The 20% interest increased the amount of HBD. Ausbit Bank says that the market value of HBD is currently 4% of HIVE .

The 20% interest on HBD clearly did not solve the liquidity problem because it takes three days to withdraw the money; so speculators cannot respond to spikes in the price of HIVE.

Personally, I think the focus on HBD is a complete waste of time.

BTW: It looks like the attempt to shore up the liquidity of HBD harmed the alt-coins on HE.

When the HBD interest was low, a large number of people were moving the HBD earnings for their posts into HE and buying alt coins. When the witnesses raised the interest on HBD, this flow stopped. In fact there were accounts which withdrew their SWAP.HIVE and put it in HBD savings.

Raising the interest rate on HBD appears to have destroyed the liquidity on HE. This can be proven by examining the transactions on Honey.Swap is the primary means for moving funds between HIVE and Hive-Engine.