Hello fellow Hivians,
So when I joined HIVE in January 2022, I came here to play Splinterlands. I played it on the app store first and then found my way on HIVE and was greeted/onboarded by this interesting crypto community called PIZZA. I did not have "much" money then. Most my income came from working. I made most my money later by getting into the MSTR trade early. MSTR did a stock split and then I started selling covered calls on my position. I had been doing covered calls before this but my capital was pretty low so I didn't make that much money in $s prior to MSTR. I do lose money all the time trading options and stocks. I make more than I lose but I do lose money. I lost money last week. On % basis I do pretty well on my returns but I don't talk about that and never will unless you are Whale 😉 (the Whale part is a joke 🙄). My first big win in covered calls was AMD stock back when it was distressed. I sold that stock a long time ago. Sometimes when we don't HODL, we regret it lol... AMD has gone up a lot recently. Now I mentioned call options so I want to stop here for a sec. There are 2 important rules I tell people when it comes to options and futures trading. Rule #1 - Don't trade options or futures. Rule #2 - Don't trade options or futures. This is somewhat of a joke but also, read my posts. Understand who you are trading against. I am not by any means the smartest person in these trades. There is always a bigger fish. There is always a smarter fish. You need to be very careful when trading options and futures. You should know your place in that space. You will lose money trading options. I lose money trading options all the time. Options are zero sum trades and there is 1 winner and 1 loser. There is a lot that goes into options and futures trading. I do not recommend it.
Now PIZZA never said this to me; what I am about to say. Other people on HIVE told me this; what I am about to say. Not PIZZA people, but other people told me this, "HIVE is a Cabal" 😱. Opps! I said the thing! 😅 And to be clear, people were saying this to me back in 2022.
Now I used to kind of believe this Whale cabal story because soooo many people said it. Like, it is hard not to believe something when you are constantly being fed a narrative. Brainwashing and gaslighting does work if enough people are doing it to you. Overtime I took a step back and asked myself..... did I ever look into this cabal theory? I did not, I just believed it. So first I did my best to ignore the bias that had been impressed on me. Then I looked up the definition of a cabal.
Cabal Definitions:
1) The contrived schemes of a group of persons secretly united in a plot (as to overturn a government).
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cabal
2) A small group of secret plotters, as against a government or person in authority.
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/cabal
When I saw the definition for a cabal I was less convinced. Mainly because Whales are super disorganized here. Like Whale fights are well documented and they still happen. That is one reason my first move out the gate when powering up was showing deference to the other Whales. I got better things to do then argue with some "rich" person on the Internet. And I have a feeling they have better things to do too. We can still disagree on the reward pool and I think those disagreements between Whales are healthy. A part of being a big stakeholder is you are naturally more protective of the reward pool. Are people making money off HIVE? Are people being good stakeholders and staying invested in the ecosystem? Are people using the rewards they get for good? I think all 3 of these things probably need to happen for HIVE to achieve long-term success. If we only make money and do not do good, we are no better than Wall Street or the big banks that are actually somewhat of a cabal.
So I personally think there is no clear on chain evidence there is a cabal of Whales. I am not sure why people think the Whales want most of the HIVE either. HIVE is more valuable the more distributed it is. But if the majority of our current users are dumping, and HIVE still seems cheap to me, I am going to buy it. Now if people are talking about Steem when they say cabal, I literally could not tell you if that was true then. And like I have said on multiple blog posts, I am so tired of people using Steem to justify their feelings today. Look, I can appreciate that the Steem fork was brutal. I am assuming people got legit medical problems from it. I would naturally assume a few people died from the stress. Stress is terrible for your health.
So I think most people think HIVE is a cabal because it is a projection. Like clearly, in the real world there are cabals. But HIVE is literally a blockchain. If there was a cabal today on a blockchain, you would think there would be clear evidence.
Now one thing I see a lot is, people point to delegations as a scam. This is absolute nonsense. Delegations are transparent and legitimate. I should be able to delegate HP to whoever I want and I do not have to explain myself to you. You do not need to explain your delegations to me. Now when people delegate to another account and upvote themselves with a delegated account that seems odd. Like what is the goal there? Now I know maybe some Whales do this. I know for a fact a lot of minnows do it. I see it all the time when I do anti abuse. If someone wants me to start posting blogs about corruption at the minnow level on chain I won't do it because I want users to stay. I do not want other Whales getting involved in my anti abuse efforts and running other people off chain for a minnow doing something shady. I want users to have the opportunity to adjust to whatever the standard is today. I believe the standard for what the reward pool is used for will change in the future because it seems like it has changed many times. When it comes to anti abuse, I downvote people and let them lobby for the downvote to be removed, but only on chain; no lobbying in discord with me. Usually people lobby me to remove my downvote by telling me they are selling HIVE for food. Like how can I even validate that? Can the whole chain afford to do this? Are most people dumping HIVE for living expenses? If I start selling all my rewards for food will people be ok with this? Or am I not allowed to buy food with my stake because I have too much money by your definition?
So circling back, I think the cabal belief possibly may have something to do with Steem before downvotes existed. That ninja mine has some cabal vibes to it obviously. I think people who were from the Steem days have a legitimate reason to be suspicious. I think anything crypto related, you should be suspicious. I think anything that involves money in some capacity, you should be super careful and trust people as little as you need to. Trusting people with money, on average, is very expensive. But HIVE is very transparent. You do not even need some complicated tool to see what people are doing. You can just look at activities on Peakd and look at people's wallet to see incoming and outgoing transactions and see who they are sending money to. A lot of people just dump their rewards on exchanges right now.
So, I do not believe there is a cabal of Whales on HIVE today. I believe people at all levels of stake talk off chain on some type of app. Not everyone does, but a lot of people do.
If there is evidence of a cabal, please provide the evidence. Let's hash it out. You should be able to point to actual transactions today. This is a blockchain and you are not revealing anything when you show what people are doing on chain. It is a ledger! That is the whole point of blockchain. Transparency.
I do not want people to stop saying HIVE is a Cabal if they truly believe it. But I will point you to this post if you say it.
Sincerely,
Hurt
Picture made with Copilot AI
That's an interesting question (And a very intriguing one, by the way), because even if they don't want to be seen that way, the behavior of many of them suggests it (albeit subtly).
I think they are usually very detached from the "common people", fueling the idea that suggests the creation of a food chain within the ecosystem (which we all know exists, but it didn't need to be this way in terms of action).
A small group manages the whole thing, but it should be more integrated with the project's foundation in a more dynamic way. Although each of them has their own motivations and objectives, I think closer contact with other users would minimize this "conspiracy" atmosphere.
Who knows, right? Haha!
I think there are different things going on here:
1). Whales are in the same position so they naturally do similar things. Like we literally have the same interests in terms of our stake and wanting it to be valuable. Also, if HIVE price goes down, I will buy more when that happens not sell today to get ahead of it. Most users who think HIVE will go down next year are going to try to front run it and sell today or just not buy at all. Whales are financially incentivized not to act this way and will keep consolidating until the price goes up.
If HIVE price goes down I will buy more so I can get my average cost per HIVE down so when we do go up I have more gains.
2). When power distribution is consolidated it is easier for whales to coordinate without even talking. Like there could be coordination without a Cabal which is a mind F for average users who do not appreciate that.
Point 2 is very common in real life. Anytime a small group of companies control 1 resource, these companies will keep the price of that resource high and not compete based on price. Naturally no one wants to get in a price war. But competition provides value which is why governments try to force companies to break into smaller companies sometimes.
*Note - My biggest issue with people being upset that Whales are so powerful on HIVE is, there are many accounts that sold their stake, but if they did not they would be a whale today. There are also whales who became whales this way and it makes users who sold their stake mad these whales get such good upvotes. Well, these whales who got their stake through the reward pool are some of the best stakeholders imo and if they do dump their stake a lot of those upvotes will stop and they may even get downvoted 😅
Most of the people who push the cabal narrative are disgruntled users who have been downvoted for spamming or scamming. It suits them to imagine there is a shadowy dark room in which fifteen to twenty people discuss how they can steal all the hive. I mean for fuck sake, at the prices it is at just now it's a steal to just buy it.
A lot of it stems from blurt users spreading misinformation because they got downvoted, again usually for shitty behaviour. They don't understand downvotes or how the platform works so it suddenly becomes theft and corruption when ultimately it is just theny not taking ownership of simply being an arse.
Ok I believe this Blurt piece 💯 based on running anti abuse.
Most the people who spam here (and in some cases literally harassed me) do stuff on Blurt too.
I’m not sure what the Blurt people’s economic incentive is to come to HIVE.
Also....wasn’t Blurt created because they didn’t like downvotes? 🤣
They just can't stay away despite professing to hate the place. Plus, they are desperate to earn some juicy hives no matter what they say 🤣🤣
Well also they have a direct bridge to us
Yeah they don't realise that works hive engine they are dead. Well... Deader 😃
@blurtsucks, heh heh!
Yea they are dumb. I was trying to figure out why they keep coming to HIVE.
It is because they are getting paid by HIVE. HIVE is the only way they can sell Blurt.
So they need HIVE but want to make HIVE worse? 🤣
It's also just about the only avenue for them to recruit new users. They think if they come on and bad mouth hive they can attract like minded people to join them over there. That's why they are always hanging about the drama posts
I have lost a lot of money in options trading in India market. And now I have changed my strategy to buying stocks and holding them until I get a decent profit.. Cheers
Good move on the stocks transition. Options should really only be used for hedging imo. Even short selling is way overrated and usually people lose their money from that too.
I may talk to you 1 on 1 about options one day. I doubt I'll do options in the tradfi community because even people who understand options really well still lose everything from time to time.
the 20 top whales are at least not all selling and as you said this is a problem for every chain
https://peakd.com/hive-167922/@tobetada/looking-at-hives-top-20-hp-whales
Hey there! Thanks for stopping!
Are you referring to a different post where I said this? (no need to cite me just wanted to confirm it is not in this post). I would agree most crypto is down right now and HIVE is not unique in that regard.
Also, I am not surprised the whales are not selling. Might be one of the worst times to sell in any crypto if you are a whale right now. 😅
I thought you said something like that here 😅
I have said it many times yes lol. Just wanted to double check. HIVE being in the dumps is not unique. That is most of crypto right now.
And then yea, I just don't see any whales selling right now unless they just want to exit and are tired of waiting. We are too low.
We just saw a pretty big pump actually - writing a post about why I think this is the bottom. Next stop ~30 cents 😄
Maybe.... A boy can dream ehh? 😅 I will be interested in your post either way. I will give it a look wen you post it. I am fixing to step away for a bit but I will give you a comment after I read it.
@tobetada this is me shilling my community lol but I see you post analysis.
You may be interested in my TradFi community I am trying to get off the ground. Not crypto but should be interesting if you like learning about finance.
I'll check it out
You know, I've heard something similar, or maybe it's the same. I once heard a YouTuber say he wasn't going to be on Hive anymore because it was a cult. I didn't really understand what he meant. I still don't.
But in my country, a clique is a group of friends who support each other, and only each other. It's like an exclusive group. But I think everyone is needed on Hive, both the big and small members. That's what my social studies and history teacher tells me: "A society needs its citizens, from the boss to the lowest-ranking employee, because together we build a country." And I suppose Hive is like that. That's my opinion.
I mean HIVE has a lot of fragmented communities all over the world. When people say it's a cult, it is patently false. I don't think the whole HIVE has a consensus on anything.
We do need more big accounts and people willing to invest. If whales were treated better here I think more people would power up and HIVE price would be a lot higher.
I know quite a few people on HIVE that could powerup more than I have, but these people do not want to powerup because it just gets so crazy sometimes lol.
What motivated you to invest in Hive?
I have made posts trying to articulate "why." It is a hard thing for me to articulate in writing without hearing me actually speak about it. The text itself does not do how I feel justice.
There is NOT a single reason why I am buying HIVE right now AND my beliefs tend to be a bit contrarian in nature.
A concise answer to your question is:
I love those concise answers and hope to see more detail in the future (when the words come to you😆). It's interesting to see someone investing so much in Hive in these times. Almost all the whales come from the other blockchain.
Kudos to the other whales for putting up with all the nonsense for so long. 😅
People act like downvotes give leprosy and Blurt is a paradise when we all know Blurt is dark, wet, and scarry.
I am just speculating on the Blurt part based on the users they send over here to recruit.
That word cabal comes often here in the blockchain and specially brought by people with dubious problems. I remember when an user was saying that the KE creation was cabal 🤣
I mean KE is just a formula. 🤣
If we are creating new types of math this place is even more amazing than I originally thought 🤣🤣🤣🤣
The last thing I should worry about in this life is the whales in hives. They can feed and take care of themselves; they don't need Greenpeace.
We group ourselves into communities, supposedly to surround ourselves with people who share the same interests. If you join a community whose interests aren't yours, you're simply in the wrong place; you'll feel like a fish out of water. But that community won't be a cult.
Yes I think you hit on some good points.
I think a lot of people do not join communities they like and just go where the upvotes are. I think that is natural to some extent but doing things only for money typically makes people unhappy.
They can join any community they like. But if they see the votes being tallied and they don't get any, they simply won't lift a finger for the community.
Also people complain about people getting big upvotes if they have been here a long time and get more auto upvotes.
Like that is not a good reason to start posting things people do not like in my opinion.
I wonder what the whales in HIVE can do when they go rampage? In real world, can they even buy a good tank to CABAL? Probably in third world countries they can do cabal a bit but are they going to put interest on these countries? most of the whales here came from 1st world and i don't think if cabal is to plot something, what would they plot for especially if they are already on the blockchain and already considered ruler on it.. or they are going to plot on HIVE itself..
Yea good points. What is this supposed "Whale conspiracy" even trying to achieve 🤣
So if all the whales get all the HIVE, who do we even sell it to? 🤣
Yes. Who will ever have all the hive token will be the bee queen. Without a colony. Right? Own all hive means you will do all the work.
Exactly. Who wants to do all the work?
If the majority does not see the value in HIVE that is not my problem and buying more HIVE because people don’t value it in the same way I do does not make me a bad person.
I should be able to buy what I want with my money AND do what I wish with my stake.
And that is the reason cabal got a slim chance of happening here on hive specially on the whale side. Specially if you just can afford to plot something to the lower value than hive chain.
I think anything is possible but I just do not see the evidence for a "Cabal" in a traditional sense.
I think people are referring to power distribution rather than an actual Cabal. But power distribution will always vary and change because this is stake weighted chain.
The change piece is very important and that ability to change is a form of decentralization in and of itself.
Yeah, with the change that will come time time, and for sure users had just got a limit of time lower than hive, plans must be executed early before the group will have major changes. I believed if there is a change, it is another reason to hold what might be the plot is.
Public whale fights shows true decentralization at work, no secret clubs here. In my crypto journey, I've learned that healthy debates among big players often lead to innovation, not conspiracy 😊
Well said! Decentralization for the win!
I want more whales but it seems like we have a lot of users that would rather run off new investors.
Until we fix this problem I will continue to accumulate. Otherwise seems like a missed opportunity for me personally.
Couldn't agree more👍 Whales thrive in open, debate-friendly environments, and nurturing new users rather than alienating them has always been the key to attracting more stakeholders🚀
Sounds like a great attitude to have. I will try to foster this myself.
The fun fact is that whales have different targets, any of them, some objectives might even collide, some don't like each other, so a cabal is the less probably thing on here lol
Oh did you get invited in the cabal already? 🤣
I think it is more than "some" LOL 😅
No. I would like to understand what the application process looks like before I submit an application (Sarcasm obv) LOL🤣
I don't know about the whales...I don't think about the issue much. I find it's best to just stay in my lane and do my thing. Part of my thing includes this:
I have a small stake here, and never intend to sell. I hope Hive takes off because I'm leaving that stake to my son when the curtain finally goes down on my ability to blog. As for doing good: Even with my small stake, it's the best part of being here. If things are tough around the house (say, someone is sick) and stuff seems out of my control, I can always come here and try to do good. That gives me a charge. I have no control over anything, really, but here I can be a positive presence. I can upvote, reblog and make an uplifting comment. That may not matter, but on the other hand it may.
It's a big world out there. A universe so large it defies my imagination (which is really quite good), so I'm content to do the little things. That includes, as you say, doing 'good', here on Hive.
Yea I mean, when I invest in stocks I find something I think is valuable and I try to HODL as long as reasonably possible. Never selling a stock is not reasonable to me.
That being said, HIVE is not a stock. People have asked me "what my plan is."
Well I am honestly not sure. If I had a crystal ball I would be on a fancy boat somewhere lol
I prefer fishing over luxury so it would probably just be a really nice fishing boat 😅
Sometimes, though, in some circumstances, not spending is reasonable.
I am at the season in life where I no longer acquire things. I'm shedding them.
I hope to leave the Hive account for my son. He opened the account for me. Talked my into joining.
I'd like my money to grow, including my Hive account, but I'm not going to put anything at risk.
In the 2008 crash I lost a large portion of my investment because I bought Icelandic bonds, just before the crash. Then I invested in something called dcode Genetics. That went belly up, only to open shortly after with the principals intact. My account was worth $0.
No more risk for me:) I'd like to preserve as much as I can for my kids.
I'd willing to learn, though. My son dabbles and it scares me.
Lot's of moving pieces so I think it makes sense to be worried. I would just encourage him to stay humble and remember his role in the market. When people try to punch above their weight or have delusions of grandeur that is when mistakes get really expensive.
Also, not everyone has the same risk tolerance so not all investing strategies make sense for everyone.
Preservation of capital is a good strategy and works for a lot of people.
Goodluck!
@theinfiltred should read this post, because it's saying that whales have all our private keys. 🤣
That would be interesting if becoming a whale gave away everyone's keys.
Sounds game breaking 😆
Dude you post AI nonsense and got downvoted. That's it 🤷♂
There is no conspiracy man like what are you even talking about.
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Blurt is why this is happening!!!! Why do we support his crap!!!!
All rewards from the above comment will be donated to people who have brain damage after joining Blurt and becoming a freakshow. I will make the account here shortly.
This project just launched. If there is anyone who needs money because Blurt ruined their life please let me know.
Edit - HIVE equivalent of these curation rewards from this will be burned.
@kgakakillerg I am going to get back to our discussions yesterday soon. I would hope you are not a part of this Blurt problem.
Edit - Person was removed from list because they have a beautiful doggie and I am a softy for that sort of thing.
Done 🤝
🤝
@bpcvoter1
@bpcvoter2
@bpcvoter3
@bpcvoter4
Update - I have received negative feedback about giving more HIVE to Blurt folks than we already have.
Self upvote removed and now these are my curation rewards again.
That Bilpcoin dude is crazy. He does not represent Blurt.
You are just as bad but in a different way 🤣
No.
yes.
You know why you are being downvoted.
I am not the only one downvoting you.
You are the one spamming my notifications. It was the only reason I included you in that new post in the first place.
I tried talking to you multiple times at different times after I “calmed down.” You said you are ok with the downvotes multiple times.
People lobby my downvotes to be removed which I think is reasonable to do on chain.
You said you don’t care. It’s fine. I don’t think us talking is helpful if you don’t care about downvotes.
I don’t want anything from you … you keep tagging me
At first, I tried to stop writing you. But after your continuous downvote 100% , I can not endure it anymore. All my words are true. I am hurt. I am more hurt now. Last three days ago, my heart is hurt when I woke up in the morning because of too much crying. You will say this is emotional appeal. But this is the truth. I am not even happy when other people are happily shouting "happy new year". You can not validate that someone is poor, so you downvote 100%. Is it fair? Is it cruel, someone is really relying on hive to buy food and supports her family ? Even your previous downvote is 20% , before we argued. I read about other author's post that talk about high ke. He talks about reducing the rewards, but he and other people never said downvoting 100%.
If you think my previous comments attack you, I am sorry. But please stop downvoting me 100%. If you want to downvote me, 20% downvote is fair. You said people can lobby you from downvoting. So, I want to ask questions. What should I do?
Downvoted for KE
