The Evolution of Hive is taking place before our eyes. It is something that, if we step back, we can see how far things came.
Before getting into the history of where things were, I will begin by saying I believe we are on the cusp of another major step forward with this ecosystem. Like any advancing technology, there are S-curves. Nothing happens in a linear fashion.
Coming armed with this understanding, it then helps to illustrate the cycles we operate upon. While the timing is not exact, we get a sense of the general trend. That means we will have times where things advance on many fronts. Of course, this is followed up by periods where it appears like nothing is happening.
That is the nature of S-curves. It applies equally to develop as well as adoption.
For this reason, we can correlate it to the opportunities presented on Hive.
In the Stone Age of this blockchain, long before Justin Sun was a thought by most of the community, there were two coins. That was it.
Here is what life was like for a number of years.
We live with HIVE and HBD. At that time, the latter was really nothing more than an afterthought. It was the most overlooked coin in cryptocurrency. Many within the ecosystem felt that the Golden Goose should be slayed, failing to see any need for it. The idea of stability was nowhere in the equation.
Life was simple; a base layer existence. Layer 2 was not much of a thought with everyone sharing a single reward pool. The days were spent dreaming about Smart Media Tokens, something that many are convinced is akin to the Loch Ness monster. Many of us heard stories yet nobody was able to locate one in the wild.
The result was everyone shared in the same reward pool. People were paid out in HP or HBD and that was it. This was the extend of the decision-making. There were no pesky tokens to consider. No effort was put into trying to determine what tokens to hold versus which to sell.
They simply did not exist.
It was life in the Hive world. Simple. Archaic. Constrained.
Then came a day when we saw the emergence of a second layer. This came with something that Hive had only heard about: smart contracts. Suddenly there was the ability to create tokens. Not only that, they could be structured to mimic HIVE, creating their own reward pool through inflation.
Suddenly there was a new dawn.
Project teams could tokenize. This was a novel concept. While it was not exactly Ethereum 2.0, it was a step in the right direction. Over the next few years, many tokens appeared. As we can guess, some had potential. We looked at this projects with optimism.
Unfortunately, there was also a lot of crap. Some projects started with a bang, only to fade. This is not a slight against tokenization; it is life with technology. There are many more failures than success stories.
Nevertheless, we persevere. Life is now full of not only the base coins but tokens galore. To this point, the value hasn't been reflected at the second layer but that is only a matter of time.
We now have the next phase of the evolution before us. There are many areas to refer to.
It could be the proposal to Bring Smart Contracts to Hive by VSC, the Hive Application Framework (HAF), ad revenue by Leo, or the reformatting of cloud by SpkNetwork.
Of course, it could also be something totally unrelated to these.
The point is that layer 2 is about to get more robust. This gives developers and project teams the opportunity to increase their offerings. It is a move that enhances the potential for the userbase.
Here is where I believe another S-Curve is forming.
All of this is leading to the idea of enhanced opportunities on Hive.
Something very interesting was said on the latest CTT broadcast.
During that episode, there were a couple threadcasts going. One was taking place on LEO with the other on DBuzz. This allows those on air to engage with the audience who were posting comments. More importantly, the hosts were rewarding the audience with upvotes when they added a question or comment they felt that enhanced the show.
This is a new model.
How often do you see this interaction taking place? With live streaming, the engagement is there. On a platform like YouTube, through the Superchat mechanism, the broadcaster can be rewarded by the fans.
But what about the reverse? Is there a way for the audience to get rewarded for their participation?
Within the Hive ecosystem there is. Those who were on Leo or DBuzz while listening to the broadcast learned that firsthand.
But wait, there is more.
That team decided to run a bit of a contest, rewarding those who were able to create images of the show. Whatever the topic, if people generate images with the name, episode, and topic, they get rewarded. This provides the team with marketing materials to spread around while the audience can show off its talent and creativity.
For those who are adept at that stuff, a couple minutes of design results in a bit of crypto.
Another thing I am fairly certain about is the future will entail micro-earning.
As we progress forward, the bulk of our incomes will not come from a single source. This does not make sense to me in a Web 3.0 (or Web3) world. Instead, I see the opposite.
The future is going to be micro-earning. We will have revenue streams in the hundreds. Each month, a multitude of tokens will show up based upon a number of factors. These will be related to what we are involved in, either with our attention or investments.
We are going to see infrastructure as a central premise. Decentralization requires spreading out node control. This means incentivization.
While this is still technical, it is moving in the direction where it is easier for average, non-technical people to participate. This is in addition to the other opportunities presented within the ecosystem through the more traditional means.
Hive has an advantage in my view. It is founded upon the idea of a novel distribution mechanism. This is something that project teams throughout the industry will need to look at. Right now, the overwhelming model is "buy our token".
We are seeing the future emerge before our eyes.
I will say that Hive is leading the way but it, by no means, has a monopoly. We are going to see this spreading throughout the entire Web3 realm.
There is an entire layer of activity online (also in the physical and business world) that is not captured or monetized. Tokenization does that.
We are going to see incentivization for our attention. This will arise in ways we cannot even fathom at this point.
Experimentation and innovation will be the norm, presenting us with more opportunities going forward.
For me, Hive is ground zero for this.
