A Hive account is an identity on the Hive blockchain. Hive accounts allow people, bots, or third-party applications that are in possession of their Private Keys to actively interact with the blockchain, i.e. to submit a transaction. From a technical point of view, a Hive account is a container for all the activity associated with a particular identity on the blockchain. This includes all their tokens, posts, comments, upvotes, transfers, etc.|Reference: Hive Developer Portal – Glossary https://developers.hive.io/glossary/#glossary-chain-basics
Hive accounts must have between 3 and 16 characters in length and can contain letters of the English alphabet, digits, and several special characters.|Reference: (2020) HIVE Whitepaper https://hive.io/whitepaper.pdf? As a decentralized network, Hive does not apply any KYC policy or limit the number of accounts per person or legal entity. Any existing Hive account can create new accounts. Creating a new account on Hive costs zero to 3.49 HIVE (depending on the site, check here for an overview of different ways to create an account), or an Account Creation Token which can be obtained by any existing account for Resource Credits.|Reference: Hive Developer Portal – Account creation process https://developers.hive.io/tutorials-recipes/account-creation-process.html
New users typically use one of the third-party providers, dedicated account-creating services.|Reference: https://signup.hive.io Splinterlands has created more than 200,000 Hive accounts for players who have completed registration for the game.|Reference: @dalz (2024) Splinterlands Stats | Feb 2024 | Transactions, Games, Players and Price https://hive.blog/hive-13323/@dalz/splinterlands-stats-or-feb-2024-or-transactions-games-players-and-price
Examples of Hive Account Types by Purpose
The hive has no hierarchy of accounts; all accounts are equal in terms of rights and permissions. However, account owners may reserve them for certain purposes, such are:
- @godfish – a personal account of a single person
- @propolis.wiki – a project account managed by the team members
- @propolis.eng – a technical account accessed by multiple users
- @curangel – a curating initiative
- @smooth.witness – a dedicated Witness account
- @hive-128464 – a community account
- @cesky – a curation bot
- @luvshares – a token-related bot
- @aruchard89 – a gaming bot
- @badge-646464 - A Peakd badge account
Account Authorities
Hive uses a weighted hierarchy of keys. It effectively allows community or project accounts to be governed by individuals with different levels of permissions, as demonstrated by Propolis Wiki. The four Hive Private Keys that every account has are:
- Owner Key: Used for recovering accounts, regenerating other keys, and setting a new password.
- Active Key: Used to transfer and manage funds, vote for witnesses, or approve DHF proposals.
- Posting Key: Used to broadcast posting transactions and votes.
- Memo Key: Used for decrypting encrypted messages sent via fund transfers in the wallet.
Besides these keys, witnesses use their accounts to generate an additional key called a Signing Key. This key is unique for every witness. It indicates that a witness is available for block production.|Reference: (2020) HIVE Whitepaper https://hive.io/whitepaper.pdf?
Account Recovery
Due to the lack of central authority, Hive implements peer to peer recovery process. Every account can set up its Recovery account as a trustee. The creating account takes the role by default but can be replaced anytime. To recover a compromised account, its owner must have their original Private Owner Key that was used less than 30 days ago, or else the recovery cannot be performed.|Reference: @arcange (2020) Introducing Hive Account Recovery https://hive.blog/hive/@arcange/introducing-hive-account-recovery However, the process is less user-friendly than on centralized platforms and may not be available in all cases. Hive account owners should store their keys securely to prevent loss or compromise.