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As we all know, witnesses are the backbone of the Hive platform, the unsung heroes who ensure everything runs smoothly. They operate critical nodes that keep the platform alive and thriving. Without witnesses, Hive wouldn’t exist, and without us, there would be no content to share and engage with, which is why we need to get familiar with who our witnesses are.
That's why I've created this special edition of "Meet Our Hive Witnesses."
This interview series aims to connect with our witnesses, giving you a closer look at the people who keep Hive running. We’ll dive into their work, motivations, and insights through a series of thoughtful questions.
It is the eighteenth edition of Meet Our Hive Witnesses Interview and before I continue with the introduction of the next witness that has honoured us to be interviewed, I'd like to say that, as a Hive user who want to see this platform continue to grow and flourish, we all have 30 votes to cast for any Hive witness of our choice and I will say this is the most important 30 votes you will ever cast on this platform for any witnesses that you deem it fit.
Joining us on this eighteenth edition of Meet Our Hive Witnesses today, I bring to you a very reputable Hive witness who I first interviewed in 2018 and here again in 2026. He has given me the honor to interview him again, and one thing I like about this man is his consistency and innovative vision known as ECENCY that a lot of Hive users now use today. Also, he is the founder of @ecency, Hivesigner, Hivesearcher, and Hivexplorer. Join me as I welcome @good-karma.
Welcome to my interview, it is a great honour to have you here on the show this week in the year 2026 as my new guest @good-karma
Thanks, below are the answers:good-karma
1 What motivated you to become a Hive witness, how long have you served, and what do you consider the true core responsibility of a witness within Hive's governance system?
@good-karma I became a witness because I believe decentralized social media is one of the most important experiments of our generation - and someone has to show up and do the hard work of keeping it alive. I've been part of the Hive ecosystem since 2016 through building Ecency, and becoming a witness was a natural extension of that commitment. At its core, a witness isn't just a server operator - they are a steward of the chain's integrity, values, and future direction. Community trust and seeing value in me keeps me motivated.
2 Can you explain your witness infrastructure setup, how you maintain security and reliability, and the technical or operational challenges you've had to overcome?
@good-karma We run a hardened witness setup with redundant nodes, automated failover, and continuous monitoring to ensure we never miss a block. Security is essential, so regular audits, access controls, and proactive updates to keep pace with an evolving threat landscape. The biggest ongoing challenge is staying ahead of network-level issues while simultaneously building Ecency, but that dual perspective actually makes us better operators because we feel the impact of any downtime firsthand as users ourselves.
3 Beyond running a node, what specific contributions have you made to the Hive ecosystem, and how do you define what separates a great witness from an average one?
@good-karma Ecency is our contribution - a full-featured, open-source frontend and mobile app that has onboarded thousands of users to Hive who would never have found it otherwise. A great witness builds things that outlast their term; an average one simply keeps the lights on. The distinction is whether you leave the ecosystem meaningfully better than you found it. Some other projects our team maintains, Hivesigner.com, Hivesearcher.com, Hivexplorer.com...
4 How do you engage with the Hive community, ensure transparency in your operations, and help users understand the importance of witness voting?
@good-karma We publish updates, engage regularly across Hive and social media, and treat our users as genuine stakeholders - not an audience. Ecency's in-app witness voting features exist specifically because we believe informed voting is one of the highest-leverage actions any Hive user can take. Transparency isn't a PR exercise for us; it's the foundation of the trust that decentralized governance depends on.
5 How real is the risk of centralization on Hive due to large stakeholders, and what practical steps should be taken to strengthen true decentralization within the governance system?
@good-karma The risk is real and we should name it clearly rather than pretend governance is already solved. Concentration of stake in a small number of hands can quietly erode the decentralization we publicly celebrate. The antidote is building more ways for everyday users to participate meaningfully - through better education, accessible voting tools, and witnesses who actively champion stakeholder diversity rather than just benefiting from the status quo. Our community is very resiliant for centralization, we have shown that in history.
6 Do you believe Hive's reward system still reflects fairness and inclusivity, or does it need structural adjustments to better support new and emerging creators?
@good-karma The current system rewards engagement and existing networks more than raw creative quality, which creates a steep hill for new voices trying to break through. I believe we need to keep evolving the model - experimenting with discovery mechanisms, curation incentives, and front-end-level features that surface great content regardless of follower count. Hive's promise to creators is only credible if newcomers can realistically thrive, not just survive.
7 What are the biggest technical and community challenges facing Hive-based dApps today, and how can witnesses help ensure their long-term sustainability and innovation?
@good-karma The hardest challenge isn't technical - it's retention. dApps can get users through the door but struggle to give them enough reasons to stay when the broader crypto market narrative shifts. Witnesses can help by funding and advocating for shared infrastructure, developer tooling, and DHF proposals that reduce the cost of building on Hive. More Transparency and communitication. A rising tide of tooling lifts all dApps.
8 Where does Hive currently stand in terms of cross-chain interoperability, and what concrete actions are needed to make it more connected and competitive moving forward?
@good-karma Hive is relatively isolated in a world that is rapidly moving toward composable, multi-chain ecosystems - and that isolation has a real cost in developer mindshare and user reach. We need robust bridges, wrapped assets, and API layers that let Hive's unique strengths - feeless transactions, fast blocks, HBD stability - be usable from other chains and wallets. The opportunity is enormous if we build the connective tissue. We have already started multi-chain integrations on Ecency, already accessible and usable solutions exist, improving and marketing is next natural steps.
9 What key changes in user experience, education, or infrastructure are most necessary to simplify onboarding and help Hive compete beyond its current niche?
@good-karma The single biggest barrier is the account creation and key management experience - it's a cold shower for anyone who didn't come from crypto. At Ecency we've invested heavily in simplifying this, including crypto wallet-based signups, but the whole ecosystem needs to treat onboarding as a shared emergency rather than each front-end's individual problem. When joining Hive feels as effortless as joining any social platform, the growth curve will look completely different. We are working on this constantly.
10 Which upcoming technical improvements will have the greatest impact on Hive's scalability and real-world adoption in the next two years?
@good-karma Improvements to HAF, better indexing infrastructure, and resource credit delegation enhancements will quietly make Hive significantly more capable of handling real-world scale. On the user-facing side, I'm most excited by anything that reduces latency and broadens the range of applications - from micropayments to AI agent integrations - that Hive's feeless model makes uniquely viable. The next two years could be the most technically defining period in Hive's history.
11 How do you balance supporting grassroots community initiatives with pursuing large-scale ecosystem innovation, and what metrics define success for you?
@good-karma We don't see those as opposites - Ecency was a grassroots initiative that became ecosystem infrastructure, and that path is replicable. The metric I care most about is whether real people, outside of crypto circles, are building meaningful connections and livelihoods on Hive. Everything else - price, TVL, transaction counts - is noise unless it ultimately maps back to genuine human impact.
12 What are your top priorities for Hive's future, what improvements or proposals do you support, and why should stakeholders choose to vote for you over other witnesses?
@good-karma My priorities are onboarding friction reduction, sustainable creator economics, and positioning Hive's infrastructure for AI-era applications - where feeless, fast, programmable social data becomes extraordinarily valuable. Stakeholders should vote for witnesses who are actively building and shipping, not just opining. With Ecency, you can see exactly what we stand for in working code used by real people every day.
13 Why do you think HIVE's price remains low despite active development, and what realistic, long-term strategies could drive sustainable value growth rather than short-term speculation?
@good-karma Price follows narrative, and Hive's narrative hasn't yet broken into the mainstream consciousness the way it deserves. The long-term strategy is simple but hard: grow real users, grow real use cases, and let the fundamentals speak - fast feeless transactions, HBD as a practical stablecoin, and a content economy that actually pays people. When the world needs decentralized social infrastructure - and it will - Hive should be the obvious answer that was quietly ready.
14 How does Ecency strategically contribute to Hive's long-term growth, user retention, and onboarding compared to other front-ends?
@good-karma Ecency is designed to be the entry point that doesn't require you to already be a Hive believer - it works as a great app first, and reveals its decentralized depth as users grow into it. We invest in mobile, in UX polish, in multi-language support, and in integrations that bring users from outside the existing crypto bubble. Our philosophy is that the best onboarding is one where the user barely notices it happened - they just found a platform they love.
15 If Ecency succeeds beyond your expectations, what kind of impact do you want it to leave on Hive and its global community?
@good-karma I want Ecency to be proof that you don't have to choose between great user experience and genuine decentralization - that the best social platform in the world can also be the most open one. If we succeed fully, Hive becomes a place where a creator in Vilnius, Lagos, or Manila can build an audience and an income without asking permission from any platform or algorithm. That's not just a product vision - that's the reason this work matters.
It is so awesome finally having a chat with you @@@good-karma
Thanks so much for creating time for meet our Hive witness. Have a wonderful day 🤝🏻
You're welcome.
NB: those were @@@good-karma exact words to the interview questions. Nothing was changed.
PROMOTING AND INTERVIEWING HIVE WITNESSES IS ALL I DO
Special thanks to
@canadian-coconut @resonator @ranchorelaxo @sanjeevm @gogreenbuddy @solominer @edicted @honey-swap @fedesox @trafalgar @yeouido.park @balte @deepresearch @fw206 and everyone who has been supporting my interview. Thanks to you all.
SPECIAL THANKS TO MY GUESTS
@kyle @enginewitty @ura-soul @roelandp @vsc.network @Actifit @thebbhproject @Stayoutoftherz @Wrestorgonline @Rishi556 @Botlord @yabamatt @seattlea @Shmoogleosukami @borislavzlatanov @atexoras.witness @stresskiller
You can read more about @good-karma here
please vote and support @good-karma to be your witness today!
If you appreciate and value what I do, please consider supporting me by Upvoting, Sharing and Reblogging and kindly follow for more content to come
This is massive, a very insightful piece I must say.
I had to take my time to read through this, and what I admire mostly is how that the focus wasn't just on running a server but about the love for hive and it's future.
That's impressive @good-karma
Thanks for making things easier for all (including new users) and for your support.
I will encourage fellow hivers to vote and choose witnesses that are actively doing the work of keeping hive running/together.
Biggy thanks to you @goldenproject
You're doing well.
Keep it up sir.
That is just it, his love for hive platform and how's trying to make it more better. Thanks for reading through. I appreciate that.
Very much welcome sir.
The reasons why I have hope in hive than other social media platforms I have known is the fact that there are people and not even in the low side but the higher side that love hive more than just coming here to earn. I believe it will surpass our expectations.
Thanks to all great witnesses on hive and to @great-karma . Thanks for the love for hive and making it a place for us all to stay
Thanks for stopping by and the lovely comments about hive. Do make sure you vote for this witness. Thanks
I really do admire the efforts of these hive witnesses. Like that's what makes us continue having hope in hive.
Good job in this interview dhavey
They are all doing well
Thanks for stopping by
Woah, this is impressive. Ecency is one of my favorite frontend in the Hive space and am glad to learn alot from the response of good Karma on some of the very important question asked. It's important for Hive users to get more understanding on how the platform works. Thank you for sharing
Thanks for sharing your insight on Ecency and good Karma. I do also enjoy using the frontend. Very user friendly and not ambiguous to figure out
Ecency is my favorite frontend on Hive, the best I must say.
Ecency is user friendly and adaptable for beginners.
This is really impressive, I love the passion and ideas good karma have for this great platform, it's because of his kind that I believe in hive.
Nice interview , keep up with the good work Dave.
A lot of Hive users find it so user-friendly. No stress and easy to navigate.
I'm glad that you got impressed by this. I really appreciate it
This is amazing I must say.... At least I ended up knowing the founder of the app I now get to so used to.
Thank you @good-karma for all the good works, consistency and the products you've built over the years. Thanks for giving the time to respond to the interviewer as well and I might have not got know you if you had not granted this interview again.
Well-done @goldenproject for your active efforts in bringing our witnesses to us in the way we can get to meet them and know what they do.
Wow...that is really amazing indeed and I'm glad you finally got to that know that @good-karma is the brain behind Ecency.
Thanks for stopping by. Comments like this keeps me going
This is wonderful. I've been using Ecency for some time now but never knew the founder.
You're bringing to light to us all these great individuals whose work ensures we have the Hive ecosystem working, which is really nice.
Hope to see more of these interviews. Thank you for the good work for the Hive ecosystem @good-karma and thank you for your efforts in connecting us with the witnesses @goldenproject.
I'm glad you finally got to know the founder of the frontend.
Yes, I promise to bring more interviews as times goes on, it's what I do... anticipate for more
Thanks for the wonderful comment
You're welcome.
This is so interesting
Keep up the good work bro 🚀
Thank you so much brother
You are doing very well bringing our witnesses closer to us to hear directly from their mouth, keep it up. Take care!
Thank you so much. I appreciate the kind words. And thanks for stopping by.
You are welcome 🤗😁