New Milestone: 3k Account Tokens

I used to be able to mint more than 10 accounts a day.

But then Splinterlands blew up and now I'm lucky if I can even get 8 on average. More like 7.5 at this point.

So what?

Indeed.

Most people on Hive take the accounts for granted.
I, on the other hand, do not.
Hive accounts are precious. They are pretty rare as well.
The demand simply doesn't outstrip the supply, yet.

Yet.

Hive accounts are a special kind of NFT.
This NFT can send and receive crypto.
It can issue second layer commands (Custom JSON).
It can be recovered should it be stolen.
All the keys can change.
All the meta-data can change.
The only thing that stays the same is the name (IE @edicted).

Thus far it is very thin to make that claim that Hive accounts have great value... because let's be honest: they don't. They use to be worth 30 cents, now they are worth $3. At the same time, we don't want Hive accounts to cost a lot because that would cripple our onboarding. Ironically, high value accounts are a sign that the network is doing very poorly and not scaling up well.

However, there are weird edge cases.

When we begin to think about Hive accounts as NFTs, we engage in some interesting scenarios. First of all, not all NFTs are created equal. Obviously @dragon is worth a hell of a lot more than @dragon12345. In fact, if you control the keys to @dragon, sent it; sent it now. I want to buy it. I will pay $20 for @dragon... no... $40... no... $100. Give me @dragon damn it I want it!

This is the problem

There is no market to buy and sell accounts. In fact, the person that owns @dragon doesn't know I want to buy it. I can't put a bounty on it; advertising is bad. This is a big issue because I know Hive will be a mecca for blockchain gaming. Any network that employs gaming as a core feature is going to need ways to buy and sell account NFTs. It's just obvious given all my experience with gaming and game economies.

This is why I blog about "Love Handles"

Basically would be a frontend for custodian accounts, onboarding newbies, and buying/selling accounts. I think the ultimate problem with something like this is that it would be really good if could get the other frontends on board.

For example, when you create an account on Peakd.com and the account is taken, what happens? It throws an error saying "no you can do that the account has already been created". What I would need to do is create an API that let PeakD.com check to see if the account was for sale on Love Handles, and then relay that information to the user if it is for sale. Might be a big ask, but these are the things I randomly think about.

Actually the ultimate problem is that I haven't worked on the project, nor do I have any plans to. I'm not going to create something like that proactively and do all that work before the market even exists. I've been playing a waiting game for a while. Been in a holding pattern too long. It's annoying, but whatever. Gaming on Hive must be big business before it worth it creating an entire platform just to buy and sell accounts like they're NFTs.

Recycling accounts

On all WEB2 social media sites there are millions upon millions of accounts that are dead and unused. It's a little foolish to think that Hive or other WEB3 applications can employ the same strategy. Those accounts are dead in the water, being stored on a database as dead weight just on the off-chance that the user comes back to the platform.

Clearly Hive does not really have this luxury on a long-term scale. We can't have millions upon millions of dead accounts just sitting there. In fact, we already have too many dead accounts just sitting there, and rather than saving those accounts once in a centralized database (with a backup or two), we are saving them hundreds of times, redundantly, like jackasses. Every node that we boot up has to store this list of totally dead and pointless accounts. In fact I'm suddenly reminded how annoyed I am that I lost my account @irate in a boating accident. We need to make some rules for reclaiming old dead accounts who's keys are lost (using the 'reset') feature.

In any case, a frontend platform that leverages Hive accounts as NFTs completely changes the game. Even if an account only has a value of $1, never underestimate the incentives created by monetizing something, even if only slightly. All of a sudden, less accounts are getting created, and instead the ones that already exist are changing hands more. This can save a lot of money (RAM on search indexes) when we realize that Hive could have 100M users.

Also, what happens if Hive goes x1000? All of a sudden it costs $1000 to create a Hive account? Yikes! Again, we need a way to recycle accounts to counterbalance the scaling problems we are bound to encounter. If I have to listen to one more dev tell me we'll just "increase the blocksize" or "lower the cost to create an account" I'm going to lose my shit. How can actual devs on this network be that naïve? Scaling is not some trivial process that gets fixed by changing a number on the backend. I seriously shouldn't have to explain why to a dev. Stop it. Most Bitcoin forks only exist because of how difficult it is to increase blocksize. Scaling is difficult. It is known.

In fact Binance Smart Chain did this exact thing just recently. They tweeked some numbers on the backend and allowed "scaling" to occur without doing any of the actual work, and the network became totally destabilized. Anyone who uses BSC knows what I'm talking about. The nodes were a disaster. Devs were PISSED. Seriously the message boards... lol they were furious.

I don't even know 3000 people.

I have 3000+ accounts... but what am I actually going to do with them? Sell them when the time comes? Maybe, but probably not. Again, I view these accounts very speculatively and assume they will have great value in the future. Basically anyone I meet that wants a Hive account: I'll probably just give them one (even if they are expensive). Also they'd obviously have access to my RC pool, which I also assume will have great value in the future. Networking and building value is important, and I have very high hopes for Hive in the long term.

NFTs I've minted.

Not only do I own 3000+ account tokens, but also I've created over 1000 accounts. Most of them are pretty dumb. Some of them are flat-out domain squatting. I took the names of a lot of brands out there. Very troll move. They deserve it I'm sure. Do you think @bevmo, @vemno, or @revlon will mind? Also a bunch of drug names. @paxil, @vicodin, and @xantax are all mine :D. Hopefully all of these silly accounts I made will actually get some use instead of bloating the chain until the end of days.

Also I took @broca and @larynx...

Obviously @theycallmedan can have those ones if he wants them.
Until such time, they are mine.

Conclusion

Hopefully I can reach whale status before Hive blows up and become prohibitively expensive to buy. How many whales are there again? Like 34? Wouldn't that be something, considering my lowly beginnings. #dreambig

In any case, another day, another milestone. I now control 3000 account tokens. Perhaps they will only be worth 3 Hive each. Perhaps they will only be 1 Hive each (witnesses are talking about lowering the bar). I guess what I'm trying to say is that I think 1 Hive will be worth quite a bit.

Also I just think more people need to starting thinking about Hive accounts as NFTs. When a JPEG of an ape can sell for $20M... who knows what other kind of crazy stuff will happen in the next ten years. It's also Important to recognize that account recovery is an ingenious development that most people seem to take for granted even though very few networks actually offer it. A few big hacks later everyone will be looking to platforms that can avoid this problem.

Blah blah blah.
Ranting at this point. Time to kill it.

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