We may have been born in the flames of an outright attack on the concept of decentralisation...

But we have owned this fractious genesis & it is fitting that together we have created a phoenix-like end to our first year together in our new, vibrant, exciting home. 🎂

I have a myriad of thoughts about what the next year and beyond has in store BUT I only know one thing with absolute bloody certainty...

The best is yet to come baby!!! 🚀💖😎🕺🎉

I am thankful for every single one of you for making this amazingly successful transition happen. I salute the Hive community for every post, every comment, every powerup and investment over this fabulous year that marks a solid, committed, beautiful community making a stand against an outright attack on everything we hold dear.

Together we sent out an unequivocal message to those with money and perceived power, we are NOT for sale and we will not go meekly forward toward your centralised vision.

People cannot be bought and sold.

Now, having said all that one year ago, I was worried. Although I had been around for a couple of years at that watershed moment I was still incredibly new and uninformed in the way I used the blockchain. I had just begun to find my feet and start to grow. I hadn't even reached minnow status.

I was absolutely gutted that just when I had started to unlock the secrets that would propel me forward everything was about to change. I was asking myself if the Utopian vision was just that, Utopian. I was wondering if blockchain based social media was still ahead of it's time.

I thought of the amazing friendships I had formed and wondered if my new online family and support network was about to be displaced and if we were about to be scattered to the 4 corners of the web.

Little did I know just how much was being done behind the scenes and how our new vision was already taking shape in a way far more majestic than I could ever have foresaw.

Fast forward to HIVE.

I knew the belief was strong enough. I knew the people were awesome, committed and connected, this much was NEVER in doubt. I knew the concept was solid, after all, we had all been living and playing out an amazing version of that concept for quite some time previously. Yes there were problems, no it was not at all perfect, but the idea was so solid and I believed.

Could this new home survive the early days and reach the point of standing up under it's own steem steam?

I wish I could tell you that I understood the process that was taking place to fork the chain. I wish I could tell you that I knew with absolute certainty that we were gonna succeed and that everything was going to be alright.

If I told you that though, I would be lying.

As I said above, I had complete faith in the fact we had all the right ingredients BUT if you take all the ingredients it takes to make a cake in perfect measure and throw them in the washing machine you do not end up with a cake!

I had very little idea about the technical aspects that went in to creating Hive and so I had zero clue about our chances for survival. I had no idea about what it takes to fork off in the manner that we did. Truthfully I only have a rudimentary understanding of that today.

I made a decision in those early days. I decided that I would stop dabbling and build my account and begin to learn about blockchain fundamentals, about how our community works. I also resolved to make regular content and grow my stake so that my voice would have a little more gravitas when it came to debating directional course changes as and when they arose.

One year later... Here we are...

I believe we are more solid than ever. I believe the community knows who it is better than ever before and I believe from the events that led to the birth of Hive we now know intrinsically what we don't want, In many ways I think being faced with those existential blockchain questions we have evolved to more than we even had the potential to be previously.

And we haven't even scratched the surface.

Seriously I mean this with all my heart, you feel it in your bones, right? I could go on to mention awesome developments and projects grown from Hive I could mention some of the dapps and games that are going from strength to strength and the communities that are evolving at lightspeed but I genuinely don't believe I need to...

Because I know you feel it too.

There's a ripple of electricity buzzing around the community, some of it is muted almost as if to say "Do I dare to dream that what I believe is happening is REALLY happening?" but it is unmistakably there.

Others are more vocal and quite vociferous in stating their belief and wearing their heart HIVE on their sleeve. Both of these outlooks are equally acceptable, we all react differently, some are more cautious than others and that's ok too.

Our first anniversary together has come at a time when crypto awareness is ramping up like never before... It's a great time to be alive right?

I will state my belief AGAIN despite having said it an enormous number of times, crypto is in it's absolute infancy and we do not yet have any real understanding of the utility it will bring to humanity and just how much blockchain tech will utterly transform and revolutionise the planet, the online world and life as we know it.

What we do know however is that we have a front row seat on the rollercoaster from which to survey the stratospheric heights that will be charted.

Like many of you my journey has barely started. I have basically been gaining my apprenticeship in understanding blockchain, crypto and indeed blogging.

Let me state loud and clear that this, day 1 of year 2 will see me begin my journey in earnest and begin to fulfil my potential here. I am extremely excited to see where I am this time next year in relation to my journey.

If you have not quite lived up to your own potential thus far, let me issue the challenge right here, right now to just go and be bloody magnificent.

If you have a particular Hive goal in mind feel free to post it in the comments section below and I will give you periodic reminders of what you said you would do to help you stay on track, I absolutely believe in you and your innate, unlimited potential and support you all the way.

Let's create our destiny and fulfil the vison we have for our community and see where we can all be this time next year.

I have one more point that is absobloodylutely crucial to our growth here. I have written a couple of posts about this recently but it's so important it bears repeating again. We all long for mass adoption for the entire interwebz to discover our lovely little corner of the net, to dive in and become awesome.

HOWEVER.

There is two main ways this could happen. We can encourage, badger and cajole thousands of people in to the front doors of Hive and let them sink or swim OR we could bring in new community members steadily and help them to learn the ropes and acclimatise to our unique ecosystem.

I would far rather grow organically in a community that cares for those newly onboarded and brings them up to speed, so that we grow solidly and steadily than to bring in 2 thousand people a day and 1500 of them disappear through the cracks within a month due to being unrecognised, disengaged and feeling isolated.

I recently heard the argument in a Discord channel that should know better that those who join should be thick skinned and resilient and will sink or swim and we should let nature take it's course...

I could NOT disagree more!

Many who arrive here are completely unfamiliar with the concept of how things work, it is NOT like the rest of the social media world. I would rather people felt engaged from day 1 and find their place in our community while having their questions answered along the way.

They will be far more likely to help others out in the early days is this is their experience. This kind of delayed reciprocity is absolutely key to us growing in a solid manner (in this guy's humble opinion).

Remember we do not need every person on the planet to join us, a small incremental percentage growth month on month would see our numbers increase exponentially within the space of a year.

There are almost 8 billion people on the planet if just 0.001 percent of those joined us in the coming years that would equate to 80,000 Hive users/owners, imagine the onboarding potential and exponential growth from there?

Yeah I know that was not the best example in the world but it is just an illustration of how the numbers theoretically stack up. We will never compare to Facebook or Twitter in terms of growth and I don't think we would want to, Hive is not for most of those people right now. I do believe that it will be more for the everyday person as time goes by, as we get more streamlined and user friendly.

For now let's just concentrate on helping those who show up without a clue and hopefully cultivate that pay it forward ethos which will pay us back exponential dividends when it comes to onboarding and navigating Hive in the coming years.

If we can do all this while having a blast and enjoying the ride, wow that would really be something, right?

Here's to the second year, let's break records and celebrate the community born in the flames of conflict.

Thank YOU for taking the time to read my post and if you're one of those amazing people who like to hit the comments section... Then I doubly thank YOU!

Either way I want you to know that you are appreciated!

Keep taking the time to connect with each-other both here and in the 'so-called' real world and try and look after each-other, because as you already know...

I am an incredibly proud member of #TeamUK I love the global community immensely, but it is nice to have a home-team banner to add to my posts. The banner was made by the inimitable RoastMaster General himself @c0ff33a If you are an active UK member and would like to be added to the teamUK community on Discord, just let me know 😎