As a long term user of the Steem/Hive blockverse I feel that I can speak on this subject without fear of repercussion (I hope). I know that a lot of users feel this way, but because of the nature of our blockchain they are afraid to speak out against this madness.
First of all let me say, I do respect @timcliff and @smooth whom I've had various past debates with on this subject. As @timcliff himself intoned, it is often through disagreement a happy medium can be found in an organisation. So without further ado, let's look at why destabilising HBD is the crypto equivalent of shooting yourself in the foot.
What Is HBD Stabiliser?
I'm not going to go into the ins and outs of what the Stabiliser project is and does, lord knows there are already a plethora of near-identical posts that explain it all to well. Suffice to say, the HBD Stabiliser Fund sells its HBD rewards to buy Hive. With the purpose of stabilising HBD at a fixed price of $1 (US).
The Universe Is Talking
On the last post @timcliff made about the fund I wrote in the comments that I would love HBD to be $10, because why not? His reply was;
There is truth to this, but the same can be said about HIVE going to $10.00. HBD functioning as it is designed will also attract investors as well. There is a lot of value in stable-coins. Personally, I would like to see HIVE at $10.00+ and HBD sitting at $1.00.
To some extent I agree with that, it would be great to see a $10 Hive price, which would be great for content creators and investors alike. However there is a saying in business;
the market tells you what it wants, not the other way round.
You can clearly apply this philosophy to crypto. For instance, you may believe that EOS is way better than Ethereum and that it is more valuable, better, shinier than Ethereum. However the market shows you that you're wrong, Ether is worth over $2000 whilst EOS is barely $5. No matter how much you bemoan Ethereum's high gas prices and slow block times, the fact that the market is investing in the platform shows you one very important fact that you should not ignore.
YOU ARE WRONG!!
HBD & The Time Investors
By @timcliff's own admittance the people most keen to see HBD fall to a one dollar level are the ones whom have invested big in Hive. They have backed Hive with their hard earned cash and they want to see it go to the moon. There is clearly nothing wrong with this, if you buy something for investment purposes, then you are buying it because you are hoping to sell it for a profit at some time in the future.
However Hive in its current form creates a kind of oligopoly whereby the people who can afford to buy lots of Hive are the ones who can influence the platform the most. Whereas content creators who invest the time into the platform and get rewarded a pittance are at the mercy of the Hive Oligarchs, better known as Whales.
A thriving HBD price helps to redress this balance. Now, somebody like myself whom may take up to a week to publish a short story, can feel like they have been rewarded nicely for their efforts, which encourages them to put in more time.
What they do with their rewards is up to them of course, however someone earning 18 HBD when there's a high price, can think to themselves "okay, now it's worth investing some of this back into Hive so I can have a bigger vote and thus get more people to vote for me."
Ultimately I remember the year before when we were still Steemit, SBD was at $12 and everything was gravy. I used the extra money to run competition giveaways. The more I gave back to the community, the more my influence grew and it was great. Others decided to use the SBD to buy Steem which helped them get more influence and also noticed.
Shooting The Crypto Foot
The last and most obvious reason for not destabilising a strong HBD should be obvious to everyone, but it doesn't seem to be so I'll point out the elephant in the room.
Destabilising your own coin looks mad to the casual investor!!!
Too often on Hive, we behave as if we're in a bubble whereby the outside world cannot see us. But the fact is, this post that I'm doing now, will be indexed by Google and the other search engines, meaning that at some point, it could be found by a searcher whom has nothing whatsoever to do with Hive.
The same can be said for any article pertaining to destabilising HBD. To the casual observer it looks mad, why would anyone invest in a platform whereby its users are trying to make it worth less money?
You can talk about how you're trying to make one currency worth more, whilst making the other less till you're blue in the face. However to a casual just-came-across-your-site-whilst-browsing user, they will think to themselves "Hmm, that's mad, why would you do that? I'm not investing in these maniacs!"
Back To Front
Of course I'm being a bit glib and having a bit of a tongue-in-cheek poke at the HBD Stabiliser project and others like it, and I'm not saying that our own stable coin would be a bad idea. I just think that in reality the Hive Dollar could be so much more, as could Hive itself.
If we can create another utility for Hive and HBD perhaps in the NFT world, then we won't be worrying so much about whether HBD is stable or not, because we'll be sitting on a very valuable blockchain with two strong currencies. Perhaps with the nature of Hive, in that a lot of it is tied up within various Hive accounts, it is Hive that will turn out to be the stable coin whilst HBD is used in a much more fluid manner.
WHAT DO YOU THINK? IS HIVE MORE SUITED TO BE THE STABLECOIN OR SHOULD WE STILL BE STRIVING TO MAKE HBD STABLE?
AS EVER, LET ME KNOW BELOW!
Cg