Debate Topics for Hive
Lately, we've seen a number of issues raised regarding Hive and, in some cases, solutions proposed to change the status quo.
In some cases, the issues raised are conflicting with each other, so, by attempting to fix what is considered a problem by some, you make the other worse and vice versa. We have to be careful when proposing changes to not take something that's been working relatively smoothly and break it.
Hive is a complex ecosystem with various use cases, and very few of them (if any) improved significantly in a series of iterations, to become a magnet for the masses.
Decentralization allows us to develop in different uncorrelated areas. That, in my opinion, is a strength, not an issue! Maybe Splinterlands was lucky at the beginning to have the support of almost the entire community at that time, including serious investors. But it also proved itself in time, despite many mistakes that were made, and big investors that sold their assets at times. It was and will become again a magnet in the crypto world, in my opinion.
Becoming a magnet is difficult, but not impossible, as they have shown.
Let's go over many of the issues regarding Hive I've heard and seen recently. Some I consider to be real issues (or priorities), others not so much.
1. Moving Hive's Reward Pool to Second Layer
I believe it's an ok discussion to have, to clarify some positions and arguments. I disagree this is a priority that should keep our time occupied too much. This would become a non-issue if we have adoption since the reward pool would be split into too many hands to matter anymore and layer two rewards will become a necessity at that time. Then, it will be a priority. But I don't think we are at any "risk" of this kind of adoption (to make the base layer reward pool rewards irrelevant) during this bull market.
2. Onboarding New Users and Attrition
At times, numbers don't look good, but we have some examples that work(ed).
We have the example in Cumana. A tight community with strong ties in real life and the potential of an HBD-based economy brings new users and keeps existing ones from the same city active.
Again, Splinterlands showed us the way during their 2021 boom. It's true. Many of those accounts were bot farms, but there were also many real users, some of whom I continue to interact with on-chain, and those are only the ones that also started to blog or comment because most of them remained within the Splinterlands ecosystem.
Something I disagree with here. Treating someone who uses the blogging or even the short-message side of Hive as active, while someone who trades or plays games is not always considered active. Or someone who uses v4v.app. They are all active on Hive, just using different aspects of it!
Regarding attrition, yes, it's big, but that is quite a general issue with online businesses. Give them a reason to stick around and they will. I wonder how many of the Splinterlands users onboarded in the boom period of 2021 went away before the bull market ended and Splinterlands assets went downhill. I don't have a metric, but judging by the excitement during those days, there weren't many.
3. Hive Bridges
That's a real issue especially after Bittrex closed down and Binance may be facing the same fate or HIVE may get delisted from it.
We have the great news of the first demo of the bitcoin wrapping option via VSC, which is now public and usable.
For us, who are used to a fee-less ecosystem, the fees on the bitcoin mainnet may seem quite high. It can't be used for micropayments, but it seems to be a better alternative to the Lightning Network.
Besides that, we also have the bridges the Leo team offers to BSC and Polygon, and, let's not forget about the bridges from the Splinterlands ecosystem to other blockchains, via TerraBlock.
We also still have a couple of other CEX listings, but they can go away at any time if regulations impose that, even indirectly.
4. Smart Contracts
That's another drawback of Hive, the lack of real smart contracts. Besides Hive bridges, I believe that's the top priority, and also something VSC works towards.
We've also experienced a series of Hive-Engine issues recently that show we also need another sidechain or second layer chain that can be a more decentralized alternative.
5. Downvotes
They usually come in a package with the reward pool issue mentioned at #1, but unless they are abused, I see them as a positive thing, not a negative.
Of course, it doesn't become a problem unless they are abused. But so do abuses that downvotes can prevent. I believe generally, even knowing of their existence may prevent some people from trying something funny. On the other hand, I've seen enough times when powerful actors nullified potential rewards due to probable disagreements that had nothing to do with the post(s). It's a fine line, but I believe they are necessary for the Hive economy.
6. APR for HBD
Is the APR for HBD in savings an issue currently? No.
Would it be an issue in the future? Potentially.
My stance on this is kind of nuanced. The way things are now makes the savings account for HBD something very easy to understand by anyone. And it's appealing, for the high interest rate and for being quite liquid, at least for many in the Hive ecosystem.
As such, for the ease of use and the attraction it represents, HBD in savings as it is now is not to be disconsidered.
Where the current savings account and the way it works doesn't help is building more complex systems on top. Like bonding, and the ability to collateralize HBD, or maybe even HIVE. The idea of collateralizing an asset is powerful because it allows someone who understands how this works to have working capital or an expense fund without ever selling the base coin (HBD or HIVE). So, I believe having such a system built is important as well.
Conclusion
We can always find things to debate about regarding Hive. I believe our decentralization is a strength, and having different people/teams working in different directions will not hinder the progress of Hive. It also helps to have priorities that come naturally from the needs of our ecosystem. One such priority that comes naturally is the ability of the ecosystem to bridge to the outside. Without that, we would operate in a bubble, and that hurts every other aspect we might be trying to achieve.
Want to check out my collection of posts?
It's a good way to pick what interests you.
Posted Using InLeo Alpha
Very comprehensive list of call outs. I had a good read
Congratulations @gadrian! You have completed the following achievement on the Hive blockchain And have been rewarded with New badge(s)
Your next target is to reach 190000 upvotes.
You can view your badges on your board and compare yourself to others in the Ranking
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPCheck out our last posts:
https://twitter.com/jewellery_all/status/1732122494075535405
You have pointed out that all 3 topics are worth discussing but need to prioritize some of them.
Agree that some other things should be prioritised.
Yes, we need to prioritize, but the good thing about decentralization is that not everyone needs to work on the same thing, even if it's a priority. I don't imagine Blocktrades working on marketing, maybe not even on Hive bridges unless they hire specialists in other chains.
Regarding the reward pool, moving that to L2 is a lot of work, and we need to focus that workpower where it's needed first. And that is not it, in my opinion. It will be kind of obvious when we will need to do that.
hive is very complex.
I also see Hive bridges and smart contracts as a priority because it expands the capabilities that the ecosystem has. Onboarding is always a hot topic in my view, as there are number of ways to go about it. But I think another good thing with decentralization is we can try different options simultaneously until we find one that works.
I've seen different methods tried out, with various degrees of success. It depends on many factors, including where in the world a method is tried out. Because what works in South America won't work in Europe, for example.
Yes indeed. Hive is a global ecosystem. Different methods will have to be tried in different regions. I think guerilla marketing could work well in developing nations.
It may work in developed countries too, in poorer regions or neighborhoods.
Good list! I would add the lack of decentralization! Most stake is in the hands of max. 20 individuals (with multiple accounts). Sure, it is similar in real life, but it also means there would be hard to find a consensus to change essential points in the tocenomics which potentially bring the top 20 less profit (e.g. change the 50/50 distribution of author/curator to more for the authors). Instead of giving more incentives to authors for posting and engaging, certain people are discussing the opposite, to remove the author rewards. The effortless (i.e. automatized) free passive income for the whales (in form of curation rewards without actually manual curation) was I think introduced to attract outside investors. Turned out it failed completely and just makes the whales fatter each month!
Also the lack of transparency about the proposals and how the 100000s of HBD are actually spent should be on the list!
Those are some valid points that I agree with...
The proposed changes could create an even bigger gap between whales and the rest, that's what I do agree too... But, I found another big issue with this thing with decentralization and token distribution... The approach of "regular" Hivians about their HivePower... I have put a focus on EDUCATING people about the advantages of HivePower in YOUR own wallet as many just delegate ALL their HP and centralize the power in the hands of whales even more!!!
It looks like a minor problem, but believe me, it's not... Those big boys further upvote HBD stabilizer comments and those rewards go back to DHF and NOT to the Hivians that create content... again, centralizing and distributing HIVE to big accounts, preventing "faster" decentralization and better distribution...
That's just one example, but we have many similar examples...
Indeed, it is too tempting to delegate HP out.
Fair points!
I forgot to mention there have been discussions on the transparency of DHF proposals, and how they currently work, without much check on reaching milestones in certain timeframes, and without serious justification of the funds being asked for (and received), in some cases.
Regarding the 50/50 split on authors/curators, my position is more nuanced.
On one end, I do understand your position that whales earn maybe a disproportionate amount from curation (usually doing it automatically), curation being the most profitable (passive) income for them on Hive, by far.
At the same time, when the split was 70/30, they had other means to boost their split by early curation and by the size of the account because then, the size of the account influenced the curation rewards you received. It could reach 45% from what I heard back then, from 30%. At least with 50/50 and linear rewards, 50% is 50%, regardless of the size of the account.
I remember when the discussion was made to switch from 70/30 to 50/50, one of the arguments was that there was too much spam and self-voting going after the 70%. I don't know how the spam level is now compared to then, but I believe self-voting for curation purposes has lowered significantly since it doesn't make a difference if you vote for your post or a different post, and you get the same 50% on your vote.
Regarding decentralization of stake... there are 37 "official" HP whales on Hive according to @arcange's report from yesterday, which is okay compared to most other chains. What I'd like to see is their combined stake remain at around 50% or lower, and maybe a few others have a chance to join their ranks over time.
Self-voting for curation purposes is not the issue, the top whales are anyway not big content producers, so not sure how a change from 50/50 to 70/30 should increase spam. The spammers typically anyway have no big stake.
Not sure what you mean here, the early sniper 5min curation window is long gone, the reward curve is the same, regardless of the size of the account. Sure, that after 24h the curation is less, makes no sense to me, that´s another story.
I probably should be also in favor of the 50/50, as I earn >2000 per month for curation and only 450 or so as author, but it still seems unfair for most of the people.
I was describing what the discussions were when the change from 70/30 to 50/50 was made. Not what the status quo is, currently.
I still earn more from author rewards than curation, but that will probably shift at some point not so far into the future. I understand what you are saying and I agree with 50/50 whales earn way too much from curation, but maybe the same thing is a motivator to stake more HP for smaller accounts.
True, for me it was!
I love the mode of your reasoning. A lot of people are active on here but it just depends on what exactly they focus on
But a lot of people believe that if the person is not blogging, he is she is inactive
Yeah... I've seen that perpetuated in some stats too.
Debates and discussions are great and very much needed in a decentralized system... The level (and maybe even number) of debates is maybe the best measure of decentralization... We were talking about this just a few weeks ago when we said that there are no HIVE discussions, and the main concern was the lack of them... Well, here we are... 😃
Discussions are the best way to see what people REALLY think, as many Hivians don't want to say their opinions, somehow, hiding in the shadows... Also, these discussions are like those "pre-election debates", and they are a perfect tool to see if our opinion concludes with witnesses that we are voting for! Unfortunately, I didn't see that people think in that way... yet... but there will be time for that... :)
About downvotes...
That is the main problem... that "we believe" in people, they are good and will not abuse... If we can't CODE it and prevent the abuse, then we need another solution... While 90% of downvotes are doing what they are supposed to do, the rest 10% is abuse... and that abuse harms everyone... Like I said many times, we are capable of implementing a better solution if we focus our brain cells on the problem and work together...
Downvotes are bad as they CAN be abused... while there is a possibility, they are bad...
Great post!
Absolutely! And I love to see them again, publicly. It shows people still care, and are passionate about the well-being of the chain. I love it even more that there are debates and not yet a consensus. If they don't degenerate (and they haven't so far), they are a great way to find better solutions. Infinitely better than one voice, one way, no critics.
They are coming back! The guys had a great idea to bring back the Town Hall discussions. You often talk about important topics that you don't hear discussed often in your discord show (especially useful for new users who are kind of parachuted into the ecosystem without much (any) understanding of its underlying mechanisms).
Hmm, I disagree with you on this. Not that we shouldn't search for a better solution, but that we shouldn't believe in people. On these premises, we will all be replaced by AI or AI+robots because we are not reliable. Our flaws make us human. Yes, we need systems to stop us from making critical errors, but a downvote is not one of them, even if it's not justified. Maybe we should make it so downvotes would become very costly to harass a certain account, instead of occasionally downvoting it.
You didn't understand me well... I was saying that we think that ALL people are good, but that's not the case... As it gets obvious when they abuse their power because they can... The system allows them to do it... That was the point of the comment... The system needs "the anti-abuse-patch"... 😃
I do believe in people, that's why I'm still here... lol... That's why we are discussing about these things... :)
Ok, I agree.
And that's why I think this might be a solution:
The question is how to implement it and if there aren't ways around it.
Do you think the 20% Apr can actually be sustained for so long
It depends. Regardless of its long-term viability, I believe it will be lowered.
I agree with a lot of points you pointed out. For getting new users, I would like to add that I think we lack publicity. I only learned about Hive from Splinterlands. After using Peakd for a year, I don't think I've seen or heard of it anywhere else. As for HBD, I think it is fine the way it is right now. The interest is one of the big reasons I am growing my Hive account.
I disagree. We lack products that make regular people (not early adopters) want to come back and use them, once they find out about them. Splinterlands is an exception.
If it was me, I'd build separate things. Leave the savings account the way it is for regular people, maybe adjust the APR, although that will have some counter-reactions, and build a separate system for more complex products (locking mechanisms, bonds, bond market, collateralizing).
Changes have different effects for different people, I am hearing that there is a talk about removing the hive reward pool/system. It is a thing of worry for me and thousands of users like me.
That's unlikely to happen, in my opinion. Not in the near future, anyway.
And when it will, it will be replaced with a different rewards system, for sure.
There are quite a few things to talk about and I have heard quite a few people talk about them. Personally, I think we can stay with the status quo but even if we don't change, places like Binance will.
Yep, we have to mind the world around us and how that changes. Or we will remain an island with no ties to the outside.
Just like that today there is a lot of talk and changes being called for. And we will see if it will be the same in the future if they change the custom system then in my view people will not like it because people work very hard here and it is their right to earn some money. Because it is not easy to work here.
After long enough periods, nothing stays the same. Everything changes and we must be prepared for that. We can, of course, influence change too. And that's important.