I've been seeing some absolutely delusional comments from Hive stakeholders lately, some forwarded to my DMs on Discord. While I haven't been a stakeholder since 2018, I still hope to see Hive do well. But before that, it's imperative that witnesses, developers, users and stakeholders of Hive accept some hard truths. If you remain in denial, Hive is destined to fail. I don't expect anyone to actually read this, or change any minds, but I'll do it for myself so I don't have to think about this anymore.
So, here are some facts:
The STEEM token is arguably the greatest failure in crypto history. Once a #3 coin, it now languishes at #132. Compared to ETH, it has lost 1,000 times its value, or 99.9%. Its fork, HIVE, is even worse, crashing out of the top 150.
Both STEEM and HIVE are a ticket straight down to hell. Both tokens have seen price appreciation for very short durations, spending a majority of their life crashing against BTC, ETH and fiat.
Steem network represents the greatest consensus failure in crypto history. While PoW networks have been 51% attacked in the past, absolutely nothing has been attacked and centralized for 9 months and running (probably forever). DPoS is a complete joke in the broader crypto world, and no one with any significant value will trust the tarnished security reputation of Hive.
Even if one did like DPoS for some insane reason (well, free transactions is the only one), EOS offers a far superior solution. They have significantly more mature tooling, billions in the war chest, and are working on strong ethereum interoperability and compatibility. While very centralized too, its 20 consensus BPs are reputable entities. Should mention that even with all of that, EOS has also been an abject failure, with bitcoin and ethereum doing several orders of magnitude greater economic activity. But if there was one DPoS chain that has any chance of building a sustainable niche for itself, it's EOS, and it will do this by becoming a complement and friend to ethereum and bitcoin, rather than trying to take any market share. Anyone who thinks they can "kill" ethereum or bitcoin is out of their mind.
Layer 2 is not layer 2 without layer 1 security. No one, NO ONE, or at least no one with any common sense, will use Hive when actual Layer 2 solutions are available on ethereum.
HIVE will likely still see some pumps and dumps, but I hope you'll take advantage of them to exit the market. If you are triggered by this, I would highly recommend hiring a financial advisor for an unbiased opinion on your investment. Hopefully, 4.5 years of very steep losses will be enough to get you to do the right thing. If you're still delusionally stubborn, you should definitely visit a psychiatrist instead. I have been telling people for years now to be very careful powering up STEEM and now HIVE, and received a ton of hate and grief for that. While I don't expect any apologies, I continue to recommend people to look elsewhere - the risk-adjusted returns for HIVE or STEEM are simply abysmal. Outside of quick short-term scalps, this token is useless.
With only 25-30 witnesses on Hive actually breaking even, Hive is on the verge of a complete security meltdown. Luckily, I don't think this is a short-term risk, because cultists suffer from insane sunk-cost fallacy and are happy to keep their fantasies on life support at big losses, but it's not sustainable long-term. (PS: This is the only bit here that is inaccurate. Depending on your server set up, if you only run one server without a backup or seed node, you may be turning a profit up to #50-#60. However, the point stands.)
So what can Hive do to turn things around?
First port of call will be cancel the reward pool, decrease inflation to the bare minimum to keep the chain running. I have more thoughts on how a complete overhaul can take place with a brand new UX, but maybe some other time. Become a bonafide sidechain solution for ethereum (NO, THIS IS NOT LAYER 2. LAYER 2 REQUIRES SECURITY CONSENSUS OF ETHEREUM. I REPEAT, LAYER 2 IS NOT LAYER 2 WITHOUT LAYER 1 SECURITY) by offering a focus on social media and gaming. This requires complete interoperability and compatibility with ethereum and EVM. Why would anyone choose Hive over established DPoS chains like Tron or EOS, though, if they can develop better interop faster? Good question, and I don't have an answer for that. My only hope is that with strong marketing, Hive can build a brand and sustainable niche for itself targeted towards gaming and social. That said, with Immutable now launching a zk Rollup on ethereum with 0.3 second finality, thousands of TPS and <$0.01 in transaction fees, Tron/EOS have their work cut out, let alone Hive.
Build actual layer 2 solutions on Hive, requiring validation or fraud proofs like zk Rollups or optimistic rollups on ethereum. This is the only way to keep the chain sustainable. And no, solutions which do not require consensus are not secure. Might as well just migrate to a pseudo-centralized db at that point. If possible, gut the horrible DPoS and come up with a better consensus mechanism.
Alright, I'm going to stop here. I think I have said enough. Steem & Hive have been an unmitigated disaster, and there is zero evidence to suggest this will not continue to be the case currently. I hope some of the points mentioned here will wake some people up and get them to take action, but that's totally wishful thinking at this time. Nothing short of a complete overhaul from scratch will save Hive and make it a sustainable niche. I wish Hive and its stakeholders the best. I have done my fair share to help you and warn you over the years over the years, I think we can all agree I can do no more. All the best!
Did I mention that Reddit has been beta-testing their tokenization and will soon release widely on ethereum? Oh, yeah, there's that. Why on earth would anyone use a failed platform with 2,000 active users when a long established platform with 400 million active users offers a better experience?