Earlier this week we notified cryptocurrency exchanges that the upcoming hardfork to the Hive blockchain network, dubbed Equilibrium, is planned for the end of June.
Today's official date announcement also has a pile of helpful information including a summary of changes coming with the new hardfork, links to the software, and details for those of you who may want to get involved in testing the new software!
TL:DR the Code; A Quick Overview of the Upcoming Changes
Equilibrium is a state of balance between multiple forces. In the case of the Hive blockchain network, the guiding mission from day one has been to create an ecosystem that allows anyone to become a part of our decentralized network, contribute to governance, and to own their data, connections, tokens and actions in a world where the current tech and social powers have an iron grip.
This hardfork continues to empower people to use Hive the way they want and takes another few large steps forward in creating an ecosystem with better balanced rules and tools for building whatever we can dream up.
Reaching equilibrium is finding a state of balance and readiness. It is the essential preparation for big moves, exciting changes, and sustained growth.
Here's a quick summary of HF25:
Below is a list of the consensus changes that are being made as part of this hardfork:
changes to curation window and curation rewards calculation
- The most important aspect of this change is that the 5 minute reverse auction is going away, so there is no punishment for voting early. This will finally put manual voters on an equal footing with automated voters when it comes to competing for curation rewards. This change, more than any other, was the driving reason for the naming of this hardfork.
- In addition, anyone voting in the first 24 hours will be rewarded based solely on their Hive Power and vote weight, and the reward curve applied from 24 hours to the end of the voting window will be much softer than currently, eliminating any need to feel rushed when voting in order to maximize curation rewards.
new operation and API to convert HIVE to HBD
- HBD (Hive-backed Dollars) is intended to be a feeless, trustless, USD-pegged stablecoin, a feat that has yet to be achieved in the cryptocurrency world. This new operation will stabilize the price pegging of HBD, allowing it to achieve its full potential as a frictionless medium of exchange for digital commerce.
- While you've always been able to convert your HBD to HIVE, this new operation will allow you to convert in the opposite direction (HIVE -> HBD).
- Previously, HBD was only effectively price-pegged on the low side of USD pricing. This new conversion will create an equilibrium point where HBD will be pegged on both the low side AND the high side.
interest only paid on HBD held in your savings account
- You might have missed that you're earning interest on your Hive-backed Dollars, so this could be a neat surprise: simply move HBD into your savings account (3 day withdrawal waiting period) to earn interest on it just for holding! No-risk DeFi, made easy.
new operation and API to enable recurring payments
- These are periodic transfers which you schedule to happen automatically. They are intended for managing subscription payments, etc.
disallow voting on expired proposals
witness and proposal votes by an account expire after one year if the account stops actively making governance-related votes
- This change was made to ensure that old votes from dormant accounts don't unduly impact governance decisions for Hive. It will enable Hive to find a new balance between incumbent block producers and new competitors for those positions.
proposal creators can change the end date of their Decentralized Hive Fund (DHF) proposals
- This allows a proposal creator to reduce their funding request (by decreasing the number of payments they receive) without having to create a new proposal and start from zero in respect to community support for the proposal.
re-allow vote operation for already paid posts
- Voting outside the rewards window should still be something you can do, to show appreciation for the content you like and to add to your curated feed. This is a quality of life change that does not impact anything to do with allocation of rewards.
There are also new command-line options, a pile of bug fixes and performance optimizations, a new API call, and many other improvements to the code and documentation that the Hive blockchain relies on. Full details are available in the release notes This is pretty critical work towards making it easier to understand, easier to run, and to create the best possible ecosystem for someone to hop in and start building with Hive.
If you're not technical and don't want to do some hands-on testing, you're all caught up! You likely won't notice anything immediately when Equilibrium goes live.
However, you may want to consider changing the way you vote for posts after the hardfork, especially if you've resorted to auto-voting to maximize your curation rewards. Now you'll have more time and flexibility to find the content you love in a relaxed way, and more time to engage with your favorite authors and communities!
In the next 12 days...
There is still time before the hardfork takes place. If you want to contribute to testing or if you are a dApp creator, project owner, or someone who just wants to start getting more involved with the ecosystem, here are some handy links so you can jump in before Equilibrium goes live.
Some Technical HouseBeekeeping
Hardfork 25 is set to trigger at 14:00 UTC on June 30th.
Here is the link to the final official release version of Hardfork 25:
https://gitlab.syncad.com/hive/hive/-/tags/v1.25.0
...and here are some helpful posts that outline joining the testnet, including how to create a witness node on the testnet, if you want to dive into the decentralized tech that powers Hive.
A guide to starting up a testnet witness:
@howo/how-to-run-a-witness-node-on-the-hf25-testnet
And more information on the public testnet itself:
@gtg/hf25-public-testnet-reloaded-rc2
The testnet faucet page:
https://hivetestnetfaucet.org/
All dApps that rely on the functions outlined above should have started testing or be starting to test as soon as possible.
Equilibrium is the second community-driven hardfork of the Hive blockchain and we are very excited for it! It marks a key milestone for Hive development and for the Hive ecosystem.