Yesterday marked exactly 5 complete years for me on Hive, and yesterday we also went on a picnic to Hawksbay Beach! First, let me talk a bit about the beach, and then I will dive into some Hive reflections, so stay tuned. It has probably been a good while since you last saw me here. My birthday also just passed on July 30th, turning me 26 years old, and I am working at an even faster pace towards a brighter future for 
I swam and bathed a lot in the ocean. I kept completely letting myself go in the water: as the waves receded, I went back with them, and as they surged forward, I floated right along. But having so much experience at Hawksbay Beach, I can pull all of this off safely. The funny thing is, the way I lay relaxed in the water, anyone looking at me from afar might mistake me for a floating body, hahaha! Twists, turns, floating upright or upside down, there isn't a position I didn't try at Hawksbay. It is such a calm, beautiful, and clean spot. I took breaks about three times and kept heading back into the water. We had booked a beach hut, so we had everything covered for food, drinks, and showering. Since we were three extended families together, the cost per person was very light. My family, my married sisters with their husbands and kids, and my future mother-in-law were all there, making it around 11 people in total. That is why we had arrangements for Pulao and hot tea as well, as you can see in the photos.
Here is the beach and two of my brothers-in-law. On family picnics, setting up the photos, framing the shots, and picking the backgrounds is a job usually handled mostly by me.
This was the room we booked, which came with an attached bathroom, a kitchen, and a sitting area. We spent most of our time outside on the terrace anyway, so a single room was more than enough. After all, we came there to swim in the sea and take in the view from the terrace, not to sit inside a room all day.
Another funny detail: three different groups of male friends actually complimented me on how I was floating like a total fish on the beach. I spent hours playfully enjoying myself. So many people came and went while I kept swimming around from one spot to another, completely safe and in my element. To tell you the truth, I do not feel scared of anything anymore. In the beginning, I used to be afraid of so many things, but now it feels like I have to make up for lost time for the rest of my life and live entirely fearlessly.
The price of Hive right now is sitting around $0.041, whereas I have seen Hive peak at $2.30. I remember the days when newbies in Splinterlands would land a $25 NFT just like that. That was the golden age of Splinterlands, a single game that drove the highest onboarding Hive has ever seen.
I remember when that issue surrounding azircon and ProofOfBrain (POB) took place, making me realize just how centralized Hive-Engine tribe tokens can truly be. A centralized plug was pulled, excluding a specific user from author rewards. It did not bother azircon much, but the reality of centralized tribe tokens became crystal clear to me. That was a time when people (newbies who thought they r late for hive) genuinely thought POB might become the next Bitcoin or that the POB tribe would end up bigger than Hive itself, alongside the massive promises of the LEO token, which, well, maybe those grand promises remain the same today.
Then I remember when the LOLZ DeFi project launched. A 110% APY sounded incredible at first, but then I witnessed the brutal side effects of hyperinflation with my own eyes.
So many other strange projects came and went, but a few found a lasting place in my heart. I saw Liketu, which was like Instagram and tailored for Gen-Z...... what a killer app for its time. It still is today, but back then, a massive number of users felt so comfortable simply posting images without needing to write walls of text. Yet on that very same Liketu, I stood like a frontline soldier catching AI-generated figures and downvoting them. AI faces and personas were becoming strikingly realistic. Truth be told, I rarely touched the Liketu website or app directly, but I felt its impact and contributed indirectly toward minimizing abuse. Now, though, my mind gets so tired from anti-abuse work that I have reduced my involvement.
I also remember the era when Marky was extremely active in anti-abuse. His intentions were hard to grasp at first, but over time I realized that even Marky has his limits. No one can do anti-abuse beyond their breaking point; everyone has their limits.
At one point, Hivewatchers felt like a cultish entity to me, but as time passed, I recognized just how deeply community-driven Hivewatchers actually is. I might not relate to their pay or salaries (being Pakistani, every dollar figure looks massive due to purchasing power parity, which shapes how we think), but the patience level of Hivewatchers is incredible. There was a time when I strongly advocated for Muslim women keeping their faces hidden and even protested quite a bit for it, but later I understood that the issue was never about hidden faces, but rather the massive abuse networks operating behind them. Rules simply evolve and adapt through experience.
I saw the rise of microblogging on Hive, learned and understood Reddit/Posh, and started making sense of countless things happening behind the scenes on Hive. I saw so many incredible projects, and I saw projects shut down too. The downfall of dCity broke my heart. Even though I was not an active dCity player, seeing it fade away hurt deeply. And yes, I, who once thought BeeSwap (BXT) was some super-complex DeFi token, witnessed its shutdown as well.
Then came a time when I became a builder myself. I built pakx and developed several other small, useful scripts. A time came when returns started coming from things beyond just writing blogs, like when my trading algorithms ran for months, undergoing constant tweaks and upgrades, and to this day I do not know how many more updates I will make. Now MAGI will increase cross-chain liquidity, and then I will build cross-chain trading bots and embark on even more adventures.
On Hive, I have seen wanna-be investors, wanna-be politicians, and wanna-be who-knows-what-else. I saw witch-hunting, saw close friends leave Hive, saw people with whom I had a healthy competition to beat their Hive Power do a full 100% powerdown and walk away forever, and even saw people I personally onboarded and taught everything to leave with a 100% powerdown as well.
Through all of this, there were the PIMP voice hangouts, the Alliance hangouts, the early "Heart to Heart" voice sessions in Hive Learners, and the early episodes of HiveThrive. I watched whales disagree with each other, dug into Hive's GitHub code repository to figure out who the primary core contributors were, and watched builders build. I met amazing people from whom I learned so much, experiencing unbelievable life changes that I had never even dreamed of. Remaining a Hiver without being driven purely by greed, valuing the network effect I gained through Hive even during brutal bear markets, and embracing so many positive life shifts: learning new skills, pushing forward in real life, calisthenics, a healthy diet, and so many good habits that would never have been possible without Hive.
So what is Hive to me? Hive to me is mahir, Hive to me is stayten, Hive to me is thekittygirl, Hive to me is nkemakonam, Hive to me is les90, amberkashif, ayesha-malik, spiritsurge, aslam, abdulmanan... no matter how many names I write, it will never be enough. I have never powered down, nor do I ever entertain the thought of powering down on dlmmqb. Hive is not $0.04 to me. Hive to me is all those people, all those memories, and all those conversations. Together, we build Hive. Hive is not just a number; Hive is a community, a vibe, and a passion.
