PeakD's new DHF proposal is live, but as I write this it is not funded. Not even close. Not a complaint, just the reality in front of us.
Hive is in a rough market. Crypto in general is in a rough market. Funding is tighter, attention is lower, and everyone is a bit more careful with resources. That is understandable.
But it also means we need to be honest about what comes next.
For years we have tried to build and maintain one of the most complete apps for Hive offering all features for free.
That was the ideal. But free does not mean costless. Servers cost money. Storage costs money. Databases cost money. Maintenance costs time. Every new feature, every Hive hardfork, every dependency update, every browser change, every API issue, every bug report, every feature request, every support message, every edge case has a cost somewhere.
When the DHF supports the work, that model can make sense. When that support is not there, or is much less certain, we need to experiment.
This is probably the only time where we have the freedom to try to shake things up.
That may sound strange. Usually less funding means less freedom. In many ways that is true. We have less room for long roadmaps, less room for slow decisions, and less room to maintain every old assumption just because it used to work.
But there is another side to it: when the current model is not working, there is not much to lose by testing new ones.
I do not want PeakD to slowly become a project that only maintains what already exists, avoids every difficult decision, and waits for better market conditions. That is not how products survive. It is also not very interesting.
So going forward we are going to try things.
Some of them may be rough. Some may be unpopular. Some may break something for a while. Some may upset people who are used to PeakD working a certain way.
That is not me saying I want to be careless. It is me saying that the next phase probably needs faster iteration than we have done in the past.
We need to find out what people really value, what can help pay for the work, what should stay broadly available, and what parts of the product are used mostly by heavier users who may be willing to support them directly.
One of the experiments will be a stronger premium model.
That means some things that PeakD has always offered for free may move into a paid or premium tier.
And new features may be introduced that are only available to premium users.
I know that can be uncomfortable. I also know some people will disagree with where the line is drawn. That is expected.
But we need to be practical. A product like PeakD cannot keep expanding, maintaining everything, absorbing infrastructure costs, and supporting power-user workflows forever without a reliable funding model. If the DHF is not enough, or not available, then the product needs other ways to support itself.
The goal is not to make PeakD expensive.
The goal is to keep it cheap, useful, and fair enough that people who get real value from the product can directly support the project.
The DHF proposal still matters. If you have not voted yet you can do it here: https://peakd.com/proposals/382
If you think PeakD and the Peak Open projects are useful to Hive, voting for the proposal helps. It gives us more room to maintain the core work, keep infrastructure healthy, and make decisions from a stronger position.
But I do not want to write this as if everything depends on the DHF.
Whether the proposal gets funded or not, the message is the same: PeakD needs to adapt.
The market changed. The funding changed. The tools changed. So some assumptions probably need to change as well.
Give feedback. Be direct. Tell us what feels unfair, what feels useful, and what you would actually pay for. We will listen, adjust, and keep moving.
Let’s start this weird little new chapter together, and thanks for sticking with us so far.
