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Some Thoughts on Hive and Its Future
Sorry i post this during #Hivefest but maybe even the correct timing - not tagging the ones I should to avoid tag spam - hope this will be read by anyone - only tagging @detlev and @sorin.cristescu that might be aware of my thinking behind and are both on the ground in Malaysia.
This post written fast is based on the inspiration by @selfhelp4trolls who did a great post on his thinking about Hivefest - I just took this up and added my geenral thoughts :-).
And even if no one cares about my opinion — I’ll share it anyway.
After the fork from Steemit, things had to move fast. There wasn’t much time to think about branding or positioning, which is understandable. But years later, that lack of direction still haunts us.
We often blame the “red market” for Hive’s decline, but that’s only part of the story. Our token price has dropped more than many others. This isn’t about downvote drama or internal politics — it’s about visibility and credibility. We don’t attract real investors.
We call ourselves “community-driven,” yet we have no clear face or voice to the outside world. Yes, we have good projects and some inspiring initiatives — like the wells in Africa — but the truth is: without a proper PR engine, no one notices. Others do similar things, and they make headlines.
When the Justin Sun story broke, Hive had a golden moment. Even Ethereum’s founder publicly supported us. That was our time to get loud — to land interviews, hit the media, make noise. Instead, we made a movie. Nice idea, but by the time it comes out, the world has moved on. News is about timing, not nostalgia.
That’s where we failed as a community — not blaming anyone, just stating the fact. We were too slow.
So what now?
SWIFT is building on Ethereum. Good for blockchain in general, bad for Hive visibility. Why Ethereum, not us? Because no one knows Hive exists. Awareness shapes opportunity — not the other way around.
We can’t sit around waiting for people to “discover” Hive. Why would they? From the outside, we look like another niche social platform. And most people don’t care about small social platforms, especially when they already have massive reach elsewhere.
It’s time to rethink our positioning. Hive’s strength isn’t just “social media on Web3.” That message limits us. Let’s push use cases that actually matter — the kind that can stand on their own in the real world.
What we need:
- Real-world use cases relevant to a broader audience.
(Example: running political elections on-chain — I’ve done that before with Waves.) - Recognizable investors and advocates who talk about Hive because they see value, not because they’re paid to.
- Stop paying influencers. They take the money, make a few posts, then vanish. No impact, no loyalty.
- Smaller, capable leadership group. Community input is vital, but not every decision can be made by consensus. We need people who understand markets, can identify priorities, and execute.
If we don’t fix this, Hive risks fading into a comfortable but irrelevant bubble — where we tell ourselves how great we are while the world moves on.
I’d rather not end up like Blurt.
While I tried to get people on board via the social media part, it really doesn't work. I got one on board like that, but most of the accounts I create are for HBD/transactional use, with support of Distriator. I changed my strategy, and are now using the transactional part first, and then I will step by step explain the perks of blogging and interacting.
But all that doesn't work because Hive is convincing, but because I am and people trust me. Nobody ever heard of Hive, and the businesses I got onboard are the ones that are friends of mine. I hope that it will gain traction eventually, but at the moment, it's a lot of work and I don't have much to show for with it. I know, that's normal in the beginning. I'll see if I can create a buzz. I just need to get to a critical mass, have people start talking to people start talking to businesses. But it is a quite lonely thing to do at the moment.
For investment, I really don't have any arguments yet. I don't have an investment case for HIVE except for a great community and 15% on HBD. But that's mostly on me, I haven't researched that much. Since you're here a long time, maybe you have an article for me to read about those topics?
Well said - from other sm platform no way apart they trust you. In terms of businesses great we get smaller shops - perfect but I think (but not my area) as a community that was formerly known via a different branding and that time the hottest shit in blockchain I think somethng could be done to attract the BIG investors or companies.
I would be happy to help as my job used to be enterprise sales (meaning the biggest companies that often could have use cases to get on a chain - BMW tried it, Samsung did it but blockchain as such still as not the next) AI - could change - however Hive as a chain needs to be more known within that sector, from top 3 to something around top 300 or 400 is sad.
We will see waht the future brings - community is great, even shrinking most bond together - but that is not enough - we can always believe and see the world with our pink glasses and celebrate us as the best chain - but if only we see this as best chain we need to improve a bit (Lange genug gelabert, muss mich eigentlich um was anderes kümmern - aber dachte ich schreib es mal bevor ich es vergesse)
Na dann, danke, dass du dir die Zeit genommen hast! Sind viele kluge Leute hier unterwegs, da wird uns schon was einfallen...
Kluge Leute sind sa aber manche denken nur in Tech (denen fällt hoffentlich auf das keiner die Chain für Use Case einsetzen) manche wollen nur Kohle (manche in Tech / Witness evtl. auch weil warum muss man was ändern wenn automatisch easy Kohle reinfliesst), diejenigen, die worklich Community Arbeit machen werden oft ausgebremst oder geflagged oder verlassen uns - aber wir schauen mal :-)
Lose the rally car . Hire a CEO for the job. Pay them 120k a year with bonuses . He or she will more than likely pay back their salary.
Good points but 120k for a CEO hmm, I would not do it for that amount :-)
Whatever the salary albeit 150k-200k range which would be a massive salary in my opinion . You have to take into account social insurance whatever country they reside , health insurance etc . If it came to 200k Just take it from one of the top 5 projects that Valueplan fund. We lose zero and it could be the making of Hive . Splinterlands DAO proved you can be decentralised and have a guy putting everything together behind the scenes .
Sure depends on country of residence - not bashing Valueplan even i would like to see a way of re-distributing invest focus but i can not do anything there.
Splinterlands I can not judge anymore (not commenting on that one based on certain happenings) - i solld nearly all assets i had before it was totally wortless (good though but a totally different topic but i kind of like clayboyn and Matt and Aggy) - but invested all in Hive (hope still good decision)
We have a real world use case. Many of us use it every day. The value is in the ability to publish immutable content. What if Hive was wikileaks? - And no one could take it down?
it doesn't have to be leaks or diplomatic cables, but it can be independent journalism that can't change - only have a follow up story published - an actual - y'know - chain of events.
There's a threat there, that lots of people don't really usually want to talk about, the way bitcoin knots is coming about - what about if the chain is abused for bad content?
Well, there is stuff on chain, that is bad, real bad, will not get into details, but a witness here, who signs a block of bad stuff, is liable or not?
Interesting one - but that would mean we are a media platform of free journalists, not a blogging or social platform anymore - not sure if we are ready for that one - and immutable content oh well (is that not something every other of the 1000s of chains promise in theory, nothing as USP - if internet is out and witness are gone the chain is still dead and when the prize gets lower i even would assume some will stop their witness service as well.
Our shit posts can commingle with journalism, art, sports, podcasts, and everything else. Hive can be all, all at once. The good thing about it is its a platform, and people's imaginations and ambitions are the only limitations.
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I can agree with a lot of that. We have missed opportunities and failed to reach a wider audience. I'm no marketing guy, but I can see other projects get more publicity. That is likely to cost and we have to put money where it does most good.
Thx mate - I think some stuff in marketing can be done (if decided) for free or requires community. The face for a community could be free if we get one of our heros to do it :-) - or as some suggest hire a CEO (not sure that can be implemented at all but maybe we can consider blocktrades as our CEO).
In terms of spendings yes, we or the ones in charge, should have a re-think / discussion what works best and delivers ROI as simple as that when clear KPIs are there and results are measured towards the KPIs. Issue still is - who decides KPI, who measures - that is the thing of a community-only driven project - we have no decider officially. Maybe we shall do a typical election for hive president to Make Hive Great Again (MHGA) based on criteria that not necessarily should be based on Voting Power / Staked HP only.
Alles klar, bei dessen Charisma kann ja gar nichts schiefgehen (und das ist doch der, der dafür verantwortlich ist, dass die Kurationsbelohnung innerhalb des Siebentage-Vote-Fensters mit der Zeit immer kleiner wird, sodass niemand mehr Posts liest, die älter als zwei Tage sind)... oder am besten gleich themurkymurks.
Ich habe derzeit weit über 300000 HIVE auf Binance liegen, und stets wenn ich sie gerade verkaufen will, fällt der Kurs in immer noch bodenlosere Bodenlosigkeit. Ich werde den Kram einfach nicht mehr los! :-)
Charisma ok, verstanden - aber wenn man Support hat in der Aiistenz geht auch das - zum Rest sag ich mal nix bevor ich rausgeworfen werde. Hive auf Binance ja war mir bekannt, da es immer runter ging hab ich es aufgepowered weil binance ja nix mehr im Earn hatte. Mal schauen, wie es weitergeht. Soll ja keine Murks bleiben hoffe ich
Yeah, auf HIVE herrschen nun mal Angst und Terror, beste Voraussetzungen für eine florierende Social Media-Plattform. :-)
I would hope that these discussions happen at Hivefest as a few of the big players are there. They must be disappointed with the lack of progress.
One could expect this but probably not going to happen, not a lot of the big guns are there but the most important one :-)
There is a close correlation between the price of HIVE and how successful Hive is. Fewer want to write, play, and develop on Hive when the price has one direction on the long term. Theoretically, a low price would attract investors if they see the potential, but we don't see many of them around. I'm not saying it for myself, but the signals are pretty clear, unfortunately. Reverse the price trend (not so easy to do), and make it last more than a few weeks, and we will see Hive come to life again.
A higher price of HIVE (which probably implies more investors and dapps having recurring revenue streams), would likely allow us some more room for... generosity. But not too much, I guess, because we have the experience of Splinterlands to show us spending left and right when you are on high horses can bring you way back down rapidly. And we are not on high horses now on Hive, quite the opposite.
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True so what can we do from the high horse (I am not sitting there - I watch from the bottom only)? Agree on signals but who can drive a n in-depth discussion so big guns also see there is need to talk/improve?
I don't believe any of us are, maybe with exceptions, only few of them known. In the grander scheme of things, perhaps our whales aren't either, except on Hive, at times.
I was hoping some of these things have at least been discussed in the ad-hoc groups at Hivefest. Perhaps it wasn't the time or place to emphasize this too much in the public conferences or round tables and they weren't.
I saw Sorin brought up the aspect of the HIVE price in the long term. I'm not sure what the solutions can be at this point... We are caught in the larger wirlpool of alts, and wherever that leads we kind of follow.
Many people question this below (assume it was no key agenda point though to be discussed - yeah and Sorin might see it similar like may as also other people)
Good points. I like especially the Suggestion of a small Marketing/Leadership Team - could be elected here onchain as you said. They could reach out for more investors with a voice out there, that was also an idea that was brought in at one of the last Vienna Hive Meetups by @vikisecrets. This would improve visibility.
Yep but we will see ehat happens - there might be already small groups to decide and move forward - no matter in which direction - not wanna sound too negative. As I am searching a job i was maybe too direct
👍🏻
This is exactly on point. General crypto community knows nothing about Hive, we are already kind of isolated in our own bubble. I think the current price of Hive reflects this as even after a recovery from the recent lows we are trading near all time lows:
unfortunately all true
Good points, I think even if it's not working (most of the time), collaborating and paying influencers is important to get more known, marketing, but paying the right influencers is important too, other way is word of mouth, building such a great product that everybody speaks about it. Still think that decentralized social media is a strong product in today's censored web 2 walled garden.
The RIGHT influencer if - yes agree.
Agree on decentralized in general - if social media I am not sure to be honest - we also have Minds.com and others - I even consider Reddit as decentralized (more as we are even we are web3 while reddit is web2)
Just look at the dhf, there are things paid 10k HBD a day for what? Lol with 10k hbd a day I can hire 100 people to go around the city center spreading words on hive and advertise it, that would sure make more effect than a rally race
Then there should be real life use case of hive in the west, where investors and money are, need a hive visa card I can use on real shops, like binance card
And of course a charismatic face and voice to go at radio, tv etc and advertise
A triple A game like cod or fifa or gta would bring thousands of people here, not boring idle games
With 10k per day we could reach millions of people all over the world with ads on traditional social media. With a strong usp and a perfect-no-friction onboarding system, we could gain thousands of people in no time. But first, we need to fix some things here. Those things that prevent people to stay. And I'm not talking about the price, trading, earning, and such. I'm talking about bug fixing; adding features to have a minimum competition with other platforms (uploading speed, short vertical videos, a good messaging feature...); content creators who create engagement; a front website that explains all the dapps and a simple tutorial.
You know, basic things like these that are missing here.
Also, we need to think how to get rid of all the dead profiles. It would be really frustrating to try to join Hive and not be able to create your wallet because some dude has the username you want to use but their profile is inactive since 2018, you know...
Totally with you in most points - the tripe A game hmmm - not sure - i am playing a similar game and they get recked as well (based on internal things though I assume) -but they run on ETH and have buying / paying on another chain.
I completely agree with you, especially on this point:
I also think that the money spent by dhf on marketing has been a failure so far... More applications, more use cases—that's the way forward, in my opinion too.
!discovery
Then let us hit the guys to do that -marekting to be handled different - new director, true use cases, true plan to it the target group
I tend to agree to most of what you write. Wondering what @crimsonclad and @blocktrades think about this?
I know - ask them as you are n ear them right now :-) @sorin.cristescu
Did we support newbies? Did we really promote quality posts? Not sure, but as long as there is the mentality Scratch my back and I will scratch yours, HIVE will go nowhere fast.
Despite 5.5 years, I dare say that it seems Steemit is more popular than HIVE as it is predecessor.
Hmmm - back scratching is true since invention and normal based on relation - if Steemit really is still more popular as Hive we sure have a problem (I do not think they are more popular as i see nothing happening there though)
I'm not aware of Hive history and Steemit or Justin Sun. Curious about the movie if there is one about Hive.
There is a movie - hit @lordbutterfly who was producing this - not sure it is available somewhere to watch for free though.
Not all internet users are bloggers. Few like to be bloggers, few want to create content. Without user control and without a CEO, it is no longer imaginable that the HIVE community exists and functions as a company. In addition, the addresses of the posts are open, visible to everyone, even to those who are not registered and have no interest in the complex crypto mechanics. Users want to relax and scroll through fun and immediate content. The world of blogging is much smaller. With these premises, there can be no financier or major influencer. HiVE is simply a world apart destined to be a niche in the great machinery of internet entertainment.
You are right about most people, even in blockchain not knowing about Hive. People should also know about HBD, that would also help with use cases. And looking for people, projects and teams that will stick around despite funding.
I wish I knew what I can offer to help Hive grow and thrive! Maybe there should be different inniciatives that people can take on board depending on skills, time and effort?
Maybe there is something like that already and I don't know..
Agree - and not sure what is planed already :-)
Even though I don't really know Hive history in detail, I agree. We surely need some kind of board of pr directors that takes the responsibility to promote Hive to the world out there.
I don't really know who the whales are, but might this be their job? I mean, I guess they have the potential to promote Hive on a larger scale somehow? Some ads on Meta, Tiktok and Youtube? And when you do ads you need to set up a whole process to onboard people with the minimum friction possible.
I don't believe it's so hard. But if even the whales have no intention nor willing to do this, I really don't know what to say. It should be the bare minimum for what they're getting from Hive.
But hey, maybe I don't know shit. In that case, I'm sorry if I'm saying the wrong things
Not sure the whales should do that (they can influence and drive stuff though) but most are more from the tech side and have (no offense) probably no clue about marketing etc with certain exception.
It's obvious that we need to hire a marketing service for this. There's big money involved, so we need real professionals
I know we asked marketing companies in the past but they been expensive without clear KPI - that was a reason i did a proposal which was cheaper and combined traditional and digital (web3 minded) comms. But still was too expensive it seems - i did never do a DHF proposal and worked on soem PR stuff though - it is difficult as community to find a perfect partner - but think that was before valueplan. I love the movie approach (even never saw it yet) but not sure if ideal marketing when the story is 3/4 years old now - re car i am quiet.
#hive #posh
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-97% !!!
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Irgendwie, das ist die dezentrierte Chain. Wenn die jemand führen soll, ist es nicht mehr dezentral. Der Sorin wollte etwas Ähnliches für seinen Arbeitgeber bauen, für dezentrale Abstimmungen.
Das Schöne an der Dezentralität ist, dass jeder etwas beitragen kann, aber nicht muss. Das negative ist halt, dass wir Menschen sind, und sind beeinflusst durch unsere Wahrnehmung und Beziehungen.
Dann wird das aber alles nix