Lately, we've seen a number of issues raised regarding Hive and, in some cases, solutions proposed to change the status quo.
In some cases, the issues raised are conflicting with each other, so, by attempting to fix what is considered a problem by some, you make the other worse and vice versa. We have to be careful when proposing changes to not take something that's been working relatively smoothly and break it.
Hive is a complex ecosystem with various use cases, and very few of them (if any) improved significantly in a series of iterations, to become a magnet for the masses.
Decentralization allows us to develop in different uncorrelated areas. That, in my opinion, is a strength, not an issue! Maybe Splinterlands was lucky at the beginning to have the support of almost the entire community at that time, including serious investors. But it also proved itself in time, despite many mistakes that were made, and big investors that sold their assets at times. It was and will become again a magnet in the crypto world, in my opinion.
Becoming a magnet is difficult, but not impossible, as they have shown.
Let's go over many of the issues regarding Hive I've heard and seen recently. Some I consider to be real issues (or priorities), others not so much.
I believe it's an ok discussion to have, to clarify some positions and arguments. I disagree this is a priority that should keep our time occupied too much. This would become a non-issue if we have adoption since the reward pool would be split into too many hands to matter anymore and layer two rewards will become a necessity at that time. Then, it will be a priority. But I don't think we are at any "risk" of this kind of adoption (to make the base layer reward pool rewards irrelevant) during this bull market.
At times, numbers don't look good, but we have some examples that work(ed).
We have the example in Cumana. A tight community with strong ties in real life and the potential of an HBD-based economy brings new users and keeps existing ones from the same city active.
Again, Splinterlands showed us the way during their 2021 boom. It's true. Many of those accounts were bot farms, but there were also many real users, some of whom I continue to interact with on-chain, and those are only the ones that also started to blog or comment because most of them remained within the Splinterlands ecosystem.
Something I disagree with here. Treating someone who uses the blogging or even the short-message side of Hive as active, while someone who trades or plays games is not always considered active. Or someone who uses v4v.app. They are all active on Hive, just using different aspects of it!
Regarding attrition, yes, it's big, but that is quite a general issue with online businesses. Give them a reason to stick around and they will. I wonder how many of the Splinterlands users onboarded in the boom period of 2021 went away before the bull market ended and Splinterlands assets went downhill. I don't have a metric, but judging by the excitement during those days, there weren't many.
That's a real issue especially after Bittrex closed down and Binance may be facing the same fate or HIVE may get delisted from it.
We have the great news of the first demo of the bitcoin wrapping option via VSC, which is now public and usable.
For us, who are used to a fee-less ecosystem, the fees on the bitcoin mainnet may seem quite high. It can't be used for micropayments, but it seems to be a better alternative to the Lightning Network.
Besides that, we also have the bridges the Leo team offers to BSC and Polygon, and, let's not forget about the bridges from the Splinterlands ecosystem to other blockchains, via TerraBlock.
We also still have a couple of other CEX listings, but they can go away at any time if regulations impose that, even indirectly.
That's another drawback of Hive, the lack of real smart contracts. Besides Hive bridges, I believe that's the top priority, and also something VSC works towards.
We've also experienced a series of Hive-Engine issues recently that show we also need another sidechain or second layer chain that can be a more decentralized alternative.
They usually come in a package with the reward pool issue mentioned at #1, but unless they are abused, I see them as a positive thing, not a negative.
Of course, it doesn't become a problem unless they are abused. But so do abuses that downvotes can prevent. I believe generally, even knowing of their existence may prevent some people from trying something funny. On the other hand, I've seen enough times when powerful actors nullified potential rewards due to probable disagreements that had nothing to do with the post(s). It's a fine line, but I believe they are necessary for the Hive economy.
Is the APR for HBD in savings an issue currently? No.
Would it be an issue in the future? Potentially.
My stance on this is kind of nuanced. The way things are now makes the savings account for HBD something very easy to understand by anyone. And it's appealing, for the high interest rate and for being quite liquid, at least for many in the Hive ecosystem.
As such, for the ease of use and the attraction it represents, HBD in savings as it is now is not to be disconsidered.
Where the current savings account and the way it works doesn't help is building more complex systems on top. Like bonding, and the ability to collateralize HBD, or maybe even HIVE. The idea of collateralizing an asset is powerful because it allows someone who understands how this works to have working capital or an expense fund without ever selling the base coin (HBD or HIVE). So, I believe having such a system built is important as well.
We can always find things to debate about regarding Hive. I believe our decentralization is a strength, and having different people/teams working in different directions will not hinder the progress of Hive. It also helps to have priorities that come naturally from the needs of our ecosystem. One such priority that comes naturally is the ability of the ecosystem to bridge to the outside. Without that, we would operate in a bubble, and that hurts every other aspect we might be trying to achieve.
