A year ago, Justin Sun's shenanigans were coming to a head. Creating HIVE was our only practical solution to the irreconcilable differences between the community witnesses and the TRON puppets. I don't know how long it was in development behind the scenes, but the fork was announced on March 17th, about the same time the library first closed for our "two weeks to flatten the curve" COVID response.
The chain would officially hard fork into a new token and divorce us from Sun's control on March 20th, 2020.
While there were a lot of ruffled feathers and hurt feelings as a result of the fork, and some airdrops should have been handled better in hindsight, it is truly a testament to the resilience and freedom in blockchain technology. No government intervention was needed. We voted with our activity and our tokens. This is progress for decentralized, voluntary communities.
HIVE is home. My tokens are powered up here. The people I followed are almost all here. The development is here. So here's to future progress and success!
Raises glass
So what has happened over the past year, and where do we go from here? Hard to say. I know a lot of people have been working behind the scenes to refine the code that runs our system, or build dApps that add new utility to our blockchain and sidechains. This kind of innovation in a relatively free environment is truly inspiring.
I know this past year has been a major challenge in real life for everyone in various ways, not least of which is the COVID pandemic. I am trying to find solid footing somewhere between the "COVID is a hoax" tinfoil hatters and "COVID is the new Black Death" Karens. Based on deaths in the elderly population, I think it is entirely reasonable to conclude that there is a new illness. However, based on the near-absence of deaths in those under 60, and the lack of any correlation of death rates to policy implementation, it should be apparent that the political response has been either deeply misguided or outright malicious.
One of my library acquaintances who has been especially cautious in following all the mask, sanitation, and distancing rules was recently tested positive. Of course, blame will be applied to "all those anti-science, anti-mask freaks in the population," but there is a propagandistic, rather than scientific, bent to all these blame games.
Here on HIVE, we have a different sort of infection to address. As crypto prices rise, fueled in part by all those COVID stimulus checks, HIVE is also starting to trend upward again. That means we are likely to see an increase in lazy get-rich-quick schemes relying on plagiarism, spam, fraud, and perhaps even a re-emergence of the old vote buying schemes. We need to remain vigilant and vote wisely. That downvote function is perfect for responding to bad actors in our ecosystem.
That said, this past year has demonstrated how HIVE's foundation of content creators has elevated us above the morass our preceding blockchain had become. We have seen a trending page that looks organic. New communities have created initiatives for great content. If we plan to build for a better future, we at least know the past year has us on a firmer foundation here.