Week through Adrian's Lenses (18-24 May 2024)
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This is the #72nd edition of the "Week through Adrian's Lenses" weekly Hive and crypto news roundup.
Let's see what we have for this week. We cover:
Hive
- HiveFest
- Lite HiveD Nodes
- Peak Open Projects / Polls
- Hive Newcomers Experience
- Propolis Wiki
- Splinterlands
- HiveCuba x2
- Class Action
Crypto
- Ethereum ETFs Approval (not!)
- Bitcoin Pizza Day
Week on Hive
11 of 27 tracked posts made it to this week's issue of the "Week on Hive" roundup.
In the Spotlight
HiveFest Update: First Speakers, Hotel Recommendations, Tickets
After finding out the location (Split, Croatia) and period (10-15 September) not so long ago, this week a new announcement from the Hivefest account introduced the first confirmed key speakers at the event (howo, arcange, blocktrades, theycallmedan, starkerz, vaultec, techcoderx, and stoodkev), as well as present hotel recommendations, and announce that purchases for tickets to Hivefest 2024 are open.
The regular price of the ticket is 299 HBD, which can be subsidized for lucky plankton and minnow users who cannot afford it but want to participate, and with the option to overpay to cover such subsidies.
Governance / Development / Dapps
Cheaper Nodes For Services with Split Block Logs
One feature I didn't expect on Hive for the time being, but here it comes very close to being released: split block logs, which would allow lite HiveD nodes.
HiveD nodes would have the option to hold the full blockchain as one file (as it is now), or hold a minimum specified number of blocks from the end, split in 1-million-blocks log parts, except the last one, which would contain the remaining blocks to the head.
That accomplishes multiple things:
On one end, HiveD nodes don't need to hold the full blockchain. This is a good and potentially a bad thing, too. The good part is it reduces storage costs for those who choose this option. Particularly useful for services and maybe some smaller apps. And if services start running their own lite HiveD nodes, that reduces pressure on public API nodes. The potential bad thing is it can add another centralization risk, especially if many choose this option, relying on fewer providers of the full blockchain.
On the other end, another benefit of the split logs is that only the last ("top", as Dan calls it) split log file is both read and written to. The rest of them are read-only. I'm not an expert in taking care of the health of SSDs on the long term, but my logic says this is a good idea, even if someone holds the entire blockchain as split logs instead of one file.
For full details, read the development updates from Blocktrades.
Review of the Peak Open Projects
In the eve of a maintenance proposal, Peak Open presented the 10+ projects under its umbrella.
Among them, the Polls protocol was recently upgraded to support multiple choices and results by HP. Also to have the option to only show results after one votes.
Some Ideas to Simplify Hive Front Ends
@lordbutterfly provided some ideas on how to simplify Hive front ends. I believe changing the name of HBD would be counterproductive, despite being probably a good idea to have "USD" in the name for "mass adoption", but otherwise, many great suggestions others probably thought of in time but didn't verbalize them. First step was made: feedback! Now the hard parts... decisions, changes.
Earn HBD as an Editor of Propolis Wiki
25 HBD for the 'edit of the week' and 50 HBD for the 'editor of the month' are for grabs on Propolis Wiki. Not guaranteed rewards, however, pretty good chances to win? Here are the details.
Games
Matt's Alternative Solution to Address Bot Farms in Wild
Matt presented an alternative solution to address bot farms in the Wild format, as a SPS draft proposal, to assess what the community (stakeholders) feel about it, although he mentioned this is not related to SPS and could (and still can) implement them discretionary.
The proposal involve changes to the Wild format that would:
- double the SPS stake needed to maintain the same reward multiplier
- introduce a Wild Season Permit that would be required to be purchased every season to play in Wild; the permit would cost cost 2000 DEC/DEC-B or 40 VOUCHER tokens (all burned), and needs to be purchased every season
Matt hopes that if bot farms would stop playing, the SPS rewards would increase in Wild, thus this cost wouldn't be overburdening.
Matt said in this proposal it will be on the agenda of the town hall, but I haven't had time to listen to it.
Meetings / Events / Communities
Hive Cuba Open Sourced Their Peer-to-Peer HBD <-> FIAT Bot
@HiveCuba community has a Telegram bot to transfer P2P HBD to Cuban Peso and back (without KYC, obviously). They open sourced it.
Hive Cuba Presenting Hive to Computer Science Students
Hive Cuba again, talked about blockchain (through @manuphotos, from the photos) and presented Hive to about 100 students from the Faculty of Informatics of the CUJAE University in Havana. He mentioned SPK Network and VSC Network. Looks like other faculties of the university might show interest after this conference.
Settlement Offers from Meta and Google in the Class Action Lawsuit
For members of the class action against Google and Meta (started during the legacy chain time, if I remember correctly), this may be of interest. Basically, both giants offered to not seek to recover their court expenses from Andrew Hamilton and his firm, if everything closes here. The settlement offer is: they don't admit to anything and don't pay anything. The alternative may be... expensive.
Week in the Crypto World
Ethereum ETFs Were Approved... And Not!
To be honest, I find this sort of a trick. But I am surprisingly ok with it because it's too soon to have a strong (and long) uptrend.
So, what was the trick? The SEC was forced to take a decision yesterday regarding filings for exchange listings of spot ETFs based on Ether. And it approved them, on Nasdaq, CBOE and NYSE.
What it didn't approve yet, was any spot Ethereum ETFs. Sounds complicated? Well, the SEC approved their tickers on exchanges, but it didn't approve the actual funds ("ETF registration statements detailing investor disclosures")... So they can't start trading yet.
Unlike exchange listings, these approvals don't have a deadline. But given the signal that was given, I don't imagine the SEC will drag this process much longer. I'd prefer something like mid-end September for market timing reasons, but I think next month (June) they'll be approved.
This is a very good article explaining everything.
Bitcoin Pizza Day Was This Week
I suppose we might've been bombarded by this topic already. So I won't insist. It is however an important moment of crypto history (first known/advertised purchase of a physical good in the real world using cryptocurrency). If you don't know the details, here they are.
Full list of "Week through Adrian's Lenses" posts
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It's a good way to pick what interests you.
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STOPWow good friend, I really enjoyed your update on the HiveFest speakers and events. It's exciting to see such a diverse group of key speakers lined up. I hope the lite HiveD nodes doesn’t affect decentralization or I shouldn't be worried about that
It's already a pretty impressive lineup! I expect some major stuff at this HiveFest.
Let's see that released first and how it will be used. Anyone can hold a copy of the blockchain even if they aren't block producers or provide other Hive nodes. But it is also important to have them available publicly via APIs from different sources to make sure it doesn't affect decentralization.
Indeed.good friend I guess we'll have to wait and see thanks so much for the information brother... It's very very informative
There is a case to be made that lite HiveD nodes will lower the barrier to allow more operators to create their nodes. Overall I consider it a win for HIVE.
Yes, I agree. Plus, I think it helps with the long-term health of SSDs.
I believe it's certainly a win for Hive indeed 👌
Please can you give a wider explanation about split logs?
If you don't intend to run a Hive node, you probably won't be interested in them.
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The SPL news is a bit saddening. Instead of just outright banning bots, they keep trying to look for ineffective ways to combat it, and hurting actual players in the process.
I'm not sure how many "people" play in Wild and how many bots, from bot farms or individual accounts. But 75k in Wild compared to 3k in Modern says A LOT about PEOPLE's desire to PLAY Ranked themselves.
I play in Wild, and I know a lot of actual players in my guild that also play in Wild. We switched after facing a lot of max/high level teams even down in Bronze.
So, playing people wasn't a good experience either... I see a lot of anti-bot sentiments among the Splinterlands players, even when they've been restricted to one league. Given the strong developments of AIs recently, and that we come from a new industry in Web 3 or crypto, this kind of attitude toward bots (in general, not the bad ones) is surprising to me.
Let's remember it all started from having one or some human-only tournaments. Then, it extended to no bots in Modern, tournaments, and brawls. Then, battle helpers were banned everywhere bots were disallowed. I was ok with all these decisions. People needed their "safe" places. But maybe I need my "safe" place too, where I can play my account (only one) using a bot, without being penalized for doing that.
Otherwise, give me viable alternatives to Ranked, and I'll never play Ranked again, myself or a bot on my account. I dislike it profoundly anyway - to be forced to play an average of 25 games daily, to remain "in the cards". Maybe I don't have time a couple of days. Maybe I just want to play 5 games, not 25. That's why I like Brawls, and I play them, and would never play Ranked again, under similar conditions.
Playing people was nice, it was the gap in the power of the decks. Constantly fighting Gold+ level decks in Bronze was insane. Maybe it is the lack of players. When I switched to Wild and even reached Champ league, I earned more Glint and almost similar SPS compared to when I was in Modern Bronze. So there was no going back at that point.
I am not a fan of bots in games in general. Bot farms extract a lot of rewards from the game, which lowers the rewards for all, and prevents the game from being enticing to new players. As for single bots, I think bots are just too good for competitive play. We already see it in Chess and Go, and other games. AI can find the optimal team and moves which give them an unfair advantage. Land is already supposed to give the passive gameplay.
Splinterlands is an evolving game, chess and go are not. So bots are way too overpowered there.
If we can't play against bots (witch are not AIs) in an evolving game, how are we going to compete with AIs for jobs? Looks like the fight is lost before it began.
Land, in this current stage, is a pale alternative for Ranked. Rental market practically doesn't exist, and that was a viable alternative in the past. Interestingly, what made it a viable alternative were... bots, not humans.
Depends on how you look at it. When a new set of cards come in, or new rulesets and abilities, bots can immediately run simulations and find the optimal team immediately.
You want an honest answer? You can't compete with AI once they are able to do the job. There have been a lot of job firings already. Programmers in IT, writers, artists, etc. Thinking that the battle hasn't begun is incorrect. A lot of employees are already losing. I wouldn't even recommend college entrants to take Computer Programming courses right now. I don't know why you even included jobs by the way. I think sports and games are some of the sectors that are a bit safe from AI and robots. We already know they will be better [aimbots, instant decision making, instant reaction time, etc.]. But these are sectors that value the effort of regular humans, as we can see with the enduring popularity of Chess. AI has surpassed any human in chess, but human tournaments and games are still popular.
Botting isn't really playing. It is setting up a bot, and letting the bot 'play'. It is something passive done by the actual player. Land is exactly this, without taking the rewards from players that actually play the game. I see botting as a people wanting to have their cake and eating it too. That is literally like using an AI in chess tournaments, and win the championship.
Actually, the way these bots work are through a database of existing battles to choose the right tactics from. And when new elements are added to the game, the ones that learn first and populate bots' databases are people.
Plus there are unpredictable elements against which they have no leverage. One example is the tactics ability that allows a player to change abilities or stats after they see the opponent's lineup.
I've heard a few other ideas that would give people leverage in the game, in certain situations.
And I have nothing against human-only tournaments in Splinterlands, lol.
I still think the battle hasn't even began. It's more like a demonstration phase right now. With consequences on the job market, that's true. But AIs are still far from what they'll become.
You don't seem to understand the problem. More options are needed, instead the route chosen and cheered by the community that theoretically supports decentralization and freedom of whatever is to impose more restrictions.
Is this still the case? There is the battlevision that can simulate battles.
When there are already casualties, then I consider the battle has already begun. AI being disruptive this early and not yet reaching its full potential shows how the battle will turn out.
I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. There are already options. Bot users just feel like the earnings from Land is too little compared to what they are getting in ranked even though they don't actually play. I'm not even in support of this pay to play proposal in Wild. The more they keep trying to 'control' bot farms the more they hurt the regular players. That is why I just want a full bot ban. Splinterlands might be the only game I've seen that openly allows and supports bots. If you've played other games, you would know how gamers perceive botting as bad in general. If Splinterlands wants to succeed as a game, then they have to let go of bots.
Yep, we'll have to agree to disagree. 😀
Tell me a game that has lasted for many years (not updated to version 2, 3, 4, etc. after the previous one became unplayable) by banning bots. Other than chess and go, I mean. Actually, there may be something to learn from them. People still play them because they enjoy the games and play when they want as much as they want, and as far as I know without rewards too.
Web 3 games can't be like that precisely because of the rewards with a monetary value. But they have their place... or not.
I don't really play games that require a lot of time involvement anymore, but from a post I've seen yesterday from bitcoinflood, it looks like whatever is happening now in Web 3 gaming doesn't keep or bring new players. And from what I've heard, other games in the space have strict no-bot policies. So, that's not the reason, I believe.
Seriously? Riot games [League of Legends, Valorant, Legends of Runeterra], and Dota are easy answers. I think most games with monetary value or has competitive aspects ban bots. The better question is, can YOU tell me a game that lasted for many years that has openly accepted bots? Where the bots can play against humans for monetary rewards or fame. Because like I said, I only know of Splinterlands.
I know you've been in the crypto scene for longer, but I can't believe you are saying this. Web3 games are even more protective against bots because there is monetary value. A lot of games have experienced loss of funds and rugpulls because of bot farms extracting massive amounts of rewards and doing a pump and dump. Answering the prompt above, but this time for Web3, Axie comes to mind, Gods Unchained, Rising Star, there are tons more. Again, can you give me a Web3 game other than Splinterlands that openly accept bots?
Honestly, Web3 games are so far behind in quality to regular games that are coming out. No one will be joining because of the graphics, story, or the fun. There is a Web2 game out there that does it better. The only reason we had a boom in players back in 2021 was because the earnings were insanely high. Right now, game tokens haven't really risen much. If the game tokens increase in value this bull run, then expect players to come back in droves to those games.
Am I wrong or I they all shooters? I have little to no knowledge about shooters.
I was trying to point out that once bots target a game that can be botted, there's little you can do, especially if you have monetary rewards and the possibility for them to create as many accounts as they want, no KYC, etc. You can try to starve them, as Matt is trying with this proposal, but this way you affect innocent people who either play their accounts themselves or only have one or a few accounts. His solution: move to Modern. Well, his solution sucks for me. But even then, if that takes care of bot farms (and by removing them the game liquidity doesn't go to sh*t), I'm willing to endure. I would prefer an alternative, so I wouldn't feel compelled to play Ranked at all.
Either way, probably I can't give you a counter example since no one ever tried to allow bots before, as far as I know.
I think you misunderstood. I meant time will tell if there is a place for Web 3 games in the world or not. Maybe people simply prefer Web 2 games. Or maybe they prefer the meme coins casinos. And I based this argument on the charts showed in bitcoinflood's post, where the number of Web 3 gamers has plummeted.
Yes, there are a few Web 3 games out there. But we are in a bull market. Meme coins went to the moon (as they did in the previous bull market too) and gaming assets and players went into the ground (not all of them).
This is where you made my point. Web 3 games are mostly pretty interfaces for extracting gains (now I feel like a sucker in Splinterlands because I don't do that and my decision to run a bot is questioned at every step).
Wow, you're the first person I encountered that don't know any of those games. Only Valorant is a shooter. LOL and Dota are MOBA, and LoR is a card game.
As shown from the multiple examples I gave, this is not the case. For Splinterlands, banning bots should be even more effective since creating many accounts costs something.
Yes, and that's because bots are bad for a game overall. Both for extracting rewards, and maintaining the competitive integrity of the game.
There are actually a lot. Too many in fact. There are a good amount that survive and endure like SPL, Axie, and other long running games.
Ok... this has lasted way longer than I imagined it would have.
At this point it seems like wasted time.
You guys can ban bots... And let's see if things improve or become worse. "Liquidity bots" are not free, you know? Good luck!
I agree.
The Splinterlands news does not look good at all. If they ban us from playing in Wild, I think I might just stop playing as much. It just doesn't make sense because modern is already way too crazy. I can't even get out of Silver in modern and if they add a fee to play in modern, I just don't think it's worth it when I can only get like 5-10 fights a day on average.
The fee is for Wild, not for Modern. I did have an initial bad reaction to seeing this. I'll probably make a decision at the right time. I won't play in Modern, that's for sure. I have no time to play my account daily 20-25 times. Nor the desire.
The people at the helm of affairs on SPL looks to be way in over their heads with these wild decisions.
One thing I know is that we're not yet having proposals that's targeted towards sophisticated marketing, to me this seems like the most important at the moment.
There are many things I don't understand about this proposal. One of them is why publish it during a festive period for Splinterlands? It's clear marketing is not a strong suit over there.
I also wish to meet all the people I have been working with for a long time in the same way.
Thank you for your updates @gadrian. I will read over them and read more details as well on your links. Have a nice weekend. !BBH !CTP #ctp
@gadrian! Your Content Is Awesome so I just sent 1 $BBH (Bitcoin Backed Hive) to your account on behalf of @adcreatordesign. (1/1)
Thank you @bbhbot 😊
Take you time, Barb. It's not easy to be on the verge of moving.
Thank you @gadrian 🌟😊👍