It's been two years since this community moved on as Hive. It's still one of my most "productive" hobbies since 2018. I'm not rolling in the dough, but I am far ahead from where I started. Since 2020, there have been positive changes around this ecosystem. I hope that trend continues. Here are some things I hope to see in the future:
Hive Engine has been a tremendous L2 approach for this ecosystem. DLux is also another alternative. Unfortunately, there are no native smart contracts on Hive. Everyone has to use more or less centralized services on the chain. That's not inherently a bad thing. Smart contracts open up so many more possibilities. I believe a more decentralized L2 on Hive is better than the existing solutions.
A meager 2.85% return for passively staking HIVE is not competitive. Yes, you can spam cast votes to get closer to 9-11% a year, but it forces people into a role many don't like to assume: curator.
What if passive staking rewards increases to be around par with HBD interests? One of the ways it would make sense is moving most, if not all, social rewards on the base layer to L2. I know many people are against it, but I think the pros outweigh the cons.
For one, reward disagreements would become localized in niche communities instead of trying to find a one-size-fits-all standard across the network.
Centralized "anti-abuse" initiatives would become obsolete as communities can spend time keeping their backyard clean. There would be no more need for faux central authorities on these matters. People can still collaborate across communities to moderate bad actors. They can deploy community tools for mutual benefits. I believe people who are part of their niche interests would understand what's valuable for their communities in terms of content.
I think L1 should focus on economic incentives and governance. It would not only help attract capital but also retain them. The current system expects whales to take on roles that make people mad when they make a less-than-optimal move or vote. It also expects everyone to be a content creator.
It still takes 13 weeks to power down all your HP. This number needs to be four weeks or lower. There have been several ideas of how to implement this. The bottom line: the long unlocking time is a disincentive to stake HIVE. Other chains allow for this flexibility. The market caps speak for themselves.
Much like the voting proxies, I think existing delegations would also benefit from expiring on their own after a year. It would facilitate social (even political) relationships, or at least the maintenance thereof, instead of parties benefitting from forgotten free delegations.
Should the worst happen, like deaths or loss of keys, we won't end up with entities having undeserving powers through proxies like the dead witness votes. Of course, should L1 social rewards go away, this would become a non-existent issue. Okay, maybe not for RCs.
I'm only scratching the surface here. Hive has changed a lot from simply a blogging platform. There are other things to do around here these days. What I've written here are just ideas. They have no impact on what the consensus witnesses or whales think. There may be overlaps. Most of us want to see this community continue to sail in the vast crypto sea.
