Many are down on Hive because of the price. For years, I felt this was a bad barometer to use as a metric for how things are going. Markets are excited, both on the upside and down. They are rarely logical while often employing the herd mentality.
From a financial perspective, unless one likes giving his or her money away, it is best not to argue with the market. You can be right and still go broke.
Instead, a better alternative is look at what is taking place. This truly is a marathon and not a sprint. Often, we like to say this is still in the early stages. If that is the case, why are people acting like the end is near?
Development is crucial. This applies to all levels. The base layer is, of course, vital since that is the motor that makes everything go. At the second level, that is where the magic comes in. Applications are what attracts users. As we saw with CryptoKitties, it only takes one thing to get hot and things can change quickly.
A lot is written about what is being done on the later in terms of development. However, it is often overlooked what is taking place at the base layer.
The last development call was very informative. In it, 
@howo/hive-developer-meeting-12
The key here is how progress is being made. Certainly, to most, it is boring stuff since it is not discussing a sexy application or a game that can make everything moon. Topics such as optimization make the majority of us go to sleep.
However, this suddenly becomes an issue when thing slow down and the blockchain starts acting up. Instantly, everyone is interested is why things are not performing well.
What was baffling is the fact that there is code that was written in 2013 and has yet to be optimized. That shows how much work there is trying to get this code up to date.
That said, it was notable that some of the ideas battered about were with the idea of looking forward a year. To me, this shows the mindset of those who are involved, realizing this is a process.
We also can take away how important the second layer is becoming. As more is moved away from the base layer, and only the most critical of logic operates there, we are going to see more rapid development.
Why is this?
Simply, because updates can be done without a hard fork. Forks are only necessary when there are changes to the base code. Anything built on the second layer can deal with servers that are connected together. Therefore, unlike the past where we had to wait what seemed like years for updates, we could have them occurring on a regular basis.
Gaining insight into the mindset of some of the developers working on the base code is very helpful. Blocktrades threw out a couple ideas that really are worth nothing.
The first is smart contracts. This is nothing new as we see Hive-Engine working on its offering in this area. Again, the proposal was to create a second layer, smart contract server, which allowed for the benefits without muddling the base layer.
Another interesting point to this is that, in his opinion, the probably kills off SMTs. Many thought they were dead anyways since they are akin to the Loch Ness Monster, something we all heard about yet never see. The reason is smart contract enable token creation as shown by Ethereum, Tron, EOS, and Hive-Engine.
An off the cuff idea was also tossed out there about speeding up the blockchain. The lack of optimization in some areas means that we can get some more juice out of Hive. We heard that the possibility exists to drop the block time to close to a second. How would everyone feel about that?
It was stated this is something that was thought about yet is not a top priority. The blockchain is far from the point where block times are causing a problem. Compared to most of what is out there, Hive is still one of the better performing chains in that regard.
Does this call change the price of HIVE? Not in the least. However, it is helpful to understand what some of the core people are doing and how the thinking is regarding the ongoing performance of the blockchain. The goal, it seems, is to have a robust blockchain that is as optimized and streamlined as possible. From there, the tools will be built for developers to utilize for layer two applications.
It is also another reminder of how screwed up things got under the leadership of Steemit Inc and what basic development was overlooked.
In short, there are factors other than price that provide insight as to where things stand and where they are going.
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