Two days ago on March 20, HIVE hard forked the Steem network , airdropping HIVE tokens to STEEM holders 1:1, excluding the founder’s reward - originally belonging to Ned who owns Steemit, which had been sold to one Justin Sun for an undisclosed amount.
When a hardfork happens, the chain splits into two and suddenly two tokens now exist instead of one. Both tokens (STEEM & HIVE) will share the same transaction histories before the hardfork, but new transactions that take place after the hardfork will be recorded in their respective ledgers separately moving forward.
Now we appear to be at the tailend of this lengthy saga where both sides can begin anew, here are my thoughts:
Printing a whole new sum of money.
Like a divorce, a hard fork happens when there is an irreconcilable difference between the community and they decide to go separate ways. If money is a language, it's basically one group saying we don't recognise this language and we are going to use another language we like.
Unlike a divorce though, money isn't divided both ways. Here, a new set of money is printed overnight.
At the time of the hardfork, there was about 345 million STEEM tokens in circulation. This means 345 million HIVE now exists after the hardfork. What is uncertain is...
Would the STEEM price carry over to HIVE in the markets?
Thing is, when a hardfork happens, the new token does not immediately replace and render the old token obsolete or zero in value. Both sides have to live up to their own value and markets being inefficient, both tokens are going to be worth "something". Thus, to some people, this was a golden opportunity to get some free $$$.
This would explain why there was a +200% pump in price for STEEM pre-fork. Essentially, every 1 STEEM token you own, you will get 1 HIVE after the fork.
This also led to some wild conspiracy theories. After a pump to $0.38 per STEEM token pre-fork, the STEEM price was dumped to $0.18 (-50%) post-fork. Some people asked in a recent community call:
- Did the people behind the hard fork conspire to create a new opportunity to exit?
- How many people are in it for the money making?
- How many people are in it genuinely because of values?
All of these are valid questions and concerns. Only time will tell. Pump & dumps are never sustainable.
Real value can only be created by making products people want, that solve problems that would lead to massive adoption and demand.
Which brings me to the next thought...
Who will survive? STEEM or HIVE?
In my view, there is a silver lining to this drama between Justin / STEEM / HIVE community.
Right now, the entire cryptoverse knows about what is happening at STEEM.
For two years, the biggest criticism surrounding STEEM is that there just isn't exciting development on the platform. The sheer amount of attention the platform is getting right now is quite priceless and is something money can't buy.
Now, both have an opportunity to earn their mettle.
- STEEM
With the hardfork complete, Justin Sun can comfortably control the Steem blockchain as he now owns 20% of it - effectively making him the largest stakeholder. From what I read, Justin is a profit driven business personality in the crypto world. With the resources and connections he has, he can move things fast. If he can lead and build products that people want and enjoy, that ultimately matters.
- HIVE
I think Justin Sun completely mishandled the community and now he lost what he thought he was buying... the community.
I love the fact how the community fought back against a hostile takeover Justin Sun orchestrated using consumer deposited STEEM tokens in major cryptocurrency exchanges Binance & Huobi; both which later issued official apologies, reversed their decisions and how they govern user deposited funds moving forward will be receiving new hawk-eye attention.
To me, that's a huge win for HIVE.
If Hive overtakes Steem it would be a strong demonstration that the community is in charge and cannot be bought. - Vitalik Buterin, Founder of Ethereum
However, if HIVE does not overcome the challenges of decentralised coordination to:
- Drive teams to develop cool products that people want.
- Communicate a clear vision to attract new entrants into its ecosystem.
- Deliver sound game-theoretic incentivization models.
The high emotions that we are feeling right now will eventually fade away. People will move on and forget the past. There is a high probability HIVE will become the "Friendster" that lost its relevance to the next "Facebook".
My salient point is
Whether centralized or decentralized, we need leadership.
I look forward to see that and contribute however I can to that leadership.
We must not rest on our laurels.
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