A-listed communities

It is great to see that finally Binance has released the HIVE and added a HIVE/BTC pairing and by the looks of it, it already has 1300 BTC in volume - not bad. The other thing that is interesting in regards to this is that Steem is also pumping simultaneously, which indicates a dumping of HIVE by those looking to get a higher stake in STEEM - great. There is likely a little bit going the other way also, but with the airdrop being 1:1 a month ago, a lot of the Steem would have already been dumped.

The volumes on HIVE over the last few days are quite incredible and if we look at the last 24 hours (and the Binance markets have only been open a couple hours), we see that there has been 150 million in volume, much of it through Huobi.

If you think that the Hive blockchain has only been operational for the last 5 weeks or so, it is pretty incredible to not only see this kind of volume, but also that HIVE has been listed on some of the largest exchanges. Not only this, the listings are perhaps more unique than most - as they are driven by social pressure, as much as the financial demand.

The Hive blockchain was born as a direct response to the Steem blockchain governance problems, where the chain was effectively attacked and hijacked through some rather creative and decentralize-breaking ways. It was driven by a group who designed it and the community who supported it to reclaim and reinforce the ideals of a decentralized blockchain that protects its user base from centralized control, including stake attacks and censorship. Hive is what Steem was meant to be and was slowly heading toward, until the unfortunate actions of a few who once they had the opportunity - took full control.

In the last weeks of existence, the Hive fork has not only proven the value of dPOS, but proven that a blockchain is only as strong as the community that supports it and, the community is the driver of its value. Just think about poor @ned, his HIVE stake would be worth around 60 million dollars - if he had one. Perhaps if he had actually invested into the development of Steem to add value to the community, he would have been able to realize some of the value that is inherent in a strong community who loves where they are and are willing to support it.

While price is going to fluctuate wildly, the greatest thing in this fork so far that it has vindicated dPOS as a viable option and demonstrated that it works as a community protector. It has shown that the community surrounding the blockchain can not only shift platform with relative ease, it also can rally and create social movements that can affect the decisions of some of the largest exchanges - exchanges looking to build their own financial ecosystems that, surprise surprise, require the inclusion of users who are collected together into communities.

It is a case of, "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together" and as this is just the start of the crypto and blockchain industry, those who are able to build a collection of supportive communities around themselves will be the ones who will define the industry, essentially creating the model that bandwagoners will follow in the future. Being the defining force means having the naming rights, in a similar way to Bitcoin controls the public narrrative of crypto - at the moment.

Hive has the potential to be a defining protocol for web 3.0 that can serve as the community layer, a driver of the narrative across the human side of the industry - the visualization of the social economy. the wider it spreads and the more sub-community it creates, the greater the value and the more valuable it becomes for other nodes, the exchanges and other surrounding businesses. Hive becomes a resource that can be leveraged in multiple ways, but especially as a connector of use case to community and vice-versa, whether it be a product or service, a game or an exchange.

One of the things that I think that crypto and blockchain projects will have to come to terms with is the "no project is an island" idea, everything is inter-related in some way and at this early stage, there is far more value in collaboration than competition. Communities joining forces to leverage the the skillsets of each will far out-perform those that try to go it alone, something that most are currently trying - which segments and limits the reach of all.

Ciara Sun from Huobi hinted at the potential of future collaboration and whatever that looks like, it can go beyond a normal project/exchange relationship and instead connect an economic community to a social community - value to use case, value to interest areas, value to connect people with people. There is a long way to go before all of the connections are made, but I like that Hive is starting to get some of the attention - The entire industry needs.

Happy trading - happy socializing - happy communities.

Taraz [ Gen1: Hive ]