A user recently contacted me asking about the LUV token and noted that he had only one. I gave him nine of my own so that he then had 10 and could freely give one per day to someone else. This morning, he contacted me again saying he only had one LUV. Umm...blockchains are open and transparent, I gave you nine a few days ago, and you actually now have 12.
After giving the nine LUV, I let him know his status of having 10, etc. Still, I got the message this morning of "Only 1 luv." Seems clear that either this person is using my generosity disingenuously or he really doesn't understand how to check his wallet. I think this person is a somewhat new Hiver, so I don't want to beat him up over this. Time for some education on Hive, and on not trying to use others, and on not begging, and in the fact that you'll always get much farther by your own work and effort as opposed to lazy shenanigans.
And, it was time for some self-education. Note-to-self: everyone on the internet is not 100% honest. Or, maybe they're just pretty clueless. PEBCAK errors are very real.
What really stuck out to me is that, along with his 12 LUV, he also had 6.3 Hivebits (HBIT). The only way HBIT exists "in the wild" is because someone has mined it. This meant that for several days he's been mining Hivebits. Or, he's savvy enough to buy HBIT on the Hive-Engine market from someone who has mined it. Or, he somehow had it given to him from someone who has mined it.
A quick check on an H-E explorer shows, yep, he's mined HBIT seven times. Given the 90% ratio awarded to miners, that would equate to exactly 6.3 HBIT. Hmm, math works! I'm thinking this user does not fall under the technologically clueless category.
Anyway, it suddenly occurred to my squirrel brain that, right here, there's another use case for HBIT. Hivebits can be mined daily (one-per-day). Like any other token on Hive-Engine, it can be bought or sold easily. If that user really wants more LUV, he could mine-then-sell his HBIT, then buy LUV. Easy.
What's more, HBIT is currently trading at a higher price than LUV. If a Hive user really wanted to commit to it over a year, 365 HBIT mined-then-sold-then-flipped-to-LUV might actually get that user close to "LUV Legend" level*. ( *LUV Legend level is currently set at 500 LUV, but it will likely soon increase.)
I drew the animation below when HBIT began on 1/1 to illustrate how a Hiver might go from mining Hivebits to acquiring Bitcoin.
It is possible to do what the gif shows, but more practically, moving from mining HBIT to acquiring another Hive-Engine token would be much easier. And there it is, a very practical use case for HBIT: Hivebits can be easily mined in order to acquire other tokens.
HBIT also teaches lessons...like, don't beg and misuse others' generosity.
How to mine HBIT? See @hivebits/about
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