Hi Everyone,
I have reached 4 years on Hive. So far, it has been an incredible journey. I joined on 15th June 2017. Cryptocurrency was in the middle of a bull run and I did not know anything about cryptocurrency bull runs. I barely knew anything about cryptocurrencies and pretty much nothing about blockchains. I arrived purely with the intent of sharing my content. Four years later, I have gained a much greater appreciation for cryptocurrency and the blockchain. Most of what I have learnt has come from Steem and Hive content. I still know very little about most individual cryptocurrencies and their respective blockchains. I believe it is more important to understand the general ideas and principles as well as how cryptocurrency and especially the blockchain can potentially change the world.
Cryptocurrency markets are the wildest markets I have ever encountered. Prices can fall by as much 50% in a day or climb by over 100% in just a few hours. In April 2020, the price of Hive climbed from around 11 cents to around 90 cents in around 3 days. Then it dropped to around 30 cents in under a week. We are now in a bull market year; wild price fluctuations are very frequent. Almost every week there is at least one day where price will jump or fall by a double-digit percentage. In 2017, I did not pay much attention to price changes. I barely owned any cryptocurrency so it did not feel particularly relevant. I did not buy my first major chunk of cryptocurrency until November 2017. I bought Bitcoin, which I used to immediately buy Steem, which then I immediately powered up. I bought most of my Steem for about 90 cents. I enjoyed my experience and believed Steem had a very bright future. I was investing for the long-run. I also had no idea that the price of Steem was about to skyrocket to over US$8. I also had no idea the price would fall to below 30 cents before the end of 2018. I did not take advantage of the high price but I took advantage of the low price. I made my largest investment in cryptocurrency in November 2018 and I got it for a bargain of about 30 cents. In October 2019, I bought my next batch of Steem for under 14 cents. Altogether, I had now accumulated just over 120,000 Steem. That was also the last time I bought any Steem.
In early 2020, we had the Steem hostile takeover and Hive was created. I choose Hive over Steem. I explained some of these reasons in last year’s anniversary post. I posted this on both Steem and Hive. Steemit removed the post from its frontend. This essentially censored it on Steem, as Steem had/has very few remaining functioning frontends. About one week later, all my posts were removed from Steemit. The creation of Hive worked well for me as the number of coins I held doubled. I powered down my Steem account and sold my Steem for Bitcoin. I used some of that Bitcoin to buy 50,000 Hive, which I powered up to my 
2021 has arrived. We are back in the middle of a bull run, which is exactly where I started four years ago. A huge difference with this bull run is the vast number of altcoins in the market. The money entering through Bitcoin and the other high cap altcoins is being spread across many of these new coins and tokens. In the first quarter of 2021, so much money was pouring into cryptocurrency it looked like all the coins were going to reach new all-time highs. In the second quarter, when less money was entering, the gains diminished for many altcoins. Hive was one of those coins that experienced a dip in price. A few coins continued to do very well. The meme coins such as Dogecoin and Shiba Inu did very well. The first half of the bull run has been completely dominated by speculative buying. Short run profit has been the main goal: therefore, use cases, utility, community, innovation, development, fundamentals behind each coin or token, etc. means nothing. Since mid-May, the markets have been corrected and almost all coins and tokens have experienced a huge drop in price. Even though we are well into the bull run, the price of Hive is still a steal. It is quite likely to remain undervalued until the final weeks of the bull run.
In March, in my post Hive Price, I briefly compared the price movements of Hive to Steem in 2016/2017. The similarities were remarkable. Even though the price of Bitcoin is following a different pattern to the 2017 bull run, Hive still; appears to be following a very similar pattern to Steem. See Figures 1 and 2 for comparisons between the prices of Steem and Hive over a fifteen-month period.
Source: Coingecko
Source: Coingecko
Based on the above comparison it appears, this bull run for Hive is about three months ahead of the 2017 bull run for Steem. Based on this assumption, the 2021 Hive Price appears to be consistently about 1/3 to 1/4 of the 2017 Steem Price. If this pattern continues, the price of Hive could reach somewhere between US$2 and US$3 by the beginning of October. I still think the similarities in price is mostly coincidental. I think the price of Hive will more closely follow the prices of the high cap coins but with a slight lag. This could lead to a few quick spurts in price followed by dips. I still think the bull run will end with a big pump. I do not think it will be as explosive percentage wise as the 2017 pump. I am guessing it should still get the price of Hive over US$2. It is possible the price could go much higher, as Hive has such a small market cap compared to many other coins. Whatever the case, we will have our answer in a few months.
I have yet to sell any Hive. In hindsight, when the price was above 80/90 cents, I should have sold some Hive and bought back again when the price fell. Price climbed so rapidly, it was inevitable it would drop at least a little. However, I cannot imagine myself waiting until the price had fallen below 40 cents to buy again. I would have jumped back in much sooner, probably at 60 cents. I would have done so as I would have expected the price to climb over a dollar within the next week. It is tricky knowing when to sell and buy when prices are bouncing around so much. The safest option is to just hodl and maybe sell some towards the end of the bull run or at the very beginning of the next bear market. That is assuming we are able to predict the end of the bull run. Selling some just after a huge pump in the second half of the bull run is probably a wise move or to sell when a particular price target has been met. It is possible to miss a good selling price but If you are in it for the long-run that does not matter as there will be other better opportunities later anyway.
I plan to be around on Hive for many years to come. This place has so much potential. In the long-run, the chances of success are very good. The most important thing is for Hive communities to continue growing. This is growth in all aspects and not just volume of content. Eventually, Hive needs to break away from cycles determined by the Bitcoin halving. For that to happen it needs to become recognised and established. The DApps may play the biggest role and may become more recognisable than Hive itself. People could be talking about PeakD, Splinterlands, Ecency, D.Buzz, Actifit, Rabona, 3Speak, Leofinance, NFTShowroom, or any other DApp without necessarily needing to discuss Hive. Hive (cryptocurrency and blockchain) might be great for targeting the cryptocurrency audience but Hive (ecosystem) potentially has an unlimited audience and the DApps are the main selling point.
If you want to read any of my other posts, you can click on the links below. These links will lead you to posts containing my collection of works. These 'Collection of Works' posts have been updated to contain links to the Hive versions of my posts.
In July and August, I will be running a Seven Week Challenge Series. All the challenges will be focused around economics. Participants only need to enter through the comments section of each challenge post. Participants could win up to 60 Hive in each challenge. The first 12 participants for each challenge will receive an upvote. There will also be an overall winner for the entire series. For full details, read my post Spectrumecons Seven-Week Challenge (Coming Soon).
