Word is starting to filter throughout the mainstream crypto media about Sun freezing a number of large STEEM stakeholders.
Yesterday, an article appeared on Coindesk and, today, Cointelegraph picked up on the news. Now that these two outlets posted about it, we can expect others to cycle the story through. That is how it usually works.
There were a total of 17.6 million STEEM frozen by Sun's actions. It is questioned as to why he did it. Is he being vindictive and looking to deliver some payback? Or is he seeking to hold up the dumping of STEEM so he can push a pump through? Perhaps it is a bit of both.
At the same time, we saw the price of HIVE crash. It dropped down to 12 cents in a quick period of time. Was that because someone was dumping HIVE tokens? A lot of games being played right now it seems.
In the Coindesk article, 
Dan Hensley has been a large holder of steem who now supports Hive. "I think Steemit Inc.'s 'community witnesses' ... are panicking because the price is lower than Hive," Hensley told CoinDesk in an email. "So now they are stopping the largest accounts from powering down."
Ironic how a day after the article posted, this is no longer the case.
With such low trading volumes, it is not difficult to manipulate these markets. Sun certainly appears to have enough money to do that. Limiting the sell side on STEEM while also pushing a dump on HIVE could do that. It is unknown how many tokens Sun received in the HIVE airdrop. It is very possible he loaded up on STEEM just before the airdrop to be able to get his foot in the door there.
The question many have is this harming one or both ecosystems?
I would say Sun's actions are not being well received within the broader crypto community. What he is doing tends to go against the tenets that most have. That said, it is evident he could care less. Tron never had the best reputation yet that did not stop his activity. In short, he seems to feel he is above it all.
As for Hive, at this point, any publicity is good publicity. The crypto community looked like it was behind the community members who forked Steem. With Sun, it gave everyone a common enemy.
Hive benefits by having its name out there. While this is all taking place, Hive is going to keep getting mentioned. This means that the door is opened to put our offerings on the table at some point. Unlike Steem, who many thought was dead for the last few years, Hive is letting everyone know there is a dedicated community behind it.
The last few weeks saw most of the developers focusing upon the conversion. This will likely keep taking place. However, we are starting to see some Hive-based applications emerge. The first one to go live will likely be EXODE. This game went through its pre-sale over the weekend and is set to launch in Alpha very soon.
It was a project that was going to be on Steem but, with all that took place, made the decision to shift over.
In my view, we are looking at expanding at just the right time. The present economic system is going through a major collapse. This is going to harm billions around the world as the fallout from all of it unfolds. It is here where opportunity is presented.
When people get desperate, they become open to new ideas. For much of the world, the developed part at least, things were fairly comfortable the last half decade. As long as someone could upgrade their IPhone every few years or the latest episode of the Kardashians was on, all was well.
Now, with things collapsing at a historic pace, many believe the recovery will be very slow. Economies that are in free fall tend not to reverse quickly.
Crypto-economics offers a much different solution. One of the things that was lacking was the network effect. In short, people were not getting involved on a large enough scale. That could be changing. As the desperation grows, our story becomes more compelling.
Hive already made some noise in its first two weeks. It is something that we need to keep doing.
In every catastrophe, there is opportunity.
Here are the links to the two articles mentioned:
https://cointelegraph.com/news/steem-soft-forks-to-freeze-176m-tokens-held-by-former-witnesses
https://www.coindesk.com/steem-witnesses-freeze-3-2m-in-latest-tit-for-tat-with-hard-fork-insurgents
If you found this article informative, please give an upvote and rehive.
Posted via Steemleo
