For the first time in almost two years, I'm using my Steem Hive account. Here's why.
I'm a software developer who fell down the crypto rabbit hole in 2012. I co-organize a blockchain meetup here in Philly, and through that was connected with @yabapmatt. He set me up with a Steem account, and I spent some time learning about it. I found the community impressively vibrant, but was skeptical of the technology.
Could DPoS really work? Wasn't Steemit Inc a huge centralizing force in the ecosystem? These doubts made me lose interest in the project, but I've continued to be impressed by what @yabapmatt (and @aggroed, whom I met later) have built on the platform.
Fast forward to today. Frankly, my skepticism of DPoS remains. But I believe Justin Sun did the community a favor by motivating it to get a huge monkey off its back: the Steemit Inc ninja-mined stake. Furthermore, the Hive fork demonstrated the impressive bottom-up resilience of the community.
Do I believe that Hive is as censorship resistant as other PoW networks? Honestly, no, I don't. Do I believe Steem can compete with Bitcoin as digital gold? Again, no. Sorry!
I'm not sure, though, that these are the right questions to ask. After all, I'm not a maximalist— projects exist on a spectrum. I believe in tradeoffs.
Has Hive made a set of tradeoffs that result in a system with a unique set of properties? Yes! Do those unique properties make it a valuable system in the broader decentralized ecosystem? Maybe! I'm not sure. But I think it has a much better chance now than it did before the hardfork. So I'm giving it another chance.
I write a weekly, technology focused blockchain newsletter. In issue number 91, which will go out on Sunday morning, I'm writing about the Hive hardfork. If you're interested, you can subscribe here:
I think that's the real take-away. While I wasn't onboard with how this was handled, at least that "lynchpin" has been taken off the table. And I've admitted before that I'm not sure the Hive launch would have done as well as it did without all the drama and turmoil.
Good to have you back buddy, a second chance for the original Steem to reach it's dream vision. One pro-tip is to always include a picture as in all of the front ends those posts do better.
Makes sense, thanks!
Just read your newsletter about Hive/Steem through the archive - https://www.buildblockchain.tech/newsletter/issues/no-91-steems-demise-and-hives-rise
Great writeup and summary of events, thanks for that! For completeness sake, ... if you decide to stay here (who knows, maybe consider crossposting your newsletter?), some small factual incorrectnesses:
Cheers!
Yes! I did, and plan on continuing to do so. Might build a little script to automate it for me as well.
https://peakd.com/hive/@bendi/steem-s-demise-and-hive-s-rise-build-blockchain-issue-no-91
Ahh, thanks for these clarifications. Part of it comes from me not knowing the intricate details, but part of it also comes from trying to make it comprehensible-yet-terse for an audience that doesn't either. It's always a bit of a balancing act trying to do that, and it's lossy compression for sure.
Welcome!
Regarding the censorship resistance and PoW, I feel the need to point to mining pools - there are few chains where it would require 11 individual entities to get a 51% majority to be able to deny transactions. ETH had 2-3 dominating pools, BTC 3-4 last times I checked.
So DPoS might even be more resistant as long as the stake is distributed enough to make buying control too expensive, the exchange threat is mitigated, and stakeholders are actively voting. I think we have achieved the first with the last, and will achieve the second with the upcoming Hardfork. User participation was awesome during the takeover, I hope that will remain, because in the end it's the most important point.
I've always wondered why everyone thinks Hive/Steem has to compete with Bitcoin, Reddit, Medium, etc. Why not just focus on what we,the community and developers, want Hive to be? Then work to make it the best it can be?