As is so often the case, this post today is inspired by a conversation going on in my comment area that I wanted to surface and flesh out my thinking around.

In a comment, I mentioned that I thought $HIVE could match and exceed the all-time-high that Steem managed to achieve.

For those who were not around back then, Steem was the predecessor to Hive. As well as improving on the technology, Hive improved on the organizational structure to prevent a similar hostile takeover from happening again.

Despite Hive being better all-around, we have yet to reach the same $8 valuation that Steem managed, but I think we could.

@themarkymark replied thusly:

Steem’s all-time high was a fluke. A perfect storm of events never to likely happen again.

Taking the point that a fluke that happened before can actually happen again, I think Marky means "all things being equal". Things don't have to remain as they are, I am bullish in fact that we will break the seal and will grow $HIVE if we, as a community, do the right things.

Lightning DOES Strike Twice

My cousin is a math professor, we once got talking about game theory at a family gathering and got told to shush. I need to revisit that conversation.

One of the things I have learned in my own research is how bad humans are at judging risk and chance.

The gambler's fallacy, the Monte Carlo fallacy or "maturity of chances",

the incorrect belief that, if a particular event occurs more frequently than normal during the past, it is less likely to happen in the future (or vice versa)

Picture a game of roulette. You have observed the ball land on red 4 times in a row. Are you more likely to put your money on red or black?

If you answered with the reasoning that red has come up too much and black is sure to follow, or thinking the ball prefers red so put money on red, you have fallen for the fallacy.

the most famous example of the gambler's fallacy occurred in a game of roulette at the Monte Carlo Casino on August 18, 1913, when the ball fell in black 26 times in a row

My buddy Ben has been struck by lightning twice. He survived, fortunately, but he is living proof that chance has no memory and no agenda.

We should not invest time or money however in the hope that a fluke would happen again, so what practically could move the needle for Hive and why am I so bullish (naive?)

10 Ways $HIVE Can 10x

I keep looking at alternatives to Hive and how they are priced out, I do believe Hive could increase by a lot.

Any one of these things could 10x the $HIVE price in my opinion, and several could happen realistically and in parallel:

1. Get listed on more/bigger exchanges (eg. Coinbase)

$DESO is trading around $50. There are, in my mind, only social reasons why $DESO is 50 x $HIVE. This will come up later in this list.

While DeSo has the advantage of investors and an actual leadership, the latter of which makes a huge difference, a lot of the valuation is from DeSo being traded on big exchanges such as Coinbase.

2. Influential users actively promoting

What is stopping influencers from getting on board with $HIVE?

There are REASONS why Rally.io has the influencer space locked down. Having spent a lot of time hanging out with top authors and speakers, I have a lot of ideas around this, something I will write about more in future, but I would love to know your opinions.

For a TL;DR of my thoughts: Influencers need to feel pride when they associate their brand, and they need to predict big rewards for risking their brand. Often with these things it is the reverse of first-mover-advantage.

3. More Defi game launches, or a massive single launch

Splinterlands has done a great deal for Hive in terms of credibility, and to an extent attracting new people and $. The players might not participate as a traditional Hiver, but they are here and have transactions.

The next game ought to find developing on our platform easier than Splinterlands did, and if we were smart we would try to encourage that rather than the pervasive, underlying background sense of entitlement we witness daily here.

4. Killer app nobody has thought of yet

$DESO is betting real money on teams of developers who have the ability but not the resources to create the next killer app.

With some improvements to HiveEngine and a better developer fund, our technology could beat DeSo into the ground.

In this case though I am betting on $DESO because I think the average Hiver would rather make a $1 for themselves than make $2 and see someone else make $5.

5. Big reddit-like community move to Hive

The infrastructure of Hive is built for a Reddit-alike. It is tailor-made for that. The problem is, Hive as a community doesn't like Reddit-style posts.

I am not for a moment hoping that one of the Reddit communities that were banned for being toxic move here, but everyday communities are coming up against problems associated with centralization. If just one or two migrated here we could have tens of thousands of new active users.

I'm a nobody and I have built several communities in the tens of thousands. Consider what a massive influx from an established community could achieve. The downside would be culture-shock, and some deep discomfort from people who find themselves a medium-sized fish in a much bigger pond.

6. Frictionless blockchain eCommerce

I will not belabor this point more than I already have, but it is odd to me how difficult it is to buy things with Hive/HBD.

7. 10x increase in the community (active users, posting, players, etc)

If we don't want our community to be impacted by a massive migration of users from a single niche, then we need to grow the overall community.

I am on Discord servers with more active users than Hive. Why?

Partly, I believe, is the emphasis on long-form content as conversation starters.

Don't get me wrong, as you can see right in front of you, I believe in long-form content, but it is not all that matters. $DESO is easier because it is more like Twitter/Facebook/Instagram.

More people want to discuss things than write hundreds or thousands of words in case they get downvoted.

8. Additional and effective monetization infrastructure for bloggers

That said, for the actual content creators here, what incentives are there other than votes and curation?

What about being able to provide protected content for members, as Instagram/Patreon/YouTube etc do?

Discord integration?

I could build these things, but in discussions with a lot of people wiser than me, the answer always comes down to the fact the audience here is too small. Catch-22.

9. Hive-based gig economy

There was a thing in the Steem days called SteemGigs. You could pay someone, Fiverr like, to do jobs for you. Create a logo, write documentation, code a script, build a spreadsheet, moderate a community, and so on.

Imagine being able to invest some spare time and get rewarded with Hive?

10. Project Sponsorships

I've mentioned a few times that investing in projects in our crypto world does NOT necessarily mean paying Fiat/USD.

If you believe in something, and it has no chance of getting funded through the traditional Hive process, you can still delegate some HP, transfer some of your tokens, set beneficiary, give a percentage of the rewards from the project, etc etc.

Think DAO but for a project.

Now consider what I said about $DESO going to attract the best and brightest blockchain social tool developers. Wouldn't we at least try to keep some loyal to Hive?

What Will NOT 10x Hive

Notice I didn't mention filming a documentary. That won't grow Hive.

Over to You!

• How do you think we could grow Hive?

• Do you think we have a chance of 10x? More? Less?

• Got alternative ideas? See anything wrong with my thinking?

PLEASE SHARE IN THE COMMENTS!