Week through Adrian's Lenses (3-9 August 2024)
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This is the #83rd 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
- INLEO
- HBD
- Keychain
- VSC
- Peak Open
- Social Shops
- Clive
- Monster-Curator
- Splinterlands
- Rising Star
- Ragnarok
Crypto
- Russia
- Kamala Harris
Week on Hive
14 of 26 tracked posts made it to this week's issue of the "Week on Hive" roundup.
In the Spotlight
INLEO Now Has Shorts, a Referral Program, and a Re-Worked Leaderboard
For about a week or so, Shorts have been up on the INLEO platform for the community to play with them, test, find bugs, and offer feedback.
INLEO integrated the Shorts technology implemented by the 3Speak team, but they had to do extensive backend work to adapt them to the expectations of use case on Threads. Basically, they had to recreate a backend container similar to the one they have for Threads, because otherwise there would have been a limitation of posting a short every 5 minutes from the same account, which doesn't make sense for a normal use of this feature, where someone might post a few shorts in a row and then never post anything else for a good while.
I haven't used Shorts, but I hear they became more stable than when they were when they were first released. Khal also has big plans for them, inspired by features on TikTok, where you could capture a short sequence from a short (like a quote when you reply in writing) and record a reply to it, as a short. At least that's how I understood the explanation from Khal from the last AMA because I don't use TikTok and haven't seen it in action, but I imagine how it would work and makes sense for people loving the short video content, instead or writing a reply, which may be less expressive.
Another important piece of news from INLEO is the official full release of their referral program. They announced it here.
A referral program has the power to activate members of the community to work for onboarding new users, and if it's well done, to retain them. That's what decentralization is for, right? Everyone doing their part! The new referral system offers LEO rewards for bringing in new users but also for their subsequent activity. You can find what they are from the post linked above.
I believe well thought referral programs work, and help bring in new users on the platforms that offer them, generally at a relatively low cost and no effort for those platforms (and respectively, their teams). On the other side, if some people get very pushy in their attempts to get more referrals, that may occasionally backfire.
The INLEO team also re-worked their Leaderboard for daily, weekly and monthly most active users, with a point system for various activities that can be done on the platform. The new activities now include referring new users.
Governance / Development / Dapps / Education
APR for HBD in Savings Dropped to 15%
A few top witnesses started signalling for 15% APR and therefore, based on the mean algorithm that is used to select the APR paid on HBD in savings, it dropped from 20% to 15%.
What's New in Hive Keychain Mobile 2.2?
I've already written twice this week about the first feature introduced in v.2.2 of Keychain Mobile, "Onboard your friends".
What else is there? They activated Open Peak notifications on mobile.
And two security features: detection of private key changes and detection of vesting routes changes, which both may indicate a potential attack on your account, if you haven't initiated them yourself.
Here's the full post.
VSC Successfully Tested Transactions Between HIVE and EVM
VSC announced on X that they successfully sent HIVE to an ETH address and back via the VSC Network. First Bitcoin, now Ethereum! Things are looking great!
Peak Open Added Hive-Engine and SPS weighted Polls
Peak Open added support for staked SPS weighted polls as well as for certain liquid or staked Hive-Engine tokens. This is the announcement.
Social Shops on Hive Now Integrated Paypal
Paypal certainly knows how to make small-scale e-commerce easy for everyone, particularly when we talk about fiat. That until they randomly decide that you broke their ToS.
But for e-commerce shops, having a paypal option seems in the advantage of the owners of the shops. More options, more potential sales.
Social shops on Hive (via @social.gifts) offers the option to integrate Paypal for shop owners. They describe how to do it here.
Clive Introduced Account Switching
Clive introduced the possibility to switch the working account, which is very useful if you have multiple accounts.
Monster-Curator and Related 1UP Curation Services Are Shutting Down
If you have Hive-Engine tokens delegated to Monster-Curator or any of the related 1UP Hive-Engine curation services, note that they stopped curating and you should un-delegate.
Games
Splinterlands Updates
A few major updates in and around the Splinterlands ecosystem this week:
The Chaos Legion soulbound reward cards set stops being sold in the Glint Shop on August 15th, when the Rebellion soulbound reward cards set replaces it. At the same time, old soulbound reward cards become unbindable for a fee. The new set comes with 12 commons, 12 rares, 7 epics, and 12 legendaries, along with 4 new abilities and, for the first time, 3 debilitations. This announcement describes everything.
A new Hive Town Hall meeting after a while has been convened to talk about the Splinterlands DHF proposal. The guest was Matt Rosen, less than 1-year old CEO (and co-founder) of Splinterlands. I believe it was an important talk, which revealed some information people either forgot or wasn't public knowledge (like how much HIVE Splinterlands burned in 2021 to create new accounts, i.e. around 1.8m HIVE). Following the meeting, the Splinterlands DHF proposal received a few more big upvotes, but it's still a few million HP worth of votes short of being funded.
Splinterlands also presented the plan for the overhaul of the Voucher system, following the passed proposal related to this topic.
There are a number of polls being put forth recently too, as well as SPS DAO proposals. One of them discusses the termination of incentives for the SPS:WETH pool, and creation of a v3 pool instead.
Rising Star Introduced Artist Specific Missions
Rising Star added a new mission dedicated to certain artists, who play and support the game. From my understanding, you must own one of their record NFTs to play the mission and have a chance to receive a limited edition reward. The first artist who was featured was Trenton Lundy. Here's the announcement.
Ragnarok AMA
@simplegame, the new developer of Ragnarok, was in a X space with @eddiespino to talk about Ragnarok development, in what appears will be a regular thing (bi-monthly or monthly). Listen to the recording if you are interested. There is also a call to action from the developer to test the game in this stage and offer feedback, to better know how to proceed further.
Week in the Crypto World
Putin Warms Up to Crypto Mining
Russia is big on mining... in general, as it has so many resources. So I guess crypto mining is still... mining, right?
Where I see a sudden change is from pushing toward a CBDC - which was one of our featured crypto news from last week - toward crypto mining. Did they understand that a CBDC based on Ruble has no chance? Or are they still pursuing both plans? Here's more on the green light to crypto mining in Russia.
Ban Them, Then Hire Them!
You gotta love politics... Binance was forced out of the US. Now that the stance on crypto changes, one of the (formerly?) top advisors at Binance is hired as an advisor by Kamala Harris... How nice! To be fair, many of these "advisors" have no loyalty, and can easily jump from one side to another, depending on conditions. Read more, if you want to.
Full list of "Week through Adrian's Lenses" posts
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Posted Using InLeo Alpha
Binance is forced out of US just like how it is forced out of Nigeria, lol
It would have been my favorite though
Binance is already officially out of the US for a long time. If you try out the binance.us page it says that that page doesn't exist. I'm not sure they can force Binance out of Nigeria as easily, if users make p2p payments via Binance. In fact, they can't force it out of the US either, if users use VPNs (or at least that was a backdoor in the past).
But that's why DEXes are good, and CEXes only for on-ramp and off-ramp.
A lot of interesting developments this week! The VSC sending Hive successfully is very promising, we need more options here to move funds around for those of us in the US.
Splinterlands changing over the cards will be fun, but I'm still worried about the bottom line. Can they survive and be fiscally responsible?
Harris isn't going to be pro crypto ever, hiring a former Binance guy as an advisor is crap. She hates crypto, but being a politician she's spin any lie possible to win.
Now Putin being pro crypto mining makes sense because of all the sanctions on Russia. He smells another way to earn and move money around and get around those pesky sanctions. Assuming WW 3 doesn't break out this next week or two of course....
I believe the same need is for every place in the world, the US or China only showed us... what can happen everywhere. But now that some objectives were reached, I expect the narrative and approach on crypto to seem more malleable, in the West, at least.
It is my guess without hearing it from Matt recently, that they would be ok at least until the next major set would be released, provided costs that are described in the DHF proposal end up being funded (the similar proposal for SPS DAO for a different purpose passed).
I have no idea, to be honest what are her personal feelings. Don't follow the US race for President closely, but I tend to agree the Democrats won't significantly change their stance on crypto. Why? I couldn't say! Other than to be consistent in a bad choice.
They surely are looking for as many ways to avoid sanctions as then can find. But at the current market cap of crypto, this isn't very helpful for inter-country commerce. Maybe in the future and a higher market cap.
They may also be looking for ways to preserve and move their personal wealth.
Wow, that's a lot of big news. The one that affects me the most is the HBD one though. I have a good amount staked, so this change does hurt my expectations a bit.
Yep, I imagine this will create a bunch of reactions.
I didn't realize that the APR has moved down to 15%. I knew that 20% wouldn't last forever but I wonder if it will make people revisit their witness votes.
There could be some moves. It's the kind of change that wakes up some people who otherwise would swallow things that are worse than this change.
15% APR is still not bad, but I think changing it at all times is just bad, it just makes the HBD holders looks like their fools. HBD is certain, the APR on it should be certain too and not susceptible to change all the time.
I hope lazypanda and co that don't start considering their stance on the over one million dollars they have in savings
There is a strong sentiment among high HP holders that HBD shouldn't yield more than HP, passively nonetheless.
I just wonder how many HBD will still be in circulation once HIVE is on the move (going higher). We're making decisions in a glass of water, with the water level going down.
I don't believe HBD holders will sell. They might think about it at another drop.
Where I believe things are judged with two different measures is on HBD yield and DHF spendings.
To be honest, I just think the biggest issue is addressing the DHF overspending, and letting the 20 or 15% be at least till the peak of the coming bull market.
If they want to reduce the APR, from the sentiment pov, it is easier now when HIVE is expected to rise in the alt season, then at the end of the bull market when more people would have moved (some) HIVE to HBD and they wouldn't want a lower APR on them.
But I understand what you say and economically it makes sense to lower the APR when it is paid for a predictable higher amount.
Wow
I was hoping to invest in HBD and have the 20% APR
I don’t like the 15% APR but it’s still not bad
It’s kinda manageable
It might be a step on the way down...
Anyway…