We are starting off the new year on fire. Lots of good stuff happening which means the month of January is going to be very good for the Hive ecosystem.
The holidays always interrupt things, with this year being no different. Things slow down a bit before kicking back up in January. Now that we seem to be past that, it is time to look ahead.
Earlier in the week, the core developer call took place. This was the first one in about a month due to Hivefest and the holidays. As always, the call was informative.
There were a couple key takeaways from my perspective that I feel should be noted.
Hived Software
Since the hard fork, a lot of the focus has been on getting things optimized. Most people are not aware that Hivemind was still in beta. This shows how little attention was paid in the past.
Nevertheless, after months of optimization, in a post put up by @blocktrades, it was announced that the first master version is being released. This was a time, and resource, consuming endeavor which slowed the development of other projects.
Why is this important?
To start, Hived is the software that runs the blocks. Performance is crucial and it appears the software was completely out of date as well as lacking optimization.
Secondly, fixing it required a lot of coding. This meant the resources, i.e. coders, were focused upon that.
From the Blocktrades post:
This is a major milestone for our Hive work, and it means we’re now finally freeing up to take on big new tasks.
Sometimes before you can move forward, you have to step back first. This is what it seems had to be done with the core software of Hive.
Smart ______ ______?
We now will see the development team switch focus. This is a major milestone. No longer are they just trying to put out fires. Instead, they can now strategize what to work on. In other words, what does the ecosystem need the most.
Smart Media Tokens (SMTs)??????
Sorry fans, this is not going to happen, at least not anytime soon. That does not mean that SMTs will not be a part of the future. From the call, it was clearly stated there is no reason, at least at a philosophical as well as a technical level, as to why SMTs cannot exist with second layer options. Thus, it could be on agenda but is not at the top of the priority list.
What has catapulted to the top is the idea that Hive needs decentralized smart contract capabilities. This is something that is going to be the next major order of business for the development team. We already see a project in the works by @disregardfiat that submitted a proposal to the DAO. It is worth a closer look and, in my opinion, a vote if you have not done so.
Getting smart contract capability really can expand the focus of Hive and the capabilities offered. Many watched as Ethereum sucked up a vast portion of the DeFi market over the past year. One of the biggest reasons, in addition to Ethereum being known to all blockchain developers, is the smart contract feature. Hive lacks this.
Part of Disregardfiat's concept is to develop a protocol which will allow for the same functionality, using a true peer-to-peer concept, with many people running nodes. The software, from what I read, is very light not requiring a large server.
Priorities
Freeing up personnel for other projects is a big step forward. This is why we could finally be seeing Hive crossing the Rubicon. For years, development was slow and haphazard. Now that Hived have a major breakthrough, the prioritization of other aspects of the ecosystem will take place.
Hivemind is another area that is presently seeing great optimization. This is vital in the balancing act between cost and performance. As we see with Ethereum, having a blockchain that bottlenecks each time it gets active is a problem. The best time to plan for increased traffic flow is before it happens.
Again from the post:
In short, hivemind can now handle a fairly huge amount of traffic without requiring a powerful server (my initial guess is this single hivemind server could handle around 8 times this traffic without a problem). This means that Hive has become a lot more decentralized since your average unix enthusiast could now inexpensively setup a server to serve all our traffic.
Driving the cost of running the entire ecosystem down is very important. Each area that requires less resources while handling more traffic is a step forward. Personally, I believe there will come a time when we need it.
Another focus pertaining to Hivemind is a plug in for end developers to use. Right now, all the data has to be pulled down for an application. This does not make sense since many projects do not require a lot of said data. Perhaps a game really only wants users and other tidbits but does not really care about Hive wallet balance. With this plug in, there will be a lot more versatility to what developers can pull down.
Hard Fork 25
A lot of this stuff is dry yet I am trying to frame how important it is. The Hive blockchain is improving on a large scale. This is vital as the industry grows in general and applications on Hive start to acquire more users.
There is something that does affect most people.
@howo is still working on the recurrent payments and, from the video, that appears to be going well. At the same time, the coding is being done (if it is not already) for the votes expiration. This is going to apply to governance issues such as witness and proposal voting. If one does not take an action related to one of the functions, then that vote will expire after either 6 months or a year (probably the later).
In the future, the goal is to have hard forks only when dealing with governance issues. This means that more is going to be pushed to the second layer, where updates can be done without the need to hard fork. The reason for this is not only are they complicated but they curtail the implementation. Because of the exchanges, hard forks have to be spaced out as exchanges lock up wallets to ensure the software works before allowing transactions.
Here is the link to the video for those interested.
If you found this article informative, please give an upvote and rehive.
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I think HIVE developers did an amazing job when it comes to creating a scalable, decentralized blockchain that can be run even at these bear market prices. This is a massive step ahead of @steemit days which I believe costed six figures monthly for the company.
On the other hand we have had barely nothing transformative for the blockchain. We could have had so many @leofinance @stemgeeks @battlegames and so many more tokens if SMTs were released. Much of it was already coded by Steemit Inc IIRC.
I'm massively disappointed by how community has been using DHF. Both @aggroed and @disregardfiat are trying to bring DeFi to HIVE and @roomservice had aproposal for Brave Ads. Community has not cared enough to fund these proposals. Even the two @ecency proposals (one for Hivesearcher) are not getting funded.
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The platform needs to be advertised as well.
The Brave ad campaign idea makes perfect sense.
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I actually think that belongs at the second layer. People want to advertise Hive but I disagree, not for users anyway.
Get the twitter army advertising Leo, Actifit, 3SPeak, Splinterlands, or any of the other games.
That is what users want, not some DLT that they are not going to likely understand.
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Good point. Very few seem to understand the value of Hive right now. It's the ETH of the social media apps of the future. Maybe the price is lagging a bit too much, but the purpose of the blockchain is starting to make sense.
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Actually with what is coming, with the smart contracts, Hive will be able to make a statement in the DeFi world. Where Ethereum gets stuck, where most of them get stuck, is in the fees.
Hive does not have that, opening up a world of possibilities.
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You're right. I absolutely forgot about ETH's quite spicy fees and how superior HIVE is for that matter.
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Developers would be the right target group for advertising Hive.
That is true although I am not sure advertising is the best way to approach them. They have different forums and places they belong to. Developers really operate based upon the herd mentality because they know what makes each other click.
Thus, a direct approach could be viable with them.
Of course, some publicity in the crypto news sites would help a great deal. That would catch the eye of some developers.
In the end, I think the best approach is, once smart contracts are in place, get some DeFi applications going and then start talking about that on Twitter. That will start to bring people in since there are a lot who simply cannot operate on Ethereum due to the fees.
Hive could become DeFi "for the little guy".
It is at least a starting point.
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You're right. Crypto news sites and dev forums sound like the right idea.
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Hard core devs dont spend a lot of time watching ads. In fact, I would guess they have them all blocked.
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I see a very bright future for the whole hive blockchain and other second tier layer token too
I might be wrong though but trust me, things are growing here. Even if some might still be slow. Time will tell
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Things are growing at an outrageous rate. We are close the time when things step across the proverbial Rubicon and Hive goes on the warpath.
With the development that I see taking place, projects are going to be dramatically different in a year or two.
It is going to be a great ride. Removing Steemit Inc from the equation cannot be overstated.
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I believe so too. It will surely be a great ride and a great experience for everyone on the platform
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It will be. The key is everyone doing their part.
What we do on a daily basis does add to the entire ecosystem. So while the developers code, we do the other things that make this place attractive to newcomers.
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Especially with all the other coins pumping it's a great time to grow your account for what should be a good year. I'm hoping that the threespeak team can suck up a huge amount of liquid hive while Leo bring in the new users.
With another dozen apps like these we would be a long way to real growth.
Things are happening and I just hope that the block trades team can give people the tools to grow the eco system even more.
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I have a feeling the new 3Speak venture is going to suck up a lot of HIVE once the SIP gets going. Also, do not be surprised to see them bring in a ton of users also. They have a solid game plan which will lead to success I believe.
As for Leo, cant argue with you there. In about 6 months time, I feel they will be bringing in a ton of users. The microblogging feature is going to be a huge success if what I think they are doing takes place.
It will be a great year.
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They have delivered on every promise to date so I wouldn't bet against them. Great Devs with a business plan.
The ultimate combination in crypto.
Even though we won't get layer 1 SMTs we are probably still getting the good SMT UX presented at Steemfest a bit over a year ago. See my comment here and the response from @howo: click here
@howo was right. SMTs will likely end up a part of Hive, just not right now. There is a lot of code written but it was not thoroughly tested. At the same time, the priority right now is a decentralized layer two smart contract platform. Applications like 3Speak are waiting on that.
Thus, SMTs get put to the back burner but you might seen them in HF 26. It will serve as a useful tool for tokenizing the Internet. That said, the layer 2 smart contracts address so much more.
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I think you misunderstood my comment. My point was that the layer 2 smart contract layer will also provide a way to create an SMT with a few clicks, without code.
Yes one can create customizable smart contracts and customizable SMTs if he is technically savvy, but non-developers will also be able to deploy SMTs easily without code.
So technically, layer 1 SMTs are not useful anymore, unless there is a worry that the smart contract side-chain is not decentralized enough.
Alright, so time for you to teach me a little bit. What is the actual benefit of Smart Contracts? Talk to me like I am 45 year old kid :) What is an example of something a smart contract can do that we are not currently able to do on Hive? I totally believe you, I just need an example so I can wrap my head around it. Sad since I have been here so long and I still don't understand some of the basic concepts, but I am trying!
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Think of the blockchain as the gas pedal of a car and the smart contract as the foot, that is what allows it to take off.
It is simply code that is programed telling the blockchain what to do. Hive engine has smart contract capability. That is what allows the creation of tokens, tribes, and NFTs.
Ethereum DeFi is all smart contracts. Tokens are locked into them and only released per the code.
In Ethereum, that is at the base layer. For Hive, there are none at the base layer but it is a layer 2 option. H-E uses it and there are other projects like DLUX that are writing code for one also.
Hive is very specific about what it does: posts, comments, token transfer, account setup, etc. A smart contract allows for more dynamic development.
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Perfect, thank you. That clears things up quite a bit for me. I really appreciate it.
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No problem.
I am not technical expert either so I muddle through as best I can. I try to take what little I can garner and present it in everyday language that everyone can understand.
It is not easy but a lot of this stuff is really telling as to where things are going.
If more people paid attention at this level, they would realize what is happening with Hive and how much improved it will be.
We are truly only 10 months into this thing. This is still first year stuff with a lot of people running the show before who basically screwed it over.
This is improving a great deal from what I can see.
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It is definitely encouraging to hear that they are finishing up this project and getting ready to move on to new things. I should have known better, but it is very easy to sit back and feel like things aren't happening when all of that stuff is going on behind the scenes. I often spend much of my day making adjustments behind the scenes that my end users don't see, but overall it does impact their user experience.
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The fact that they are finally able (or soon) to move on from the major overhaul of Hived is vital. This means that users could see some more updates as opposed to it being behind the scenes. There will still be a lot that users do not notice unless they are really looking but it will be mixed in with other updates.
It is all starting to come together.
The team tending to the core code really one was at it for 10 months. So we have to give them some time.
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I'm excited with Hard Fork 25. I hope to see great stuffs from it!
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It will not be that exciting. The recurrent payments will be in there which will be a big step forward. The vote decay also is going to help. But much like 24, there wasnt a lot for people to sink their teeth into.
I think some of the infrastructure that is created for the second layer will hold more interest for users because it will then start to lay out the possibilities.
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Wow we are all waiting for the SMT for about 3 years since it was announced on the old chain, but hey we will keep waiting a couple more days, luckily hiveengine has supplied the SMT a bit,
Well hopefully we will aspire to have second layer software developed that will encourage us to mass adaptation, to be ready if the masses come that as they find out they will come to arrive, looking for how to win that is sure they will come but hey it is only a matter of Time, as one alpha said, we have a gem in the rough, just waiting for it to be discovered.
Thanks for the updates.
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We will likely get SMTs at some point. However, for now, the focus appears to be upon a second layer, decentralized smart contract system that will allow for developers to build things similar to what is on Ethereum.
The advantage to Hive is the feeless transactions. That is not the case on Ethereum.
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If it is true that is a great incentive, when people find out they will surely come en masse here, hopefully it will happen soon, so that users do not despair but BTC still takes more than 10 years to grow so we are on the right track to run the future is great and hopeful, so as not to continue working hard on the matter.
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Well I am not sure they will come en masse since a lot of the DeFi world depends upon liquidity. So it could take some time to start pulling in some big money.
However, having the option is much better than not. Plus, if this can be up and running by the Spring, it might be another angle to penetrate the crypto world and pull attention to Hive.
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with the release of the stable version of Hivemind 1.24.0 finally Hive solidifies its launch base.
Now it will be possible to start building the future of our platform 🚀🚀🚀
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Yes it is time to start now filling in the gaps, at least one people can see.
The back end stuff is vital yet most people, frankly, do not care. Instead, they will hem and haw about nothing happening when indeed there is a lot happening.
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@taskmaster4450, Slow and one step at a time. It's easy to write On Paper but hard to implement in Physical Realm because in Physical Realm we have to move with Practical and Tactical Ideas which will secure foundations.
Have a pleasant time ahead and stay blessed.
2021 is going to rock!
It is off to a great start on Hive. The developer call reaffirmed it for me. We are seeing movement on a few different fronts that can be game changing.
Buckle up, things are going to get very interesting around here.
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Wow, fantastic read and great information. The future looks bright.
100 percent upvote, reblogged and tweeted.
Bradley
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It does look bright. We are going to see progress that will makes people's head spin. There is so much going on.
Anyone who reads the post realizes that there are more developers than ever working on the hive core plus some of the other things mentioned. This is vital.
We need a ton more developers overall involved in the Hive ecosystem. The few that Leofinance is using is one of the reasons why so much can be popped out in a short period of time.
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It is nice to see so many developers active on Dapps. I hope to see more games and applications so we can expand the userbase of the HIVE blockchain. Let's hope there are no major bugs and continues to expand.
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DApp developers are crucial.
What I liked seeing was that the developers working on the core code expanded. This is vital since the DApp still depend a lot on Hivemind and the witnesses on Hived.
But yes, let us get another couple hundred developers on Hive working on DApps and we will be off to a fantastic start.
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A roadmap and progress reports like these go a long way to instilling confidence in users as well as potential future new members. Much appreciated.
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Well a road map and actually completing it goes a long way.
We saw a lot of road maps in the past and nothing was done. Leo keeps churning out things it says it will.
It is good to see the direction the core developers are not taking. While you never move away from optimization, now that the heavy lifting is done, it is time to focus on other things.
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It was a very good call, while much was over my head it was still easy to understand what has taken place and what some of the priorities are. I am looking forward to the UI and UX fixes and seeing what improvements come out. (I was mostly interested in the section with asgarth). I dis-like all the scrolling that needs to be done on some pages so teh pagination option/tweaks I feel are very important to second layer applications and front ends.
If you have not listened because you think it is over your head because you are not a developer you really should as you can pick up a few bits and pieces of the future outlook for hive block chain.
I can not point out how Blockchain works because I do not know about Blockchain technology.
I would like to say that it is better to use HIVE Blockchain as a monetized social media than other social media.
If the Developers could expand the useable or usefulness of HIVE Token reach into other industries or companies or projects, I think the price will be better.
Thank for your sharing!
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I sometimes listen to those developer calls on YouTube but there is a lot I don't understand simply because I am not aware of most things under the Hive hood.
The idea of laying the foundation first and then building up again is the right one even if there are teething pains. That means we can pick up cheap Hive and grow with the chain.
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Thanks for sharing!
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Thank you for giving us such good news about HIVE and its ecosystem.
Surely all these positive changes and advances will end up impacting the value of our currency. When that happens the main thing is that we don't run out and sell our HIVE because we will surely make its value fall again
I hope you have a great year!
Big hug
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I am glad to see this .. those gas fees on Ethereum are ridiculous! You can't breathe or make a move without letting go of $15-50, and when you come from a small Hive bag, that is DEVASTATING! People are going to get tired QUICK of Ethereum at these price levels and hire for that reason -- all we need to make happen is that Hive is a solid alternative, because people WILL be looking!