The News

I usually start these posts with a price chart, but it seems I have exceeded my free access to the @coingeck API. I can say that the $HIVE price is pretty similar to where it was a year ago. As others have gone up it has dropped in the rankings and could be about to drop out of the top 300. It has been around 1000 Satoshis, but has not followed the $BTC price lately. That is unlikely to improve unless it sees a lot more market action. Will you be buying? In any case you can go to Coingecko and click the button to say you feel good about it.

I do not have much else to report this week. Has there been any big news around Hive lately?

Friday Follows

• @killerwot is celebrating two years on Hive. Despite being a new father he has managed to post every day this year and should get a badge for that soon.
• @actaylor is a new Hiver up in Scotland. She is into art and works on conserving paintings.
• @coincerberus has been on Hive for longer, but has been away for a few years. They are back now with more music.

They all get a share of the post rewards.

The Dog House

This may be controversial, but I am putting Hive in the dog house this week. I have been on this chain for over seven years and still have great hopes for it, but we are not seeing the growth we would hope for. We know the benefits it offers in fast, free transactions as well as the potential for anyone to earn, but the message is not getting out there. This year saw a lot of people looking for alternative platforms after Elon Musk started messing up Twitter, but we did not benefit from that. Many went to Mastodon with others using the new microblogging platforms from Facebook and former Twitter people. There was a fairly popular one called Hive Social, but that has nothing to do with blockchain. We may have got some people accidentally joining Hive from the confusion.

I am aware of the concerns some have about the state of Hive. It is a little harder to use than others, but with Keychain you can log into most of the dapps. There are also claims of bullying that need to be heard. There are cases for protecting Hive from abuse, but it needs to be fair. People will come here with the wrong expectations and need to be persuaded that spamming copied or AI-generated content is not deserving of rewards. If they take heed then they should be given a chance.

I saw a few posts around these topics this week:

• Draining the bucket by @felixxx.
• Is Hive a Failure? by @adetorrent.
• Pessimism by @demotruk.

I started a Thread on InLeo asking about how people promote Hive and that got some interesting responses. We need to raise awareness and not just talk within the existing community. Any of us can do that.

I think there is potential in getting niche interests on here. That includes crypto. People who are into other coins could be using Hive rather than Facebook or Reddit. I would love to see more musicians on Hive. We already have a fair few. If they get support then they will tell their friends about it. We need the fans to join too. They can be earning from their activity as well.

I really hope 2024 can be a good year for Hive. These are still the early days really and we are the pioneers who could benefit from growth. It is in your interest to help it grow.

The End

I expect a lot of people will be thinking about how their year has gone and writing posts about it. Did you have goals on Hive and did you hit them? What do you hope for next year?

Happy winterval and Hive five!

The man behind:

@tenkminnows: Helping good Hivers level up @proofofbrian: A bot that checks for tag typos #BritList: A monthly list of Hivers in the UK