. Fittingly, just read by chance :D
And exactly your example shows why I would possibly not directly recommend Hive or the like. Only when someone has made the first steps in the space and has an idea of what is happening here and what is actually behind all these coins and tokens.
In principle, however, I recommend everyone to make at least a small investment. 100 euros or the like. My experience is that people then automatically become more intensively involved with the matter. As long as you limit their focus, they are initially skeptical of the other, but at least deal with Bitcoin properly. Maybe that will change when there are only billionaires playing in the market, but I'm keeping it that way at the moment.
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
first of all congrats for deciding to stay and increase your stake. I Agree with mostly everything so i will only talk about what i may have a different opinion!
regarding the news, i don't this is bad when it has to do with financial content. You gonna see for example tesla posts because that's the current trend.
Some want to read it, some don't, others write this kind of content because they like and want to and others just for the rewards. It's up to us whether we read it or not!
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
In the end, of course, I concede everyone their opinion here and will probably also be able to tolerate it when these posts appear. However, I can not find it good.
Probably you will be right and I will have to accept that others find these posts good or at least have no problem with it ;)
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
that's a small thing though (at least for me). some of your other cons are more "serious" and need to be solved fast
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
Congrats on hanging in there for a year.. it's not easy when your posts go mostly ignored for the longest..plus there's the HIVE learning curve.. it's UI sucks.. but they're working on it
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
Thank you! I have solved the problem with the UI. I hardly use it anymore, mainly LeoFinance.
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
I wish I woulda joined back then, I just joined in February haha..
ahwas, just stick with it, then in a year you'll also be there for a year. Are just times 400 active users. If that continues with the SignUps so and the people remain active, biste still very very early in it ;)
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
10,000 HP and 2,000 LP are a nice goal
Yes was not a real goal, was not planned. Are by the way but 4.5k become, had somehow more EOS than thought.
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
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