A few moments ago, I had one of those heart-racing (maybe even heart-breaking) kinda moments. You know the kind I am talking about! The kind where what you believed to be true suddenly disappeared and you could do nothing about it.

I don't curse, but a few minutes ago, I thought about it!

Just Looking at my Hive Wallet in Peakd

I was checking my feed and going to claim my lastest HP and then it happened. There was a big fat '0' where there should have been over 11,000 HP. At first glance, it appeared someone had stolen my Hive Power.

Worried. Not Worried.

Then all of a sudden all of these "funny-sounding, blockchainy" words started to flood my brain. You know the words I am talking about? Magical words like IMMUTABLE (oooh) and DECENTRALIZED (aaah) and POWER DOWN (huh). The @sumatranate from 3 years ago would have been completely confused.

Immutable

Immutable means "unable to be changed." The #hive blockchain records every transaction and preserves a history of those transactions. Essentially, we are talking about a public, transparent book of record that shows everything that is happening. It is the perfect audit trail.

My mind relaxed a bit. I remembered that there are other frontends that connect to the blockchain. There is more than one way to "virtually skin" this cat. I checked some other sources.

Hive.Blog	HiveStat.io	Hive Block Explorer

Sigh of relief! My hive power is still there. Today will be a good day.

Note: Hive.blog is showing total #hive power, while HiveStats and Hive Block Explorer are showing effective power.

And let's be honest! The team at @peakd is doing great work. Whatever the glitch was only lasted a few minutes. Now everything looks good again. But even if there was a catastrophic failure on their part, my information and your information is still safe.

Decentralized

If this same scenario played out with my online bank account, I would be in a world of hurt. I probably should (but I don't) download my electronic statements. If my bank account suddenly showed a balance of zero I would have little to no proof of what the balance should be.

The bank holds my money and controls the data. I place a lot of trust that the bank (as a single entity) will be honest and forthcoming with my money.

#hive is different. I don't have to place my complete trust in any one potential point of failure. If a #hive frontend fails, I find another. If a witness cannot maintain his or her node, a new witness emerges.

Think about this! Every single witness node (including backups) would have to fail during the same short period of time in order for the data/transactions to be lost.

Possible? Yes. Likely? No!

Power Down

The information that was not showing properly was my powered up #hive.

For better or worse (in this case for the better), that hive power was locked up. To the best of my knowledge, even if someone had accessed my account and started a power down, there is no way for my hive power to be immediately transferred before becoming liquid.

There are still some great arguments regarding the #hive power down lengths. Ultimately for me, it is a question of security versus availability. Today, based on the current parameters in play, I had some additional peace that all was not lost.

Final Thoughts

We all need to be safe. The world is a dangerous place filled with nefarious characters. Remember that if you don't hold your keys, then you are not in control of your crypto. And if you give you keys to someone else you have basically made that person owner.

Our #hive community stands by each other and our #hive blockchain has built-in measures to make sure our assets stay safe. Let's all stay smart and make sure complacency and/or stupidity don't ruin a perfectly good day!

I want to hear from you!

1. Have you ever had a heart-breaking/heart-racing moment on #hive? 2. Who or what helped you sort through the mess?

See you around! @sumatranate