Update/Edit: There are a few points in this article where I was wrong and Arcange corrected me in the comments. So please see their post. It's not AS bad as I originally stated but still could use a lot of work and more active nodes in my opinion.
If you have been around HIVE for any amount of time over a week than you are probably familiar with seeing comments or posts about somebody and their Witness Node and how they are asking for you to vote for their Witness Node. (Not hating on asking for votes at all)
Each Hive account can vote for 30 Witness Nodes and voting for those Nodes does not cost the account anything. So why not vote for the Nodes (and the people who run them) that you trust?
How to Vote?
The easiest way I have found is to head over to https://peakd.com/witnesses and just go down the list and click on the ones you want to vote for.
But why vote?
Good Question and the Good Answer is that because the top 20 Node Witnesses are the ones who determine the blocks that get produced. So if you have a couple bad actors in the top spots, well then bad things can happen at HIVE.
Let's ask AI why you should vote:
- Top 20 Witnesses produce the majority of blocks and decide on upgrades to the Hive blockchain.
- Backup Witnesses (21+ rank) fill in when needed and can eventually move up with more votes.
- By voting for smaller, independent witnesses, you help decentralize power and prevent a few entities from controlling the network.
So yeah, if you are reading this then you probably have a HIVE account and you should vote for Witnesses. It's like your right to vote and if you don't vote, then you can't complain when things get approved or pushed through that you don't like.
But why isn't HIVE as decentralized as I thought?
Well I started to comb through the current list of Witness Nodes and something really scary jumped out to me.
There are 500 Witness Nodes listed on that page, and at face value that sounds pretty good. But once you start to actually look at the nodes you will see some glaring problems.
- 84 Nodes - that have zero 'votes' for them (meaning no HP weight)
- 76 Nodes - that have less than 1,000 HP Voting.
- 221 Nodes - that have between 1 million and 1 thousand HP Voting.
- 119 Nodes - That have over 1 Million in HP Voting
And I know what you are thinking... "That's not too bad! There are a lot of Nodes spread out semi evenly."
And sure that is one way to look at the data... but with every story there are 2 sides of the truth. So let's take another look at the Witness Nodes that run this blockchain we all know and love.
Out of the 500 Witness Nodes... There are 397 that are not online or are just severely out of date.
So we only have 103 Witness Nodes currently functioning and working on our Blockchain!
How I determined those numbers is pretty straight forward. Any Node that is behind on block number by at least 7 days to me is offline. And Honestly I should have made it any Node that is 3 days behind or more should be considered offline/dead (I think there is only 1 that is 6 days out of sync but there were a bunch of 7 days).
So that leaves us with 103 Witness Nodes that actually are in sync and can produce a block (in theory). Those Nodes are as follows (sorted by amount of votes by weight to each node).
| Rank | Witness | Node Version | Votes(MHP) | Last Block # | Last Block Time |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | arcange | 1.27.6 | 87.4m | 93984692 | 11 minutes |
| 2 | stoodkev | 1.27.6 | 86.4m | 93984686 | 12 minutes |
| 3 | gtg | 1.27.6 | 84.7m | 93984683 | 12 minutes |
| 4 | blocktrades | 1.27.6 | 82.6m | 93984693 | 11 minutes |
| 5 | yabapmatt | 1.27.5 | 82.2m | 93984703 | 11 minutes |
| 6 | ausbitbank | 1.27.6 | 81.8m | 93984691 | 11 minutes |
| 7 | good-karma | 1.27.3 | 79.9m | 93984682 | 12 minutes |
| 8 | guiltyparties | 1.27.6 | 77.2m | 93984700 | 11 minutes |
| 9 | steempeak by peakd | 1.27.3 | 76.6m | 93984706 | 11 minutes |
| 10 | ocd-witness by acidyo | 1.27.6 | 75.5m | 93984694 | 11 minutes |
| 11 | deathwing | 1.27.3 | 74.2m | 93984689 | 12 minutes |
| 12 | emrebeyler | 1.27.6 | 74.1m | 93984696 | 11 minutes |
| 13 | threespeak | 1.27.3 | 73.4m | 93984707 | 11 minutes |
| 14 | abit | 1.27.6 | 73.1m | 93984699 | 11 minutes |
| 15 | pharesim | 1.27.0 | 72.4m | 93984704 | 11 minutes |
| 16 | themarkymark | 1.27.5 | 71.6m | 93984688 | 12 minutes |
| 17 | therealwolf | 1.27.3 | 71.2m | 93984705 | 11 minutes |
| 18 | quochuy | 1.27.7 | 70.9m | 93984702 | 11 minutes |
| 19 | smooth.witness | 1.27.6 | 69.1m | 93984698 | 11 minutes |
| 20 | roelandp | 1.27.6 | 69.0m | 93984685 | 12 minutes |
| 21 | engrave | 1.27.6 | 67.0m | 93984631 | 14 Minutes |
| 22 | mahdiyari | 1.27.6 | 65.9m | 93984669 | 13 Minutes |
| 23 | howo | 1.27.6 | 65.6m | 93984517 | 20 Minutes |
| 24 | anyx | 1.27.4 | 58.6m | 93984546 | 19 Minutes |
| 25 | actifit | 1.27.6 | 49.6m | 93984400 | 26 Minutes |
| 26 | someguy123 | 1.27.6 | 40.9m | 93984120 | 40 Minutes |
| 27 | techcoderx | 1.27.6 | 37.3m | 93984614 | 15 Minutes |
| 28 | jesta | 1.27.4 | 35.0m | 93984503 | 21 Minutes |
| 29 | leofinance | 1.27.6 | 30.7m | 93984281 | 32 Minutes |
| 30 | timcliff | 1.27.0 | 25.3m | 93984456 | 23 Minutes |
| 31 | liketu | 1.27.6 | 24.0m | 93984191 | 36 minutes ago |
| 32 | town-hall | 1.27.6 | 23.8m | 93984343 | 29 minutes ago |
| 33 | drakos | 1.27.7 | 23.2m | 93984591 | 16 minutes ago |
| 34 | oflyhigh | 1.27.6 | 22.7m | 93984366 | 28 minutes ago |
| 35 | brianoflondon | 1.27.6 | 22.4m | 93984105 | 41 minutes ago |
| 36 | louis.witness | 1.27.6 | 22.4m | 93984316 | 30 minutes ago |
| 37 | pfunk | 1.27.0 | 22.1m | 93983737 | 1 Hour |
| 38 | pizza.witness | 1.27.6 | 20.5m | 93983533 | 1 Hour |
| 39 | rishi556 | 1.27.6 | 19.8m | 93983763 | 1 Hour |
| 40 | ura-soul | 1.27.6 | 18.8m | 93983412 | 1 Hour |
| 41 | hextech | 1.27.6 | 18.2m | 93983785 | 1 Hour |
| 42 | dalz | 1.27.6 | 18.2m | 93983445 | 1 Hour |
| 43 | neoxian | 1.27.6 | 17.8m | 93983380 | 1 Hour |
| 44 | curie | 1.27.3 | 17.7m | 93983959 | 1 Hour |
| 45 | vsc.network | 1.27.6 | 16.9m | 93984211 | 35 Minutes |
| 46 | aliento | 1.27.6 | 16.9m | 93984695 | 11 minutes |
| 47 | steemitboard | 1.27.6 | 15.8m | 93983229 | 1 Hour |
| 48 | disregardfiat | 1.27.5 | 14.9m | 93984018 | 1 Hour |
| 49 | solominer | 1.27.6 | 14.9m | 93983498 | 1 Hour |
| 50 | sagarkothari88 | 1.27.6 | 14.2m | 93983937 | 1 Hour |
| 51 | detlev.witness | 1.27.6 | 13.8m | 93983705 | 1 Hour |
| 52 | hivecuba | 1.27.6 | 13.6m | 93984226 | 35 Minutes |
| 53 | r0nd0n | 1.27.6 | 13.4m | 93983034 | 2 Hours |
| 54 | stayoutoftherz | 1.27.6 | 13.2m | 93983673 | 1 Hour |
| 55 | empo.witness | 1.27.3 | 12.9m | 93982917 | 2 Hours |
| 56 | ctrpch | 1.27.6 | 11.7m | 93984052 | 43 Minutes |
| 57 | reazuliqbal | 1.27.7 | 10.3m | 93983074 | 2 Hours |
| 58 | c0ff33a | 1.27.3 | 10.1m | 93983428 | 1 Hour |
| 59 | primersion | 1.27.6 | 9.1m | 93983991 | 1 Hour |
| 60 | balaz | 1.27.4 | 8.8m | 93984246 | 34 Minutes |
| 61 | qurator | 1.27.6 | 8.6m | 93984170 | 37 Minutes |
| 62 | fbslo | 1.27.6 | 7.9m | 93982292 | 2 Hours |
| 63 | patrice | 1.27.4 | 7.2m | 93981777 | 3 Hours |
| 64 | bdcommunity | 1.27.4 | 7.1m | 93982034 | 2 Hours |
| 65 | innerhive | 1.27.6 | 7.1m | 93983843 | 1 Hour |
| 66 | thebbhproject | 1.27.6 | 7.0m | 93982220 | 2 Hours |
| 67 | liotes | 1.27.6 | 6.5m | 93982202 | 2 Hours |
| 68 | cadawg | 1.27.6 | 6.5m | 93982703 | 2 Hours |
| 69 | wrestorgonline | 1.27.6 | 6.2m | 93983008 | 2 Hours |
| 70 | crowdwitness | 1.27.6 | 5.3m | 93984037 | 44 Minutes |
| 71 | shmoogleosukami | 1.27.6 | 5.0m | 93980121 | 4 Hours |
| 72 | hispapro | 1.27.6 | 5.0m | 93982353 | 2 Hours |
| 73 | fernandosoder | 1.27.7 | 4.9m | 93981583 | 3 Hours |
| 74 | hiq.witness | 1.27.6 | 4.8m | 93806524 | 6 Days |
| 75 | klye | 1.27.8 | 4.6m | 93979863 | 4 Hours |
| 76 | blue-witness | 1.27.6 | 4.6m | 93980806 | 3 Hours |
| 77 | discovery-it | 1.27.6 | 4.5m | 93984480 | 22 Minutes |
| 78 | gwajnberg | 1.27.6 | 4.4m | 93980654 | 4 Hours |
| 79 | jedigeiss | 1.27.4 | 4.4m | 93983358 | 1 Hour |
| 80 | nuthman | 1.27.6 | 4.3m | 93982637 | 2 Hours |
| 81 | la-colmena | 1.27.6 | 3.9m | 93982585 | 2 Hours |
| 82 | condeas | 1.27.6 | 3.9m | 93983577 | 1 Hour |
| 83 | mengao | 1.27.6 | 3.1m | 93980281 | 4 Hours |
| 84 | synergy.witness | 1.27.8 | 3.1m | 93984445 | 24 Minutes |
| 85 | helpie-caster | 1.27.6 | 3.0m | 93980230 | 4 Hours |
| 86 | atexoras.witness | 1.27.7 | 3.0m | 93978869 | 5 Hours |
| 87 | keys-defender | 1.27.3 | 2.8m | 93977613 | 6 Hours |
| 88 | whiterosecoffee | 1.27.3 | 2.8m | 93976251 | 7 Hours |
| 89 | tazi | 1.27.6 | 2.8m | 93979763 | 4 Hours |
| 90 | seattlea | 1.27.7 | 2.7m | 93977674 | 6 Hours |
| 91 | cervisia | 1.27.6 | 2.6m | 93980436 | 4 Hours |
| 92 | pishio | 1.27.6 | 2.1m | 93977707 | 6 Hours |
| 93 | vimm.witness | 1.27.6 | 2.0m | 93975143 | 8 Hours |
| 94 | chisdealhd | 1.27.6 | 2.0m | 93982998 | 2 Hours |
| 95 | alloyxuast | 1.27.6 | 2.0m | 93974229 | 9 Hours |
| 96 | perfilbrasil | 1.27.7 | 2.0m | 93983677 | 1 Hour |
| 97 | earn.hive | 1.27.6 | 1.9m | 93976557 | 7 Hours |
| 98 | isnochys | 1.27.6 | 1.9m | 93976110 | 7 Hours |
| 99 | helo | 1.27.6 | 1.6m | 93977372 | 6 Hours |
| 100 | lapingvino | 1.27.6 | 1.5m | 93980004 | 4 Hours |
| 101 | mebonline | 1.27.6 | 1.5m | 93975642 | 8 Hours |
| 102 | skatehive | 1.27.7 | 905.5k | 93964448 | 17 Hours |
| 103 | crypto-shots | 1.27.4 | 653.7k | 93973127 | 10 Hours |
These numbers were pulled on March 9th, 2025 at 11:30 EST. So they may be out of date by the time you are reading this article.
But why does that matter? There are over 100 Nodes ready to go if they are called up to the big leagues to produce a block right? NOPE!
CLARIFICATION TIME
I am going to be using names of accounts that host HIVE Witness Nodes. If I am speaking poorly about your Node, it is NOT personal at all. I am merely talking about things based on the numbers and facts. I truly appreciate all 103 of these accounts that are running Witness Nodes.
Let's say for example there is a network outage at a Amazon Datacenter or even a CloudFare outage and the top 20 Nodes are taken offline. Well Hive still needs to run so it is going to look to pull up some people from the B league to fill in. If you wanted to buy some tokens or send them or post/comment/edit articles on HIVE, would you want Node #102 by Skatehive to immediately step up and start producing blocks? I wouldn't, because it is 17 hours behind on blocks. That is scary.
The top 20 Nodes are the ones who produce blocks right, with #21 and #22 being on standby. What is more frightening then #102 being way out of sync is a #37 by pfunk being an hour behind. If something happens to the top few and #37 becomes #20 well that guy is going to be behind. You all hate when sites/services are down because of Nodes right? Well this could be 1 reason why those types of things happen!
So for my argument sake let's take a look at all the Nodes that are in sync within an hour or less okay?
That gives us these 45 Witness Nodes:
| Rank | Witness | Node Version | Votes(MHP) | Last Block # | Last Block Time |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | arcange | 1.27.6 | 87.4m | 93984692 | 11 minutes |
| 2 | stoodkev | 1.27.6 | 86.4m | 93984686 | 12 minutes |
| 3 | gtg | 1.27.6 | 84.7m | 93984683 | 12 minutes |
| 4 | blocktrades | 1.27.6 | 82.6m | 93984693 | 11 minutes |
| 5 | yabapmatt | 1.27.5 | 82.2m | 93984703 | 11 minutes |
| 6 | ausbitbank | 1.27.6 | 81.8m | 93984691 | 11 minutes |
| 7 | good-karma | 1.27.3 | 79.9m | 93984682 | 12 minutes |
| 8 | guiltyparties | 1.27.6 | 77.2m | 93984700 | 11 minutes |
| 9 | steempeak by peakd | 1.27.3 | 76.6m | 93984706 | 11 minutes |
| 10 | ocd-witness by acidyo | 1.27.6 | 75.5m | 93984694 | 11 minutes |
| 11 | deathwing | 1.27.3 | 74.2m | 93984689 | 12 minutes |
| 12 | emrebeyler | 1.27.6 | 74.1m | 93984696 | 11 minutes |
| 13 | threespeak | 1.27.3 | 73.4m | 93984707 | 11 minutes |
| 14 | abit | 1.27.6 | 73.1m | 93984699 | 11 minutes |
| 15 | pharesim | 1.27.0 | 72.4m | 93984704 | 11 minutes |
| 16 | themarkymark | 1.27.5 | 71.6m | 93984688 | 12 minutes |
| 17 | therealwolf | 1.27.3 | 71.2m | 93984705 | 11 minutes |
| 18 | quochuy | 1.27.7 | 70.9m | 93984702 | 11 minutes |
| 19 | smooth.witness | 1.27.6 | 69.1m | 93984698 | 11 minutes |
| 20 | roelandp | 1.27.6 | 69.0m | 93984685 | 12 minutes |
| 21 | engrave | 1.27.6 | 67.0m | 93984631 | 14 Minutes |
| 22 | mahdiyari | 1.27.6 | 65.9m | 93984669 | 13 Minutes |
| 23 | howo | 1.27.6 | 65.6m | 93984517 | 20 Minutes |
| 24 | anyx | 1.27.4 | 58.6m | 93984546 | 19 Minutes |
| 25 | actifit | 1.27.6 | 49.6m | 93984400 | 26 Minutes |
| 26 | someguy123 | 1.27.6 | 40.9m | 93984120 | 40 Minutes |
| 27 | techcoderx | 1.27.6 | 37.3m | 93984614 | 15 Minutes |
| 28 | jesta | 1.27.4 | 35.0m | 93984503 | 21 Minutes |
| 29 | leofinance | 1.27.6 | 30.7m | 93984281 | 32 Minutes |
| 30 | timcliff | 1.27.0 | 25.3m | 93984456 | 23 Minutes |
| 31 | liketu | 1.27.6 | 24.0m | 93984191 | 36 minutes |
| 32 | town-hall | 1.27.6 | 23.8m | 93984343 | 29 minutes |
| 33 | drakos | 1.27.7 | 23.2m | 93984591 | 16 minutes |
| 34 | oflyhigh | 1.27.6 | 22.7m | 93984366 | 28 minutes |
| 35 | brianoflondon | 1.27.6 | 22.4m | 93984105 | 41 minutes |
| 36 | louis.witness | 1.27.6 | 22.4m | 93984316 | 30 minutes |
| 37 | vsc.network | 1.27.6 | 16.9m | 93984211 | 35 Minutes |
| 38 | aliento | 1.27.6 | 16.9m | 93984695 | 11 Minutes |
| 39 | hivecuba | 1.27.6 | 13.6m | 93984226 | 35 Minutes |
| 40 | ctrpch | 1.27.6 | 11.7m | 93984052 | 43 Minutes |
| 41 | balaz | 1.27.4 | 8.8m | 93984246 | 34 Minutes |
| 42 | qurator | 1.27.6 | 8.6m | 93984170 | 37 Minutes |
| 43 | crowdwitness | 1.27.6 | 5.3m | 93984037 | 44 Minutes |
| 44 | discovery-it | 1.27.6 | 4.5m | 93984480 | 22 Minutes |
| 45 | synergy.witness | 1.27.8 | 3.1m | 93984445 | 24 Minutes |
Also for simplicity we are not going to get into Node Versions either.
But that is 45 Nodes across the entire globe that can produce blocks fairly quickly if needed. That is scary to me. For as big as Hive the blockchain is and how much it is used across the globe, to only have 45 dependable Nodes is sketchy to me.
(Now this is not to knock Hive Blockchain in any way, it is just that I wish it was more decentralized than it is).
Now let's play a fun game together.
How much HP was voted to Nodes that are either offline or are out of sync for 1 hour or more?
So basically all the nodes except the 45 listed directly above?
! [The Answer] 535038260
That is 535,038,260 worth of Hive Power voted to Nodes no longer working optimally.
Over half a million Hive Power guys....
Yeah it's scary lol
How did this happen?
I have a theory that people do not regularly check for which Nodes they are voting/voted for. So someone from 4 years ago probably voted for Witness Nodes and might have not checked it since and all the Nodes they voted for are now offline. That could very well be it.
But also I feel like when you create your first Hive account (at least for me) there is no real good onboarding or detailed information that you are pointed to.
Tell me where I can go (1 URL webpage) that has ALL of the following:
- List out most/all of the various sites and services on Hive.
- Explanations about Hive, Hive Power and HBD.
- Explanation about Curation and posting payouts.
- Explanation about Nodes and Witnesses (voting and creating one).
- Explanation about Voting Power, Resource Credits, Weight of votes, etc.
I am willingly to bet a lot of HIVE users do not even know about voting for Witness Nodes and why they should AND that its completely free for them.
So I can't really blame people if they just never knew about Witness voting or if they just forgot about it because it's not really talked about (at least not in the circles that I follow).
What to do now? Your Call to Action!
This is your reminder that if you have a Hive account with ANY amount of Hive Power then you should want to vote for Witnesses and you should vote for witnesses.
This is not something you should have to do everyday or every week even. But every month or so go to: https://peakd.com/witnesses (or which ever site you are using) and check to see if the nodes you previously voted for are still up and running optimally, and if not remove your vote and vote for other ones.