Good day everyone! Right on the heels of my A Guide for new Hive Students of 2022 - Invite and teach post it has become apparent that I need to put this post up as soon as possible to teach my Hive Students and anyone else who reads this post about the importance of saving your keys!
After the above post, I found myself having to explain and teach about the subject one to one multiple times. While I do not mind this at all, I feel that it is a great idea for me to put the whole discussion into an article that I can save and forward on to whomever I would like to onboard.
Keys - A serious business but in a nutshell
"Not your keys, not your crypto."
As much as Hive can be used as a creative outlet or a place to share what you do with the world, there is a cryptocurrency generated from your posts because of the inevitable upvotes you will get.
Newcomers might not see thousands of Dollars right away but its is almost impossible NOT to make some money for yourself after a few posts. Soon enough it will become substantial enough that it will hurt to lose it!
Too many times people find out their keys no longer work and its too late to do what they should have done in the beginning: Save their Keys!
What are keys? Why is it my job to store them?
The chief advantage of Hive - Decentralized. No single agency has control over your account, your content, your information or your money.
The chief "drawback" of Hive - You have to take responsibility for your account. Your keys are the undisputed safeguard on the security of your account.
You also need to take responsibility for your actions and connections.
See the quotations to "drawback"? This is because it is not much of a drawback if what you are getting is your own freedom of speech and an environment that promotes your original content.
So, there is no central agency that stores your keys. Without getting into too much technical detail, the blockchain churns along without you on its own. it is a modular process of confirming and verifying blocks on the chain. It needs your keys to access your information and cryptocurrency on the chain.
The people who process these blocks are the witnesses that are all over the world who take the place of a centralized server controlled by one person.
The good news is that this makes blockchain technology nearly impossible to stop.
What does each key do? Why do I need 5 of them?
Let me explain to you what each key does, let me also make it clear to you how you should behave with each one.
Each key unclocks different levels of security. You do not want to use your highest access level code to unlock the basic functions of your account. That high level code is only used for special situations.
Posting Key
This is the key you will use the most. You can use it to make posts, comments, to upvote and generally interact with most people. If this were Facebook, this is your regular password.
Active Key
This is a higher clearance key that allows the transfer and conversion of funds. You don't have this level on Facebook, because Hive gives you a crypto wallet where you earn and save money.
This key is used quite often but do not use it on unverified sources as people could use it to transfer funds from your account.
Owner Key
Here we have the number 1 most important key.
Memo Key
This key is not really used, you should save it, but do not worry about it. It is used to send and receive encrypted messages.
How to save your Keys
Right... I would suggest the following: Use Hive Keychain to store all the passwords you need to post and move money. But keep total account control - the Owner Key, in a safe place that cannot be hacked or corrupted. You can keep it in written form, on a usb stick. I would not recommend putting it somewhere that people can easily get hold of it.
What is Hive Keychain?
In short, Hive Keychain is an extension that can be used on Chrome and on mobile phone that will save your Posting and Active keys in relation to your Hive account.
It is safe and it is used by many people. I do hope there is never a clone of the app made to confuse someone. Better make sure you check the number of downloads and reviews that it is related to the Keychain before downloading it and giving it your keys.
If you have any other questions, feel free to ask!
Cheers!
