The Hive blockchain is a decentralized hard fork of the “Steem” blockchain. The Hive crypto ecosystem is home to a broad range of decentralized applications (dApps), social media platforms, NFT projects, and crypto games. Furthermore, the Hive coin (HIVE) is the native cryptocurrency of the Hive network and plays an essential role in the delegated proof-of-stake (DPoS) consensus mechanism. Also, thanks to the novel proof-of-brain (PoB) concept, anyone can earn Hive coins by creating and curating content.
In this article, we’re going to dive deep into the Hive network. We’ll explore the native Hive coin, resource credits, and the concept of proof-of-brain (PoB) and time-based content monetization.
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The Hive Blockchain
Hive is a fast, scaleable delegated proof-of-stake (DPoS)-based blockchain ecosystem for Web3 and a community-driven hard fork of the Steem blockchain. The platform is host to a diverse range of decentralized applications (dApps), APIs, development tools, and frontends that aim to make integrating blockchain solutions, managing records, and accessing on-chain data as straightforward as possible.
Also, the Hive network caters to developers, investors, creators, and consumers alike. Accordingly, the network is capable of storing vast amounts of content and highly-accessible data made available for “time-based monetization”. Furthermore, the Hive blockchain boasts ultra-fast transaction confirmations of less than three seconds with zero fees. This makes the platform highly scalable while also lowering the barrier to entry and promoting the mass adoption of blockchain technologies.
Additionally, the native Hive coin (HIVE) benefits from the novel proof-of-brain (PoB) concept that distributes a portion of inflation to users of the network. Plus, Hive provides a range of activities for users to earn a passive income without financial investment. This includes playing games, blogging, using dApps, building, and taking part in discussions.
The Steem Blockchain
Steem is a social blockchain that facilitates instant revenue streams via user-generated content sharing. In March of 2020, the Hive blockchain launched as “an independent and decentralized fork of the Steem blockchain”. While Hive aims to maintain the values of the Steem platform, it also aims to free the community “from the burden of Steemit Inc. and its disproportionate influence”. Following this fork, all Steem users were “airdropped” a mirror of their current Steem balances to an automatically-created parallel account on Hive. Plus, Steem users were able to access their new Hive accounts using their existing Steem account keys.
Also, according to “Dapp.com“, Steem’s daily active users dropped by 17% after the fork. According to Hive, after the sale of Steemit Inc to Sun Yuchen of the Tron Foundation, “the exploitation of this influence and loss of confidence in the continued viability of Steem ultimately led to the creation of the Hive blockchain”.
Proof-of-Brain (PoB)
Proof-of-brain (PoB) is a type of token that can only be earned as a reward for posting and curating content. Also, the PoB token has a maximum supply of 21 million tokens with no “pre-mine” and is subject to a 50% reward reduction every four years, just as Bitcoin. Moreover, PoB incentivizes the adoption of censorship-resistant social media platforms. Accordingly, participants throughout the Hive crypto ecosystem can earn a passive income by posting videos, blog posts, and other types of content.
Technical Vision
Hive aims to create a robust, enterprise-grade blockchain solution that lowers operational costs and constantly strives to improve. Also, the project commits to developing an extensive suite of libraries, community resources, and development tools to make integrating blockchain infrastructures frictionless.
Furthermore, Hive is creating a multi-layer solution that features modular plugins for both the blockchain and layer-2 application layers. Plus, the platform is striving to create an ecosystem of services and products that are “censorship-resistant by design”. This includes standardized microservices for seamless layer-2 integration, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), social media applications, and token management tools.
The Hive Crypto Ecosystem
There are two cryptocurrency classes within the Hive network. First, the native Hive coin, and second, “Hive Backed Dollars” (HBD). Each of these assets plays a vital role throughout the Hive crypto ecosystem. Below, we take a look at these assets in more detail.
The HIVE Coin
The Hive coin, or HIVE, is the native cryptocurrency of the Hive blockchain and it exists in two forms. The first is the liquid Hive coin, and the second is a staked form called “Hive Power”. The Hive coin is freely tradeable and can be bought, sold, and staked. However, Hive Power is made available for stakers following a vesting period in a process known as a “power up”. After this process, Hive Power is converted back into liquid Hive coins over the course of 13 weeks in a process called a “power down”.
Initially, the Hive coin supply was based on a snapshot taken at the time of the Steem hard fork that created the Hive blockchain. Following a 51% attack on the Steem network, all Steem stakers except those involved with the attack received a distribution of Hive coins mirroring their Steem balances.
One of Hive coin’s primary monetary policy features is its decreasing inflation rate, which decreases by 0.01% every 250,000 blocks. This equates to around 0.5% per year. Of the coins that enter circulation via inflation, 65% will go towards filling the reward pool for content creators and curators. A further 15% will go to Hive Power stakeholders, with 10% going to both the “Decentralized Hive Fund” (DHF) and block rewards. At the time of writing, the Hive coin is trading around $2.48, with a market cap of $911 million, according to CoinGecko.
Hive Backed Dollars (HBD)
“Hive Backed Dollars” (HBD) are a dollar-pegged stablecoin used throughout the Hive crypto ecosystem. Further, they are “backed by the network’s ability to convert them into $1 worth of HIVE”. Also, the HBD market cap must remain below 10% of the Hive coin’s market cap to maintain a sustainable economy. Plus, the median price must remain above $0.3964 (which is $2.53 at the time of writing).
Resource Credits
The Hive crypto network replaces costly gas fees with an innovative stake-based “resource credit” mechanism. Further, resource credits are “rechargeable”. Moreover, in the resource credits framework, participants stake Hive coins. In return, they receive a number of resource credits relating to the size of their stake and their network activity. These credits are used instead of transaction fees and automatically replenish over time at a rate of 20% per day.
Resource credits also deplete at varying rates depending on the type of transaction they’re used for. For example, complex asset transfers use more resource credits than social media posts.
The Hive Network
To optimize resources and connectivity throughout the Hive network, the community operates three types of nodes with different configurations. First, “witness nodes” are responsible for signing blocks. Second, “seed nodes” facilitate external peer-to-peer (P2P) connections. Third, “API nodes” facilitate external remote procedure call (RPC) connections.
Block production occurs in three-second intervals. By using a rotating schedule, 20 witnesses are granted the ability to sign blocks. Witness nodes are selected to sign blocks according to the total amount of Hive Power staked to support them via individual approvals.
Delegated Proof-of-Stake (DPoS)
The Hive blockchain uses a delegated proof-of-stake (DPoS) consensus algorithm to secure the network and validate blocks of transactions. Block producers, known as “witnesses”, must stake a number of Hive coins to participate in the consensus and earn a passive income by validating blocks. Also, Hive coin holders can delegate their stake to a witness to receive a share of staking rewards. Plus, the distribution of rewards is proportionate to the size of a stake, with delegators receiving less than witnesses.
Development and Integration
Hive makes it simple for blockchain developers to create exciting applications using a fast, version-controlled transactional database based on “ChainBase”. This enables parallel access to the database while “handling a scaling amount of RPC requests easily without a significant increase in memory use”. Also, the Hive blockchain offers simple cross-platform integrations and universal programming language compatibility.
The Decentralized Hive Fund
The Decentralized Hive Fund (DHF) is an alternative financing initiative that uses a proposal-based DPoS mechanism to finance projects’ development throughout the Hive network ecosystem. Also, the DHF takes a decentralized approach to the distribution of funds. Supporters can stake Hive coins to support a funding proposal. As such, the more support a proposal for funding has, the higher the stake.
Accordingly, proposals with a higher stake receive more funding. This mechanism helps to level the playing field by preventing any single participant from having too much influence in the funding process by increasing their stake.
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Content Monetization
The Hive network uses a time-based content monetization mechanism for rewarding users of decentralized social media platforms for their engagement. This allows users to earn rewards by posting and commenting. Over a seven-day period, content can be monetized. Not only does this encourage organic discoverability, but it also incentivizes competitive high-quality content.
The Hive Blog
Hive Blog is the first frontend available on the Hive blockchain. Also, Hive Blog is a social media dApp with an interface pretty similar to “Steemit”. Hive Blog is seeing immense popularity, with 30-day transactions surpassing that of Steemit. One of the reasons Hive Blog is becoming so popular is that it rewards users for participating in valuable dialogs. Plus, the platform lets users earn by “sharing their voices”.
Exploring Hive and the Hive Coin – Summary
The Hive blockchain aims to promote mass adoption of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology by incentivizing engagement with various decentralized applications (dApps) throughout the Hive network. Furthermore, the platform provides a broad range of tools and services for developers, content creators, and enterprises for creating exciting dApps and decentralized social media platforms.
Also, with zero gas fees and super-fast transaction confirmation times, the Hive blockchain is highly-scalable, with a low entry barrier. Moreover, the Hive network is home to over 126 projects, including many exciting decentralized social media platforms, crypto gaming platforms, and NFT projects. These applications are helping to create decentralized communities by rewarding users for participating in discussions and creating valuable content.
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