For roughly a week HBD has been above $1. Granted, it is above it by 1 or 3 cents, and a bit earlier it dropped, briefly, below $1 according to my charts.

The reason, I believe, for the peg to the dollar to be so strong right now is exactly because of the printing rate. I myself did sell Hive to purchase HBD because 10% guaranteed a year (and backed by Hive) is huge.

HBD is backed by Hive, but has roughly 10% of Hive's market cap, which means there is room to grow while still being fully and (in my opinion) safely backed.

The high demand matched the timing of the APY increase to 10% too well, which makes me think that people are likely buying HBD for the DeFi yield.

If that is the case, behold, because it is possible for HBD to not only stay above $1, but also to momentarily break the peg and stay above it.

It was usual to see, "back in the days" when Hive was Steem, SBD (Steem Backed Dollars) at almost $10. Good times.

It is unlikely we will ever see crazy prices like $10 or even $2 again on HBD, because now there are tools to convert Hive into HBD, in case it goes up, forcing an increase in supply to keep the price pegged. But is is possible to see it wiggle at 10% up or down in my opinion, as it has before, exactly because of the high demand from people looking for a relatively safe investment (compared to raw Hive, that is more unpredictable).

Crazy times.

Even if people get in just to "mine" the DeFi yield from HBD, it is great for Hive, as it is a great advertising of the capabilities of this blockchain.

As for me, I have set my witness node and voted for a 12% APY. It seems high, but it is only 20% higher than it currently is. Moving from 7% to 10% was a much bigger change, it was an almost 50% increase.

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If the APY happens to go to 12% a year, and Hive and HBD stay up, I will then vote for a 13% APY, which would be a less than 10% increase, then I will just follow the top 20 witnesses consensus. But for now, I am very interested in raising the APY to see how that can work to attract more people and brain power to use and possibly develop using Hive!