Time has come for my 4th anniversary post on Larimer chain that used to be called Steem, now it's Hive, the remains of Steem are just Steem history and mostly Asians judging by their trending page. I used to be extremely bullish for all things Steem related, then good ol Ned sold and made a mess out of already way too messy project that already had loads of controversy attached to it, now it's owned by Justin Sun who is controversy central kind of guy, all the things that happened should be put in one word - WOW! Steem vs Hive war needed to happen.
War is a harsh thing, it implies death, destruction and suffering, something you want to avoid at all costs. That would be a war in traditional sense. There is however a different kind of war going on, so called Crypto War, there will be no property destruction, there will be no death, but there will certainly be suffering, financial suffering and most certainly a lot of emotional stress for some people.
Steem vs Hive is the third crypto war that I know of and it created a lot of bad blood between people. First two that I know of were Bitcoin vs Bitcoin Cash and Ethereum vs Ethereum Classic. Both of those crypto wars ended with two coins and two communities, Ethereum is a clear winner against Ethereum Classic while Bitcoin Cash is being used by people and it holds some value, BTC is still the king though.
In Steem vs Hive war both sides are blocking accounts and not giving them access to their funds which sets a lot of precedents. Both sides are making tactical moves since day 1, you don't make tactical moves if you want to make peace with one another. These are no friendly arguments, some of the people will get no Hive airdrops ever, some old and new Steem whales can't move their funds around, things are hot and heavy.
People who have chosen their side probably dumped or are dumping their other coin, price volatility is expected and we can all witness that these days, it will get even more volatile specially if Bitcoin starts to go insane, halving already happened, things will get interesting.
Every war has winners and losers, just remember that only the winners write history. Make sure you end up on a winning side, but in crypto things get interesting, both sides can win.
Not long ago Hive was pumping, soon after Steem was pumping, now both coins are down, who knows what will next day bring or next week or next month or next year, sometimes it is better to weather the storm, sometimes it is better to just leave it all behind. Saying something will happen for certain will only place you on an idiot chair if you're wrong. If you want to play with these markets and trade you are in for a ride, expect to get out with some bumps and bruises, or if your're one of the lucky ones with a brand new lambo. If you are one of the locked out ones, I'm sorry you had to experience that and I hope you get your coins back.
Ok, back to some history times where Justin Sun was just one name nobody gived a damn about.
I hardly remember the good times on Steem in the last two years apart of some great competitions we used to have (Path of Exile one am I right?) and interactions with some good people, success of Splinterlands and the rise of blockchain gaming.
Steem early on, damn, what a story it has been during 2016 and 1017, there were some awesome times to experience blockchain life during those years, then the bear market came and gave us good ol wake up call, that shit that was happening on Steem was so unsustainable it's insane when you think about it today. It had to collapse, and it did. We moved on.
Now we are all living on Hive, and it is ok, I like it here, but I also know it will be hard to keep up with fully funded blockchains (we will soon drop out of top 100), what we have on Hive is decentralized but it is also all over the place, feels like hoarding cats, but who knows, we might get somewhere in the future. What constantly keeps me around are Hive games that I'm playing every day, good old Splinterlands and new kid on the block dCity. Hive is great for card games apparently, it feels like it was made precisely for that purpose, playing on ethereum feels like playing dos games.
Whatever happens in the future and wherever these crazy markets take us I will always be here, since day one I was a blockchain believer and I still am. I can't imagine going back to some crappy job after experiencing 4 years of freedom. Times we are living are volatile, 2020 hasn't been great as we all know, best to take it each day at a time, enjoy life if you can and hope for the best. Peace.