Hive Blog Interview: TheMarkyMark
Today we sit down with one of Hive's most well known and active bloggers, Witness and intergalactic space cowboy @TheMarkyMark 馃
One of my personal favourite Hive members who is a straight shooter and not afraid to have a debate. Spends his time further driving Hive adoption and even developing some of his own dApps.
Without further ado here is our interview.
Tell us a bit about yourself, what brought you to Hive, how long have you been on Hive and what keeps you here?
It鈥檚 all foggy at this point, but I believe it was someone from an Ethereum Mining Discord that suggested I check it out.
I got here July 1st, 2017, but I didn鈥檛 broadcast a transaction until the 22nd when I followed my first person.
What has your experience on Hive Blog been like over those years?.
I have had a lot of unique experiences here. I spent a good amount of my time fighting abuse and fraud as well as managing a large bid bot in the earlier days.
That's something that really stuck out to me as a user and I wasn't too sure about what was happening but your work did help me learn more about what was occuring on the blockchain.
What makes Hive Unique to other blockchains?
Fast and free transactions. This is one of the most unique aspects of Hive. The other major thing is what I like to call Community Built-In.
When you participate in games and dapps on Hive, you usually know the other players which creates a unique experience.
I agree, Hive does feel like more than just a blockchain and each new initiative is watching a friend try to expand our community.
As a Hive witness elected through dPos, you were part of the fight for the entire Hive community and won against a centralisation take over, what was that like?
At first I was really nervous about forking away, I put a lot of my soul into Steem and to all of a sudden sever all ties to it and move away was a tough thing to do. That being said, I knew it was the right thing to do and did what ever I could to ensure it happened smoothly. I like to joke about how that hard fork was one of the smoothest hard forks in our history.
That's really impressive and I don't think I've heard it in such a personal manner. I don't recall much of it as I was still learning about what Hive was at that time and I was a small player. It wasn't until the fork that I learned the full extent. Thank you.
You continue to further develop, drive and support new users which shows your long term commitment for not only Hive but its growing community and eco system. Where do you see Hive in the future?
Still around. That says a lot, most blockchain projects die within a year or two, Hive has been around for years and showing no signs of going anywhere. In fact, since our fork away from Steem we have improved at a pace not previously thinkable. Many core changes have been put in place to build Hive to be better and more resilient.
You鈥檝e developed a number of your own successful dApps and games what has that been like?
Fun, I鈥檝e always wanted to build games on Hive but without smart contracts the options are limited to make them truly decentralized. It鈥檚 also a ton of work to build games, and they are even more difficult to develop on a blockchain.
Ape Mining Club was my first attempt at a small idle game. Shortly after that I built Hive Punks as a game jam project for Hivefest.
I have a few other projects I am working on as well as making updates to my existing ones.
Finally what advice or encouragement do you have for the broader Hive community and is there anything you鈥檇 like to add?
I think the most important thing is onboarding. We are a relatively small community and all the issues we see today can be minimized with a larger user base.
I would really love to see thriving niche communities on Hive where you can take even the most niche topic and have a decent user base engaging. This is only possible with millions of users. We need to put all our effort into working on this, as it is the most important task at hand.
Thank you for your time today and I appreciate the effort you've put into speaking with us and I'm certain a lot of people will too.
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