I've been on Hive since the Steemit days back in 2018. I've built things on this chain, I've helped fun things on this chain, and I've watched a lot of HBD flow out of the DHF into projects over the years. Some of those projects are genuinely important. Some of them I have questions about. But here's the thing that bothers me across the board: I can't tell you where the money is actually going for almost any of them.
This is a blockchain. Transparency is supposed to be the whole point.
The Cost of Building Software Has Collapsed
Before I get into specifics, let me set some context. It is 2026. The cost of building and shipping software has fallen off a cliff. AI coding tools like Claude Code and Codex can scaffold entire applications in hours. Cloud hosting is dirt cheap. A basic VPS costs a few dollars a month. You can run serious infrastructure on a $200 mini PC sitting under your desk or a $40 a month VPS.
I know this because I do it. I've shipped HivePredict, HiveHand, HiveDice, Hivett, WordHive, and a bunch of open-source tools in a relatively short period. I'm one guy. I'm not saying this to brag. I'm saying this because when I see proposals asking for hundreds of HBD per day and the deliverables are a single application with modest infrastructure requirements, the math stops making sense to me unless someone shows me the breakdown.
It's always, "we need money, here's a vague roadmap of things we probably won't deliver 100%, thx" not, "we need money, here's our business plan, projected costs, expenses"
What I Want To See
I'm not asking anyone to dox their personal finances. I'm asking for something basic that any funded project should be providing:
How much goes to salaries or contractor payments, and for how many people? What are the actual infrastructure costs, servers, domains, APIs, third-party services? What percentage is going to development versus maintenance versus operations? Is there a surplus, and if so, what happens to it?
That's it. That's the bar. And almost nobody clears it.
Let's Talk About Some Numbers
Actifit is pulling in 230 HBD a day. That is roughly $7,000 a month. For a step counter app that ties into the Hive blockchain. What are the server costs? How many developers are actively working on it? What does the roadmap look like? I genuinely don't know.
VSC/Magi is getting 1,151 HBD a day. That is over $31,000 a month. Now, to be fair, VSC is an ambitious project. Smart contracts, cross-chain bridges, the whole deal. The scope justifies a bigger budget. But even ambitious projects should be publishing quarterly expense reports. If you're spending $31K a month of community funds, show the community where it goes.
It also makes you question is the value being invested being returned? It's hard to quantify. But is that 1,151 HBD per day resulting in a bare minimum 1,151 HBD return back to the Hive ecosystem? Considering HIVE currently ranks 507 on Coinmarketcap, I'm going to go out on a limb and say no.
Hive Keychain is at 600 HBD a day. That is $18,000 a month. Keychain is absolutely critical infrastructure for Hive. Most if not all dApp's use it. The browser extension, the mobile app, multisig work. I'm not questioning whether Keychain deserves DHF funding. It does. But 600 HBD a day is a serious number, and the proposal should come with a clear breakdown. How many developers? How many hours? What are the infrastructure costs? Keychain started at 100 HBD a day, then went to 200, then 300, and now it's at 600. That is a 6x increase over the life of the project. I'd love to see a corresponding 6x increase in transparency about where those funds land.
HiveBuzz is getting 150 HBD a day. That is about $4,500 a month for a gamification layer. Badges, rankings, power-up challenges. It's cool. People enjoy it. But most of the heavy lifting here is done by the blockchain itself. HiveBuzz is reading chain data and awarding badges based on it. What are the actual compute costs for that? What is the team size? Is 150 HBD a day mostly salary for one or two people? Just tell us.
Hive Analytics at the daily rate it's asking for seems like a luxury expense in 2026. Analytics dashboards are not hard to build anymore. The data is all on-chain. What justifies the ongoing cost?
Worldmappin seems excessively funded for what it delivers. A map-based content layer is a neat idea, but the funding level raises eyebrows when you can't see the expense breakdown. I don't see anyone talking about it (and I don't say that to talk down on it either).
And then there's the recent proposal to fund Claude Code licences for Hive developers. Look, I use AI coding tools every day. They're transformative. But without any accountability mechanism or way to prove the tools are being used for Hive development, you're going to see people in countries where these tools are expensive luxuries using funded licences to do freelance work that has nothing to do with Hive. That's not cynicism, that's just reality. If you hand someone a $200/month tool with no strings attached, some percentage of them are going to use it for whatever pays the bills. A proposal like this needs hard accountability baked in from the start or it's just a subsidy program with Hive branding on it.
Even YouTubers Do This
Linus Sebastian from Linus Tech Tips, a YouTuber with no obligation to anyone except his audience and advertisers, has done public breakdowns of how Linus Media Group spends its money. He showed revenue splits, explained that his company has paid out more in salaries than the $26 million it earned from AdSense, and published pie charts breaking down income by source. He did this voluntarily because he understood that transparency builds trust.
If a YouTuber can do that for his viewers, DHF-funded projects can do it for the stakeholders whose money they're spending.
The DHF Is Not A Salary Fund
One of the patterns I keep seeing in the Hive ecosystem is proposals that function as indefinite salary programs. The project launches, gets funded, and then the proposal just renews every year at the same or higher rate with no exit strategy and no path to self-sustainability.
The DHF should function more like a startup incubator. You come in with a plan, you get funded, you build, and within a reasonable timeframe you either become self-sustaining or you wind down. Perpetual funding with no accountability and no transparency is not how you build a healthy ecosystem. It's how you build a bureaucracy.
What Good Transparency Looks Like
It doesn't have to be complicated. A quarterly post on Hive with a simple table:
Salaries/contractors: X HBD, Y people, Z hours per week. Infrastructure: X HBD, broken down by service. Development: what was built, what was maintained, what's planned. Surplus: how much was left over and what happened to it.
That's it. Post it on-chain. Let people see it. Let people ask questions about it. This is a blockchain. The whole thesis is that transparency and verifiability are better than trust-me-bro. So let's actually live that out.
I'm Not Trying To Kill Anyone's Funding
I want to be clear: I'm not writing this to attack any specific project or person. Most of these projects provide real value to Hive. Some of them are essential (in my opinion). But the absence of transparent expense reporting is a problem across the board, and it erodes trust over time.
When you can't tell the difference between a well-run project that needs every dollar it receives and a project that's coasting on auto-renewed funding while pocketing the surplus, something is broken. Transparent reporting fixes that. It protects good projects by proving they deserve the funding, and it exposes bad ones by making the numbers speak for themselves.
The DHF belongs to Hive stakeholders. The least they deserve is a receipt.
sorry I may sound dirty but ... nowadays I have absolutely no idea WHAT provides REAL value to Hive... but it is definitely not around this field. Sorry again. Upvoted.
Hey @beggars,
What a coincidence, you joined exactly the same day as me!
I completely agree. Budget breakdowns should be a requirement for every DHF-funded project, not just for transparency, but because it actually helps the projects themselves find waste they didn't know they had.
When I took over as TPM at Mantequilla-Soft and started auditing our infrastructure, I discovered several servers that the previous devs "forgot" to mention were no longer in use. Once I cancelled them, we reduced 3Speak's infrastructure costs by over 70%.
Imagine how much the DHF could save if every funded project went through that same exercise.
U gave me an idea to find anyone's same birthday users. Let's say
Eddiespino goes to a frontend and types all users who posted this week and from your joining date xD
Results might be less but could be a fun little script.
Bro yes, build that. That would actually be a lot of fun.
Twinsies, haha. A 70% reduction is considerable, that's crazy. Imagine if you didn't take over and those servers just continued to sit there accruing mass costs multiplied over the year? That's crazy. I suspect every project has the headroom to trim operations without compromising the end result, but hasn't had the need because of previous higher token value on Hive.
Well, they were actually active for around 1.5 years or maybe more, doing nothing. It would have been nice to get a heads-up from the previous devs, but it is what it is.
That being said, we reduced those costs just in time before the price dropped significantly, because at these prices, it would have been even harder to keep paying for all of those servers, and maybe 3Speak would have had to shut down.
I support!
Short answer is:
Whales that vote for it dont need all that accounting you are requesting
Why?
I can come up with a lof of answers and different theories, but it won't matter eitherway
They do whatever they want with DHF, and i wish they stop doing that, but after so many years my faith is 0.
yes. simple as that.
I love HIVE but I have one thing I keep thinking about.
.... If money out is greater than money in then Hive dies.
I have lots of ideas on what I would do if I was in charge of everything and when I see the daily allotment of HBD for different apps I wondered exactly what the money is spent on.
As you mentioned one person VIBE coding can make an app. I have absolutely no experience and little time and I've done some apps that integrate with HIVE. I have no intention of asking for a dime from the DHF. As for Actifit? I use it daily but honestly I know the app well and think hmmm...
Transparency seems like it would be a great idea.
Thanks for the write-up
I completely agree. The fund would be better treated as seed funding, meaning every proposal should include a clear exit strategy. Everything also needs to be transparent. Without transparency, how can trust be established?
I think you have written a perfect analysis of current software development. And neatly linked it to the need to keep projects up-to-date. Rather than continuing to prop up outdated apps.
The need for transparency in reporting funding progress goes beyond that. Because it should be a fundamental requirement for any funding.
In my experience, the biggest cause of enterprise failure stems from the inability or unwillingness to monitor and control finances. Which I've seen in government, commercial, and personal situations.
I hope we will see your ideas implemented.
!BBH
I agree that transparency is needed on fund expenditure
Just goes to show the person or people running the show have no shame or idea on how to make money no marketing or sales expertise and just throw money away like gambling or what ever and will try anything to look good like hey look what i got at least 30 people might use it only cost 5 mln . Have to wonder wheres your brain you want to succeed by trying to kill Hive cause it doesn't make any sense they're definitely outta touch with reality in the accounting dept. anyways what do i know is far and well beyond, in a real company these things don't happen you should let them spend they're own capital to build it and if it works and makes money or shows value then buy it that's how its done and its just an opinion.
I also agree with your opinion. All DHF projects should publish their expense accounts. Hive is a platform where you can publish them, so why not publish development accounts? I've never understood this.
In several discussions with friends, I've said that if you request resources for developing an application on Hive, you can include the payment of a certified public accountant in the budget. I'm sure many would appreciate it.
Hive also allows, through various methods, the creation of self-sustaining projects. Once completed, maintenance can be funded through some other strategy for generating its own resources. An example of this is 3speak, where it's mandatory to list them as a beneficiary in each of our publications on their platform.
Thank you for your honesty.
Our inflations has grown to record numbers. Just in February we managed to add 10M Hive into circulation. If we don't stop giving out so much money, Hive will dry out and users will leave. Or, there will be another Fork from Hive to a different blockchain but I don't want to see that.
I remember that Guiltyparties always asked everyone for receipts when we did some kind of project, but it was only for internal administration. But this administration should be opensource to the community, because it is the community that is paying.
I guess some projects do have receipts and some don't. But it is also not only the costs, but also results. The only project that showed results was the project from @starkerz called Checkinwith.
The old days were better when the community promoted Hive without even asking for Pay, and only getting rewarded with votes. People got spoiled by free money from Valueplan and so others decided they will not promote without getting paid.
This kind of Marketing destroyed the passion and the will to promote Hive just because we love the blockchain and the community and made everything even more difficult.
The problem is that we can be thousands who agree with you and want change but only one whale can outweight our votes.
By the way why isn't there a negative vote possibility in the DHF like in the posts?
Or why isn't DHF proposals selected based on voter count instead of voter HP?
Again, because this way whales can decide over a large amount of small voters.
We wanted democracy here but we got the same bullshit as in real life, just with different people.
This feature is asked before as well. Currently return proposal acts as negative vote but it's not as strong as a direct downvote.
U can create one new account per week for 5k hp for free. It's not a solution. Account reputation system is also broken.
Can't comment on this statement.
Basically we could have a voting system where there is a yes/no from every voter and the proposal is only funded when X number of votes are present and the majority said yes.
Account fraud is still a problem though as you said big wallets can create many accounts to vote. So how can we counter whale decisions with smaller accounts?
Whales r not magical creatures, buy more hive solves every problem
No it doesn't! And that's classic class thinking. Not everyone can afford it. And if Hive is meant to be truly decentralized, it wouldn't be about who has the most money because that's what's fucked up about the real world too, no??
I have publicly spoken on DHF proposals about credible claims of theft by fraud and demanded they use GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles, essentially double entry bookkeeping that every mom and pop shop in the world uses to track their income and outgo), demanded they provide receipts to prove no fraud occurred, and was denied. Not only would they not provide receipts, they said they would never provide receipts.
I have since urged everyone to vote the Return Proposal and only the Return Proposal, until every DHF proposal commits and undertakes to provide GAAP and receipts to verify they aren't facilitating theft by fraud.
That's what I advocate today, and it is what everyone of us should demand from every proposal that receives funds from the DHF. $M's are spent every year from our DHF funds without the least accounting of any kind. Little kids running lemonade stands do a better job accounting for their expenses and income.
Vote the Return Proposal, and nothing but the Return Proposal until GAAP apply to people taking your money.
Thanks!
I keep saying these for years, i made posts, replied to comments, commented on other relevant posts, talked about it through Discord servers. Nothing happened. I believe that nowadays basically everyone knows that this is actually an issue but a few hold the power to change it and because they are taking advantage of the DHF, Hive and us, they simply don't care.
They don't even understand that if there was some transparency and actual focus and love for Hive, everyone would be in a better state and more likely they would have earned more as well.
The real question is who will stop them and how?
The ninja mined tokens are the gift that keep on giving.
Am I the only person who thought we might see at least a few responses on the comments from some of the people associated with these proposals?
I don't see any yet.
It is fair to assume that most people aren't aware this post exists? What if people are choosing ignore this matter? 😕 I will be the first to admit, I ignore a lot of stuff on Hive that I should probably care more about, but mostly because I am flying solo here with limited time, resources, and intelligence/talent to do more.
There was a call with @starkerz and some other projects actually where this was raised https://peakd.com/hive-108763/@starkerz/62084962 I think my post was definitely at the forefront. I am not the first person to flag DHF issues, but I guess lately I've been very persistent here and on Discord. And not because I want to see funding ripped away, I just see how awesome Hive is and I fear that could be jeopardised being fiscally irresponsible.
Notably absent from the discussion are a lot of projects. Biggest one for me is Keychain. Why 600 HBD a day and seemingly zero communication, hardly anything being shipped (as Blocktrades points out projects should be shipping weekly). And I say that as someone who thinks Keychain is awesome, but why so much daily? On the call it was apparent infrastructure cost is low and it's not expensive to host Hive apps. Most of the project costs are dev, which can definitely be trimmed as the sentiment was also devs are working 10x faster but projects aren't shipping faster.
I'm not taking my foot off the gas though. The call was honestly a very welcome step toward and @blocktrades clearly cares and shares the same sentiment. Whether we see projects actually step up, be more transparent and fiscally responsible remains to be seen. I'm feeling optimistic right now, but we definitely shouldn't let up. Hive is already at a historic all-time low.
It's more than a hot topic now. I think projects realise that they're being watched and funding isn't going to be hand waved through when they resubmit their proposals. It's make or break for Hive. We're not coming from a position of strength here.
You hit the nail on the head my friend . I posted about this a couple of months ago in my own way
All DHF Funding should be stopped until Hive reaches $1 again.
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I second this.
I think there needs to be a third party audit involved in the finances like a publicly listed company listed in a sock exchange.
wow thanks for the post , I am sure sooner or later this is going to happen and honestly this should be done for every proposal if they are not ready for that then there is no sense to pass there proposal it doesn't matter matter who they are.
Really apricate what you have written thanks once again.
!PIZZA
!PAKX
o.o question is will anything be done?
This is why we should have burned the DHF at the HF from STEEMIT.. to many people arguing over stolen funds
$PIZZA slices delivered:
@bhattg(5/15) tipped @beggars
Learn more at https://hive.pizza.
Coincido totalmente con tu llamado a la transparencia @beggars. Me parece lógico lo que dices aunque no soy conocedor de esa parte técnica; veo que Hive lo hace vivir la interacción orgánica, entonces se debería invertir más en los creadores de contenido y en las aplicaciones de seguridad de juegos sencillos que atraigan gente. No menosprecio ninguna aplicación o proyecto, pero se debe analizar la inversión respecto al beneficio, como bien señalas para evitar burocracia y maximizar el impacto en la comunidad. informes trimestrales simples con desgloses de salarios, infra y resultados; eso fortalecería la confianza en blockchain como Hive. valoro cómo promueves la eficiencia en 2026 con costos bajos de software.💯
Is this not what all Blockchains do? Some control the DAO and funding and abuse it? I never saw in my research over the year a single transparent DAO. They all reward friends, and after looking into it ( some days ago before i made my account) i saw the same pattern. I did trade hive over the last years, promising project but overvalued by a lot. At the end nothing here generates Revenue. Its more like a Reddit thread with rewards. Maggi sounds promising, the social layer itself looks like it cant scale and is controlled by a handful of people. Not what a "social Blockchain" should be. The virtual supply is 1B Tokens, 14% rate on a high inflation coin is not what a holder wants to see.
With all that mismanagement i see a good risk/ reward. It dies and fails or become big. We will see.
by the way, voting Full or nothing is not really smart for DAO ( and no reporting), A Community manager in between could help. So there is someone to talk too if question come around ( and this would be worth some $ and prevent wasteful spending). Its not magic to write each week a short report whats done.
Well said ... reblogging ... we need to change this QUICK
Finally, someone addressed it loud and clear. Great post, upvoted.
They take the money without the reports, so why would they bother to do it? The DHF is just a money extraction mechanism, nothing more, nothing less.
Contracts must be made, because doing so will strengthen the discipline and sense of obligation, so DHF have protection. If the project is weak or does not work, then 70% of the money must be repaid under the contract back. This way, it is possible to show a strong hand so that the money does not just fly away if someone simply farms it out.
I hope my text was ok, i was try my best English 😁