Do you recall the waves that Facebook made when they announced the DIEM (LIBRA at that time)? It was a situation that sent shockwaves through the cryptocurrency system.
It was also a watershed moment. That was the single move that woke up the establishment. Political leaders, as well as regulators, voiced their opinions almost immediately. It is ironic that the company that put everyone on alert quietly exits. Nevertheless, the rest of us are left having to deal with the fallout caused by this organization.
In all of this, we can see a lesson. It is vital that we watch what is taking place and apply what we can. This should also help us to distinguish between what is true as well as just noise. As it turns out, DIEM was only that.
The sale of DIEM's assets for $200 million shows there is some value there, at least in someone's opinion. However, what was done over the last few years?
We know there was a name change. That usually is not a good sign. What started out with a lot of excitement ended up as a whimper.
So what took place?
Herein lies the major problem. While we know companies operate a bit differently, the fact that we spent much of the last few years hearing nothing about the project is very telling. How come there were no updates? In fact, was anyone really surprised that Facebook abandoned the project? Does anyone actually care?
Certainly it is possible a lot of development took place. Obviously, someone was not going to spend $200 million for nothing. Nevertheless, the challenge is that few outside Facebook have any idea of the progress that was made. With silence comes forgetting. It is hard to trust something when there are no updates.
We all tend to presume that is we hear nothing, that is exactly what is happening. More often than not, it tends to be true.
Without development, there is no confidence in what is taking place. Of course, with Facebook, it does not need to generate that. The company is so well known that they can just develop quietly. In spite of that, we get an outcome we saw many times before.
It just goes to show that size of organization is not immune from the basic tenets.
Another major project followed a similar pattern. Remember Jack Dorsey and Bluesky? That was also announced a couple years ago, then went silent. This was something that was going to revolutionize social media.
Of course, there was some recent news pertaining to it. For now we can presume that it is not dead. Yet it is not going to live up to the expectations since it is trying to be Web 3.0 when established as a centralized entity. These two seem in conflict to a degree.
What this tells us is the importance of communication. Confidence comes from being open. We can understand that, in the corporate world, it is often best to operate without much revealed. After all, companies will steal trade secrets every chance they can. For this reason, caution is warranted.
However, when looking at open source project, or at least those tied to a blockchain, there needs to be some type of communication. General road maps along with updates are important. This keeps followers engaged while also helping them to see the progress being made. Sure, it is a double-edged sword to a degree since few truly understand the plight of development. Anyone who codes knows there are always challenges. Bugs simply are a way of life.
That said, missed deadlines are still better than no deadlines. The majority of people understand how technical issues can arise at any time. After all, if building this stuff was truly that easy, everyone would be doing it. It is a tall order to remake the entire Internet yet that is exactly what we are witnessing.
Overall, many of the Hive applications do a good job keeping people updated. It helps that we have our own social media platform which to promote what is being done. A simple blog post alerting of the progress is very helpful.
For example, at the core level, the development team has a call every two weeks, give or take. This is done live on YouTube and then available for anyone to watch. At the same time, 
While this might seem basic, rarely revealing anything groundbreaking, it does keep everyone aware of what it taking place. We can easily see how there is progress being made, even if it is slow.
Eventually, this does lead to changes in our base operations once a hard fork occurs. We have another one coming up in a month or two, which will be the fruits of the efforts over the last 7 months.
In this instance, silence is not golden. Applications and games want to keep people abreast of what is going on. The online world carries with it a degree of suspicion. This is taken to another level within cryptocurrency. Activities such as rug pulls do not instill confidence in people.
We are developing an entirely new world of reputation. This is a major work in progress so we are nowhere near anything useful. For the moment, we are looking at basically a system based upon experience. One trusts a project team or individual based upon the interaction. This means that being consistent and pushing things forward is what carries the weight.
It is in direct contrast to our present system where entities are known. Companies spend vast sums of money developing their reputation and framing a viewpoint in people's minds. This is why Fortune 1000 companies pay a lot for advertising.
There are trade-offs. For the knowing that comes with Google and Facebook, we sacrifice a lot. Putting our trust in third parties can be costly. We know there is even a financial component with the likes of Visa.
Web 3.0 is being constructed on a different premise. Over time, we can get trust and faith in some of the projects. For that to happen, a track record has to be laid. Again, that is a time consuming process. We cannot pack 12 months of engagement in a few weeks.
For this reason, the communication is vital. Consistency cannot be overstated. This is true for both development teams and other people engaging. Even content creators are tasked with this same approach. If one is haphazard in activity, that taken into account by one's following.
Consider your time in cryptocurrency. Think about all the projects that went silent for a spell. What happened to them? Did they magically reappear one day? While it might happen once in a while, the end result usually mirrors DIEM. It is a dead project. Perhaps someone will pick it up at a later date but that is rare.
Everyone can take a lesson from what Facebook did with DIEM. It simple was something that few believed was going to emerge since there were no updates. That is usually a telling sign.
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