On the Utility of Hive....

I'm sure the fact that the Hive price is holding up better than a lot of other coins out there has NOTHING to do with its utility, but it should, because the Hive ecosystem is one of the most useable around.

Let's face it, Hive just works - not only as a blogging engine, but as host to number of games and as a multi-faceted investment vehicle with it's own (still functioning) stablish coin.

Below are 10 aspects that give Hive its Utility...

Hive acts as an immutable record for your content

At the blockchain level, if you post something to Hive it can't be altered once it's on the chain, and after the next HardFork, that irreversibility is going to be even more rapid.

NB Some people get VERY confused about the issue of censorship on Hive - nuking someone's rewards ISN'T CENSORSHIP - imagine if you made that claim in real life - it'd be like only interacting with people if they paid you, and if they stop paying you, then you shut up, that isn't censorship.

Some front ends mute users with low reputations, you might claim that is censorship, but your content is still there on the chain, it can still be accessed, you'd just need another front end with different settings - design one if you need it!

The capacity to earn from posting content

Hive has evolved beyond this, but blogging and vlogging remain one of its core functions - it's pretty profound really that anyone can set up an account for free (here) and after a little adjusting to the system (learning how to use it) can just start writing or uploading videos and earning.

It's great to see so many people in Venezuela and Nigeria supplementing their incomes with Hive.

And recently earning potential has grown with Tribe tokens, most notably LEO, and evolving still with the @spknetwork evolving its own tokenomics.

Earning potential through curation

OK OK It's an effort to make ten mouse clicks a day to maximise my curation returns, somedays I need a towel to wipe the sweat off my fingers, and I begrudge the arduous daily labour of trying to read 10 posts. It's an effort for only a 10% return but someone's got to do it.

But then again if you're a shirker and not a worker, you can always just delegate your stake to @curangel or something or trail someone else who will vote for you - I noticed the increasingly lazy @abh12345 does this on me with his LEO alt, freeloader.

NB curation also gives you a means to support others without eroding your Capital - good to see various Ukranians getting top rewards to help fund Victims of Putin's totally unnecessary machismo.

Fast and Free Transactions

This I think is one of the most under-raved about features on Hive - the fact that you can send either Hive or HBD to any other Hive account holder for free and it will arrive in 3 seconds.

And you can trade Hive-HBD for free too - it's just that the liquidity is quite thin.

You can also trade for free on Hive-Engine, but getting Hive into HE as Swap.Hive will incur a fee as will swapping in any of the pools.

3% for just staking Hive and doing nothing else!

Very appealing feature this - on top of your curation returns, you do also get 3% per annum in Hive just added to your account, paid out every block I believe. So if you stack enough Hive you can see this growing second by second, or at least three second by second as that's the block time!

A stable-ISH coin which pays out at 20%

HBD doesn't stay exactly stable, in fact it's been down to $.90 quite recently but it does have a good track record to moving back up to its $1 target, rarely above it though these days.

There's relatively low volume in HBD compared to Hive which is what keeps it pegged, so the 20% return and the just below $1 peg should be good for a while yet!

Cross Chain Bridges and other chain Defi Opportunities

Thanks to the @leofinance team we have bridges from Hive/LEO to Polygon and BSC where you can stake LEO/ HIVE/ HBD/ and SPS with various other coins.

See PolyCub.com for more details...

There are also some nice pools on Hive-Engine but with low liquidity, but fun to play around with.

Hive-Engine...

There are a number of projects on Hive that have set up their own community or gaming tokens on Hive-Engine - offering a second layer of earning potential.

Governance Rights... and possibly the Easiest Way to Run Yer own Node!

With Hive-Power you get to vote for the Witnesses that control the chain. But also, thanks to @somegy123's Hive 'Witness in a Box' on Privex, for just $50 you can also set up your own Hive Witness (node) - and yes it may well be a cut and paste job for you but it still gives you an opportunity to learn about this aspect of things with relative ease.

Splinterlands and other Games...

I mean I've got to finish on Splinterlands - the biggest gaming success story of the blockchain space, responsible for around 80% of Hive's usage nowadays.

But there are some other games worth checking out too - for a list you can check out here.

Hive's Utility - Final Thoughts...

I'm now getting back to stacking Hive proper - having taken a break to build up Splinterlands assets this year gone - and looking back at the list above, there's not a lot not to like on Hive!