VALUE FOR VALUE

When discussing Hive or any blockchain in general, there is also talk about rewarding loyalty--those with skin in the game (those who hold the blockchain/platform tokens). I do understand this narrative and some of its merits, but I think it is flawed and unsustainable. I will give my reasons shortly.

1. REWARDING LOYALTY LEADS TO NEPOTISM, FAVOURITISM AND TOKENISM.

As excellent as it sounds, rewarding people based on their loyalty and not the quality of their work or contribution is a recipe for disaster. We don't need to look far, Hive is a prime example. Those who bought the token early or have been on the platform long enough do enjoy certain perks of being early adopters. They are not necessarily the best minds or contributors. Some have mentally checked out of Hive, however, they have leverage over new entrants. This mitigates development and changes when needed. A typical example would be Steemit before the hostile takeover. Now the blockchain has to contend with whales and their conflicting ideologies.

1. POOR DISTRIBUTION

If a blockchain rewards only the few who can hodl its token then it would have a poor distribution and it quickly becomes centralised. From my understanding, many people are okay with a centralized blockchain as long as they make money from it and control the reward mechanism. There are very few people who are interested in decentralisation and all the buzzwords we use around this space.

WHY SHOULD PEOPLE HODL YOUR TOKEN?

People who sell their tokens often get a bad rep in the crypto space and I don't understand why because it makes no sense to me. In the real world, people earn tokens(money) which they exchange for goods and other services and save what's left. So what's the idea behind policing people who sell their tokens? Well, the answer is simple: the token has no real value or use case.

I can't think of anything of real value in the world that people are deterred from using or selling. Truth be told most tokens do not have any real value, so normies are cajoled to hold their bags to prove some form of loyalty to reduce the tokens selling pressure as there is no real demand for it. The problem isn't people selling, but the very limited demand for the token.

However, a blockchain is more than just its token. For instance, Hive is a blockchain where people create value (content) for value (hive token). Unfortunately, it has not been able to monetise the value people created on the blockchain. This is where Web 2 platforms shine.

On platforms like Twitter, creators'/users' time, attention, and content are monetised to generate value for the platforms. On Hive the reverse is the case. Users are over-compensated for the value they created and are expected to hold that value for the future promising that it would be worth more. There are no real channels by which value gets into the system which creates an unsustainable economy which whales have to over-supervise.

The Hive economy cannot grow solely on speculation, and the problem isn't people selling their tokens. There should be an active channel to monetise the time, attention and content people create here. I don't know how decentralized advertising would work but it is certainly something worth exploring to create inflow into the Hive economy.

In conclusion, we must realise that in a decentralised community, people have different goals and objectives. Some people are long-term players, while others are short-term players; some people are just looking for a quick buck to cover their living costs, and others are looking to create generational wealth. The blockchain can accommodate everyone as long as it can extract and monetise the value created by its stakeholders/users.

Posted Using LeoFinance Alpha