The year is coming to an end and only a few days remain before we move into the new year. So today I want to give a small overview of what I have created and released for the Hive community during this year. It has been a very exciting year for me. I learned a lot about software development and also about many other useful tools and technologies. And of course the world of artificial intelligence moved forward at an incredible speed, which helped me a lot in my work.
One thing I noticed again and again is that I become most productive when I face a real problem or when I see a clear opportunity to improve something. In those moments I always enjoy helping the community and building something that others can actually use. This mindset became a big part of my year.
Let me start with some of the already existing and well known Hive projects where I was able to help during 2025. In some of these cases I used my technical skills to improve the safety of a project by searching for potential security issues or possible exploits. In other cases I shared knowledge, ideas or code improvements that made the projects better for everyone.
Splinterlands
I found a bug in the guild chat area. By combining various pieces of information, I was able to disrupt the Splinterlands database. I reported the problem directly to the team, who worked quickly to fix the bug. Many thanks for the quick response and the promised bug bounty for my invested time.
Hive Keychain
I reported various bugs over the course of the year for the desktop browser extension, but primarily for the mobile wallet on smartphones. I provided feedback and suggestions for a better user experience, but also reported minor display errors, which were quickly and efficiently implemented by the team.
Furthermore, this year I translated the desktop browser extension, the mobile wallet, the tutorial page, and the main page of Hive-Keychain.com into German. Many thanks to the Keychain team!!!
Let me quickly add a funny moment from this years hivefest:
Just kidding! I love to participate and help on the Keychain Project! <3
PeakD / Peak Open Team / HiveHub.dev
As you know, i love to meet the Developers in Real Life like @stoodkev above or the amazing Team behind @peakd @asgarth & @jarvie. Sadly i missed asgarth this! But that didn't stop me from helping with the PeakD project. Over the year, I've given a lot of feedback on the PeakD project. This has led to new features and functions being added, but also to minor bugs being fixed. And there's one thing I have to emphasize here... we work on an equal level, quickly, and efficiently. That's what I love about this work...especially with @asgarth! Here are a few examples of the feedback I've given this year
New Addon on the Wallet Page showing the HIVE Governance of a User
https://peakd.com/hive-163399/@louis88/suggestion-add-governance-and-proposal-details-to-peakds-wallet-page
- Suggested some Improvements for Validator Node Page on Peakmonsters
- Reported a missing Author Link on the Witness Votes Page on Hivehub.dev
- Suggested to add VSC / now Magi on Witness/Validator List
- On PeakD suggested to add Expired Proposals to the Proposals Page
Hive.io Re-Design
Together with @therealwolf, who built the new site at hive.io, I was able to contribute a lot of feedback, functions, and features. For example, I was able to contribute a number of photos from past Hive Fests, which are now visible on the home page. I particularly enjoyed helping with the site this year, as the great Realwolf is also a fantastic developer.
SkateHive
Reported several Security issues which got fixxed right away.
VSC / Magi
Created a Witness / Validator Server and reported several Issues while running it while Software is in Development Stage. I also reported a critical error, which has been fixed. I won't go into details here.
Account Recovery
A friend of mine got (i dont know how) their Keys leaked and i helped him to get back access to his account.
This is a small number of projects that I have either helped with or provided feedback on. As I mentioned earlier, I often find that a project doesn't offer what I'm looking for at the time, so I have naturally created some of my own software (mostly using AI, but still time-consuming and requiring coding knowledge). Below, I will show you exactly what that was.
My Hive Year 2024 Review
At the end of last year, I thought to myself, why not build a recap tool? So that's what I did, but I didn't release it because the great team at @hivecreators published their tool. But let's see... just because it hasn't been released doesn't mean it can't be used at some point.
Inleo Investigation Dashboard
https://peakd.com/hive-139531/@louis88/having-fun-with-data-13k-mau-i-dont-know
In January, there was repeated discussion about whether Inleo really has 13,000 monthly active users. I wanted to get to the bottom of this, so I compared various APIs and user information and published my findings.
SPS Validator Node on louis.sps
https://peakd.com/hive-13323/@louis88/announcing-my-sps-validator-node-louissps
In March, I announced my SPS Validator Node but didn't get any really big votes for my witness there. Before that, I had helped intensively with testing the software. It's all the more sad that there is no support whatsoever from the development team or major stakeholders. Shortly afterwards, because there was no support from the SPS stakeholders, I had to shut down the server for it because the costs were not covered. Too bad, SPS Validators.
hafSQL Post Data Fetcher Dashboard
In 2025, I also created a tool that can be used to display the post-payout for 7 days for an entire list of usernames, either manually or by importing a text file. It then turned out that the team around @hivewatchers could use the tool quite well to combat spam and fraud.
HiveFest¹⁰ Image-Generator
https://peakd.com/hive-106258/@louis88/hivefest-image-generator-or-initial-release
When HiveFest was announced this year, I was super excited to travel to Asia again. And I thought to myself, what can I develop that will help the community make better and more beautiful Hive posts? The result is a tool that allows you to add a frame to a photo or screenshot that fits in with the HiveFest vibe.
The KE Ratio on PeakD with Tampermonkey
https://peakd.com/development/@louis88/the-ke-ratio-on-peakd-with-tampermonkey-just-a-prototype
At some point during the year, a discussion about KE ratio came up, so I grabbed the formula and created a Tampermonkey extension for it so that you can see the KE ratio value directly on PeakD. This was then subsequently integrated by the PeakD team into the user profile in the info card.
22 HIVE Boreholes on a Custom Google Map
https://peakd.com/hive-176874/@louis88/22-hive-boreholes-on-a-custom-google-map
I don't know Ghana very well, but we at HIVE have drilled 22 boreholes for fresh water there. I took the coordinates and roughly sketched out where they are all located. Now it's easier to visualize.
About Posting to HIVE - STEEM & Blurt - Tampermonkey Script to Show Chain Activities
Since I often deal with people who try to trick the system in my role as Community Manager at Worldmappin, I decided to release another Tampermonkey extension that allows you to see via API call on PeakD whether a user is active on the legacy chain Steemit or on Blurt. The extension searches to see whether the user account has posted or voted—both of which indicate activity and are no longer curated by me, for example.
HiveFest Polaroid Picture Generator
https://peakd.com/hive-106258/@louis88/your-memories-will-last-forever-hivefest-polaroid-prints
As HiveFest 2025 drew closer and closer, and I had already purchased a beautiful Leica instant camera, I decided to pimp my HiveFest tool for overlays a little more. So I expanded my software so that I could add a logo to physical Polaroids. One of my most valuable works to date. I'm super proud of it.
SVG Logo Animator
When I saw Google's AI Studio for the first time, I really wanted to build something. That was around the same time that the new Hive.io website was being developed. I wanted to have the HIVE logo animated on the site, so I built a small workbench that allowed me to easily load SVG files, split them into parts, and then animate and export individual elements. A small but useful tool.
HiveKeyword(s)Fetcher - Search Posts on HIVE by mentioned Words
https://peakd.com/hive-139531/@louis88/hivekeywordsfetcher-search-posts-on-hive-by-mentioned-words
Then at some point, a friend asked me why the search function on HIVE was so bad at the moment. I listened to how he would have liked to perform a search, then used @mahdiyari's hafSQL integration to develop a small tool that searches the hafSQL database, which made my friend very happy. Other users also think the software is great.
HiveFortune - Raffle Winners through Hive Comments made on Blog-Posts
Then I simply rebuilt some old software from a friend @snackaholic. With it, you can take a Hive post and draw a winner based on the commenters. It might be quite helpful for some people.
Holo Dust December Earnings - Compare yourself with your Friends!
And last but not least, in mid-December, I thought to myself, “What the heck, how much HoloDust are the other players at @holozing actually getting?” So I grabbed the API and built a little tool that you can use to see how you and your friends compare in terms of who got the most HolODust and which was the best day. A little useful fun tool, right @acidyo.
As you can see, I've done quite a lot this year. I'm proud of some of it... other things are perhaps just crazy ideas. Either way, I'm definitely enjoying myself and will of course continue. But what I would still like to see is developers focusing more on the security of their applications. I know... developers are only human... humans make good software... but they also make mistakes—intentional or not. Mistakes happen from time to time.
Something that is very important to me, and something I want to speak about more clearly today, is that project owners should understand how much time and effort real security research takes. When I check a project for security issues, I do not only look at the frontend. I also review the public code on GitHub, I look at the backend behaviour, I test the logic, and I try to see how a real attack could happen. Many people forget that serious security testing often requires many hours of preparation, learning, experimenting and documenting. This is normal in the world of security research. A proper white hat analysis often includes replaying attack scenarios, writing proof of concept code, and documenting every step in a full report.
But now I must be honest. Some project owners unfortunately can no longer count on my free work as a white hat security tester. And I do not mean this in a rude way. It is simply the result of how things turned out. When I find several critical issues on a frontend, demonstrate how they can be abused, write a long and detailed report, explain everything step by step, and the team fixes all issues within hours or days, then yes, it feels good at first. But it feels very different when the project owner does not even say a simple thank you. And when a promised bounty is never paid because the project did not get DHF funding, even though the same project continued to build new features and pay other developers, then I must accept that my time is not respected there.
Security research, like any other technical work, has value. And when I have already spent around thirty hours on one project, including advanced testing and discovering further problems, then it is not reasonable to continue giving more free work. I still have at least one more critical security issue in my notes, but I do not see a reason to share it for free. I think any serious developer would understand that. White hat work should not be treated as a free endless service.
Still, I can say I had fun with some of the test results, like showing the rainbow colors on the frontend or redirecting the site to a classic Rick Roll during one of the demonstrations. But fun moments do not replace respect or fair treatment.
So that is enough of the negative part. I want to end this on a positive note. I enjoy working with projects that value my time and understand the importance of security work. Many developers in the Hive community do appreciate this, and I am thankful for that. 2025 was a great year for me, full of learning and growth. I hope that 2026 will be even better and that we as developers can work even closer together.
Before I finish, I would like to ask one honest question and I hope for your feedback. If I created a proposal in the DHF for a fair daily budget to fund my work as a security researcher and penetration tester for Hive applications, would you vote for it?
Thank you all for the support and for making this year so special.
See you in 2025. Hive on!
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Wow, that's quiet a lot of work. Thank you very much for engagement!
Thanks for all your hard work. The security stuff is really important and ought to be appreciated. I'd support a proposal for a fair amount.
Merry Christmas!
!BEER
I'd say it depend on the amount, but maybe it'd be something on the lower side so much that I'd think you just posting about your activities might be a better option
It looks like you are a little workaholic , i used to be like that until i got my burn-out , beware for it . ;)
You have been manual curated and upvoted by @ecency
Did you know that @stresskiller is also a witness now ?
Great work this year Louis, I love it when community members contribute to make Hive a better place.
To answer your question, I'm afraid it's a no from me. There are already a couple of similar proposals for other roles which I don't support for the simple reason that there is no governance over the deliverables. Sorry.
Btw, you have a couple of sections still in German. Did you forget to translate to English?
Thanks a lot - It's always my pleasure to make Hive a better place.
Why are u afraid? I understand that transparency on security-related issues can be somewhat difficult... some Dapp owners can already confirm that my work is valuable :)
Yes, I just edited those two passages. It was a long and stressful day.
I'm not saying you're work isn't valuable.
For me it's a matter of principle, of Hive paying people to do work where no one has control or oversight of the deliverables. We have seen that happen already. It's got nothing to do with you, but the approach
Please don't be offended by my response. You asked an honest question and I gave an honest answer.
All fine <3
Busy year! I'll have to go in tomorrow and make sure I am voting for your SPS node. Don't feel bad, I am not getting a ton of votes for mine either. I used to be up around #70, but now I am down over 100 I think.
Sure wehave to vote for you.
Im new here, but am grateful for your contributions to this fun and theiving community. Im especially grateful for keychain. Its one of the best crypto wallets I've used after 10+ years in crypto. Looking forward to seeing and using more of your creations.
Happy holidays!
I really respect your honesty regarding security research. People often forget the hours of "invisible" work that goes into a single report. I hope the community steps up to show the appreciation you deserve.
The Hive community is so lucky to have you.
Anyway, out of all the projects you contributed to this year, which one was the most technically challenging to crack or build?
This is awesome Louis. You have been very productive in improving our platform this year. I'm personally impressed with all the wonderful and clean changes. Question: is peakd working on an ai article or topic surfacing front end? I feel like I'm still having to feel around to find interesting posts that I would love to read. I feel like Hive is all placed to improve the stream with some AI. I know that it would be controversial but I think as we hope and work for wider adoption this is what people want. It does not have to be heavy handed and lead to doom scrolling. But subtle refinements would surface interesting posts or active communities or posters based on my posts and or comments. Your thoughts? Thanks again for your leadership.
I will support the proposal - if the price is reasonable.
!PIZZA
$PIZZA slices delivered:
@russia-btc(1/5) tipped @louis88
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nice work @louis88 ! 💪