Some time ago, I wrote a post pointing out something that felt obvious, Hive’s user base seems smaller than it used to be. And I also shared the “silver lining” angle, fewer users can sometimes mean better visibility, less competition for curator attention, and more chances to get noticed.
That post ended up being a little controversial.
Not because some users seem to agree with me, but because one Hive user responded in a way that didn’t fully align with my point, and it gave me a needed reality check. It made me realize I’ve been looking at Hive through a narrow angle, the “how do I win here” angle, instead of the “what is Hive actually built for” angle.
And that difference matters.
Because yes, it can be easier to build momentum in a niche community. But Hive was never meant to stay niche.
Created using Sora
Hive is designed to scale. It’s fast. It’s almost fee-less. And a chain built like that doesn’t exist just to serve a few thousand people who already understand it. Hive is meant to cater for millions and millions of users, the kind of numbers that turn a good product into an unstoppable network effect.
Let’s be honest, the price of Hive has been discouraging for a lot of people. You don’t need to be a trader to feel it. When the chart is bleeding, motivation bleeds too, especially for creators who measure their effort in fiat terms.
But here’s the lesson I keep relearning in crypto:
Price and progress rarely move on the same timeline.
Hive can be building quietly, shipping improvements, strengthening infrastructure, and improving the user experience… while the token price is dwindling. That disconnect feels frustrating, but it’s not new.
And this is where the loyal community members stand out.
During bullish periods, everyone is a believer. During bearish periods, you start seeing who actually cares about the platform itself.
I’ve noticed something that lines up with what many long-time Hive users already know: when the price is down, the “tourists” slowly disappear… and the people who remain are the ones building real roots.
Some stay because they genuinely enjoy the conversations. Some stay because Hive is their daily habit. Some stay because they’re playing the long game, stacking Hive, powering up, compounding curation, and treating bear markets as accumulation seasons.
That’s not fake. That’s conviction.
This is where my mindset needed to shift.
If we celebrate a small user base because it gives us better chances at rewards, we accidentally admit something uncomfortable: we’re optimizing for comfort, not growth.
Hive needs users for more than vanity metrics.
We need users because:
Right now, curation often feels imbalance. A few large accounts can shape visibility, while smaller curators trail behind, even when they’re trying to do the right thing.
That’s why changes that reduce friction for everyday curators matter. Even something as “simple” as improving how upvotes behave can make participation feel more intuitive and fair, especially for smaller accounts trying to curate consistently.
If you ask me what keeps Hive alive, it’s not the price chart.
It’s the loyal community members who keep showing up, posting, commenting, curating, onboarding, and building… even when it’s not trendy to do so. It’s the people who treat Hive like a place, not just a farm.
That loyalty is powerful, but it shouldn’t become an excuse to stay small.
The mission isn’t to protect a quiet corner of the internet where it’s easy to get attention.
The mission is to grow Hive into what it was built to be, a scalable, human-centered social blockchain that can actually handle mass adoption without collapsing under fees, censorship, or centralized control.
So yes, I still understand the “niche advantage.” But I don’t want Hive to be a niche advantage.
