Welcome to Ureka, a fully decentralised social networking platform, powered by the Hive blockchain!
This page is your guide to resolving common issues, understanding how Hive works, and getting the most out of your experience.
🛑 Note: Ureka does not currently offer account creation functionality. A comprehensive account creation system will be added soon.
✅ To use this site, you must already have a Hive blockchain account.
👉 You can create a Hive account through trusted third-party services like Ecency, Inleo or PeakD.
Hive is a decentralized blockchain and social ecosystem that empowers users to publish content, earn cryptocurrency and interact without centralized control. It was formerly the Steem blockchain, the world's first decentalized social software system (created in 2016). Steem was at one time the cryptocurrency with the third largest market cap in the world (over $2 Billion USD). Hive was forked from Steem due to unfortunate political events and a hostile takeover attempt. Hive is battle tested, trusted and designed to respect individual sovereignty and autonomy. You can find Hive's cryptocurrencies listed on many of the best known rypto exchanges. Hive supports many types of decentralised apps, not just social networking platforms. To learn more about Hive you can visit Hive.io, browse the Hive community on Ureka or join one of the many Discord/chat spaces dedicated to Hive.
Ensure you're using a supported login method, which currently means Hive Keychain. Some login issues are due to browser plugin settings or outdated extensions.
Fixes:
- Make sure your browser extension (Hive Keychain) is installed and unlocked. Note: See the section on Hive Keychain below for more information.
- Try disabling browser privacy blockers for this site.
All posts on Hive are recorded on the public and decentralized blockchain, so they may take a few seconds to appear.
Fixes:
Every action on Hive uses RC, a system that limits spam without fees. New or low-powered accounts may temporarily run out. Your Resource Credit level constantly regenerates, but at a rate relative to the amount of Hive Power you hold in your wallet. You can check your Resource Credit level via the stat readout on the dropdown menu in Ureka.
Fixes:
- Power up more Hive tokens into 'Hive Power' (HP) to access more resource credits.
- Only a small amount of Hive Power is needed to start to increase your RC generation. You can earn Hive Power by making posts and receiving upvotes.
- Ask a friendly Hive user to delegate HP or RC to you.
- Wait a few hours — RCs regenerate automatically.
Upvotes on Hive give both social and monetary rewards. The more Hive Power you have, the more you can increase the rewards that are paid out to authors of posts that you upvote. Reward payouts do not come from your wallet, they come from a reward pool that is generated every day via inflation. New tokens are created constantly to pay out rewards.
- Upvotes: You can remove or change them within 7 days.
- Reblogs: Yes, click the reblog button on a post you have already reblogged to cancel the reblog.
Posts on Hive can earn rewards in HIVE and Hive-backed Dollars (HBD) based on upvotes received over a 7-day payout window. Rewards can be paid out in a variety of ways. By default they are split between the author (typically 50%) and curators (those who upvote, typically 50%). The rewards may be paid out in liquid Hive tokens, Hive Power and/or HBD.
Authors can choose how much of the Hive component of their rewards will be paid out in Hive Power (Staked Hive) via the advanced options area on the post creation page. Additional options exist to decline rewards for a post, send the rewards automatically to the DHF (Hive's DAO fund which pays for community projects), to destroy the rewards (burn) and to send a percentage to nominated recipients (beneficiaries).
- Upvotes: Each upvote adds value to a post’s potential reward payout (proportionally to the voter’s Hive Power (HP) level). Higher HP means a more valuable upvote.
- Downvotes: Downvotes reduce a post’s potential reward payout (also based relatively to the downvoter’s HP level). They’re used to discourage spam or low-quality content. However, downvotes don’t directly take money from the author's wallet — they only reduce the overall payout for the individual post.
- Mechanics: The reward pool is calculated dynamically based on voting activity. After 7 days, the final payout is distributed. Authors can choose payout options (e.g., 50% HIVE/50% HBD or 100% Hive Power) when posting.
Low rewards may result from limited upvotes, low voter HP, or downvotes. Posting quality content, engaging with the community, and building your own HP can increase rewards over time. Be sure to explore the community to better understand what kind of conent is currently valued and who has the larger wallets if you want to increase your payouts.
Hive accounts use multiple keys:
- Posting Key: For posting, voting, following.
- Active Key: For transfers, powering up/down.
- Owner Key: Highest-level recovery key. Store offline.
- Memo Key: Used to decrypt encrypted messages and for other related functions.
Use only the Posting Key for day-to-day interactions on social platforms. You can even give your Posting key to trusted people if you want them to vote and post on your behalf, without them having access to your money/wallet. Anyone who has your Active key can take your money - So be very careful with it!
Hive Keychain is a secure browser extension and mobile app that stores your Hive account keys locally on your device. Unlike some platforms that store keys on servers, Hive Keychain ensures your keys never leave your device, reducing the risk of hacks or unauthorized access. When you perform actions like posting or voting, Keychain signs transactions locally and sends only the encrypted result to the blockchain.
Hive Keychain is available as a browser extension for desktops and a mobile app for iOS and Android.
Follow these steps to install it:
- Windows, macOS, or Linux (Browser Extension):
- Use a supported browser like Chrome, Firefox, or Brave.
- Visit the Hive Keychain website or search for "Hive Keychain" in your browser’s extension store (e.g., Chrome Web Store or Firefox Add-ons).
- Click "Add to [Browser]" and follow the prompts to install.
- Once installed, open the extension, set a password, add an account and import your Hive keys securely.
- iOS:
- Open the App Store on your iPhone or iPad.
- Search for "Hive Keychain."
- Download the official app by Hive Keychain.
- Open the app, set a password, add an account and import your Hive keys.
- Android:
- Open the Google Play Store on your Android device.
- Search for "Hive Keychain."
- Install the official app by Hive Keychain.
- Open the app, set a password, add an account and import your Hive keys.
Important: Always download Hive Keychain from official sources (Hive Keychain website, Chrome Web Store, Firefox Add-ons, App Store, or Google Play Store) to avoid phishing scams. After installation, back up your keys and Keychain password in a secure offline location.
Your bookmarks are encrypted and stored directly on the Hive blockchain for maximum privacy and permanence. Unlike traditional bookmarking systems that rely on centralized servers, your bookmarks are truly yours - they can never be lost, censored, or accessed by third parties. Each bookmark is stored as a separate encrypted operation, ensuring unlimited scalability and cross-device synchronization.
Yes, all bookmark data is encrypted using your account credentials before being stored on the blockchain. While the bookmark operations are publicly visible on the Hive blockchain, the actual content (which posts you've bookmarked) remains completely private and can only be decrypted by you.
Simply log into Ureka with the same Hive account on any device. Your bookmarks will automatically sync from the blockchain. On new devices, it may take a moment to index all your bookmarks from the blockchain history, especially if you have many stored.
No, there's no practical limit. Unlike traditional systems that store all bookmarks in a single large file, each bookmark is stored as a separate micro-operation on the blockchain. This means you can bookmark as many posts as you want without hitting storage constraints.
Your bookmarks are safely stored on the Hive blockchain, not on your device. As long as you have access to your Hive account credentials, you can access all your bookmarks from any device by logging into Ureka. Your local device only caches bookmarks for faster access.
If you enable notifications, Ureka connects to our PeakD Notification System (PNS) server to fetch your recent notifications and keep a live stream open (SSE) for new ones. Everything shown comes from public Hive blockchain data that matches your on-chain notification rules.
Yes. On first enable login, Ureka asks Hive Keychain to broadcast a custom_json with id notify to create/update your PNS account and save your notification rules on-chain. This uses your posting authority only.
Your current PNS instance hasn’t seen a notify → create_account (or update_account) for your username yet. Approve the Keychain prompt in Ureka’s settings to create/update your on-chain config, then refresh.
Some older PeakD flows wrote to different IDs (e.g., peakd_notify). PNS requires id: "notify". If needed, just let Ureka send the create/update transaction once; it doesn’t expose keys and uses posting authority.
Only what’s needed to deliver notifications: your Hive username and the public events that match your on-chain rules. The PNS app does not store IP addresses. Any infrastructure access logs are disabled.
No. PNS keeps a short-lived cache to deliver items efficiently and automatically prunes it on a rolling basis (about 30 days). The underlying blockchain data remains public and permanent.
You can clear local UI state in Ureka. Server cache follows the automatic pruning schedule and can’t be cleared per-user on demand. Your on-chain notification subscription rules can be edited/removed anytime via Keychain.
Go to Settings → Notifications in Ureka.
Enable: approve the Keychain prompt (posting key) to create/update your on-chain rules.
Disable: toggle off in Ureka (stops connecting to PNS). You can also remove your on-chain subscription rules outside of Ureka.
- Make sure Keychain is installed/unlocked and you approved the create/update prompt.
- Confirm you have enough Resource Credits (RC) to broadcast the custom_json.
- Check that browser extensions (ad/script blockers) aren’t blocking SSE.
- Try a hard refresh; then visit Settings → Notifications again.
Not yet. Ureka currently focuses on core Hive events. L2 support may be added later.
Yes. They’re stored on-chain (custom_json under id: "notify"), so other compatible apps can read them too.
Unlike some community software, Hive is a hybrid of collaboriation and competition. Hive thrives on open source code, which helps anyone and everyone to build more interesting and functional technology. Simultaneously, Hive is also an economic machine which is heavily influenced by 'Anarcho-Capitalism', the fusing of freedom and ownership/exchange. Most successful projects on Hive have been created through a combination of private investment (of time/skill and money) plus public investment through Hive's development fund (DHF).
The creator of Ureka has spent years providing services to open source software projects, without being paid at all. This is ultimately not sustainable since everyone has bills to pay! As such, while it is the long term goal for Ureka to support the community with open source code - there will be a period of time where the code is not licensed for open source usage. This is to allow the site to become established and to build a userbase, rather than spawning many clones which distract away from the creative vision behind Ureka.
If the Hive community supports funding Ureka via the DHF then this process will be accelerated - so if you want to see open source Ureka code, then please communicate this to people with power and stake on Hive!
- Hive Power (HP): Staked HIVE used for influence and voting power.
- Resource Credits (RC): Energy needed to perform actions on-chain.
- Delegation: Temporarily lend HP to another user.
- Curation Rewards: Earned by voting on posts that others also like.
Join the Hive support community:
- Hive Discord
- Hive Telegram
- Create an introduction post and friendly Hive users will say hello - you can ask them questions too. Be sure to tag your post with #introduceme and #introduceyourself.
