As we all know, witnesses are the backbone of the Hive platform, the unsung heroes who ensure everything runs smoothly. They operate critical nodes that keep the platform alive and thriving. Without witnesses, Hive wouldn’t exist, and without us, there would be no content to share and engage with, which is why we need to get familiar with who our witnesses are.
That's why I've created this special edition of "Meet Our Hive Witnesses."
This interview series aims to connect with our witnesses, giving you a closer look at the people who keep Hive running. We’ll dive into their work, motivations, and insights through a series of thoughtful questions.
It is the thirteenth edition of Meet Our Hive Witnesses Interview and before I continue with the introduction of the next witness that has honoured us to be interviewed, I'd like to say that, as a Hive user who want to see this platform continue to grow and flourish, we all have 30 votes to cast for any Hive witness of our choice and I will say this is the most important 30 votes you will ever cast on this platform for any witnesses that you deem it fit.
This week on Meet Our Hive Witnesses, I have shinned spotlight @seattlea — a Hive Witness and SPS Validator deeply rooted in both tech and community. He is Inspired by a guide from @mahdiyari, he launched his witness journey with confidence in Docker and containers. He runs a high-performance Azure Kubernetes node, always updated currently on version 1.27.11.
Despite early upgrade challenges, he's now proudly block-miss free. But he’s more than tech, he's actively onboarding new bloggers and @Splinterlands players to Hive.
He believes great witnesses must also be social: curating, posting, and engaging daily. The witness I have brought to the show today is a firm advocate of Hive growth, he never powers down, staking every token for Hive’s future.
Welcome to my interview, it is a great honour to have you here on the show this week @seattlea
Thanks, below are the answers:Seattlea
1 What motivated you to become a Hive witness, and how long have you been serving in that role?
@seattlea You may find it surprising, but I was motivated by the post from @mahdiyari:
@mahdiyari/docker-compose-how-to-run-a-hived-node-seed-node-witness-node
I read the post and realized that it is relatively simple to setup a Hive witness for someone like me. I have been working with Docker and containers for years now. While most of my work is with Windows based container solutions, I do run some Linux containers at my main job as well.
I have been serving as a witness for about five months since February 11, 2025.
2 What do you believe is the core responsibility of a Hive witness, and how do you personally fulfill it?
@seattlea I believe that core responsibility of a Hive witness is to reliably Produce Blocks for Hive blockchain and provide a Price Feed. In order to do that I run a high-performance Azure Kubernetes based witness that has the most up to date witness software.
I have originally started with Witness software version 1.27.6 which was the current version at the time and already did a couple upgrades. First, I have upgraded to version 1.27.7 then 1.27.8 and then just recently I have finished upgrading to version 1.27.11.
3 Can you explain how your witness node is set up and what infrastructure you use to keep it running securely and reliably?
@seattlea I believe that behind every great witness is a robust piece of technology. My node runs on a high-performance Azure Kubernetes based server configured as follows:
Operating System: Linux (Ubuntu 22.04)
Software version: 1.27.11 (which is the latest one right now)
Processor: Standard L8as v3 with 8 vCPUs
Memory: 64 GiB RAM
Storage: Premium SSD LRS, 1024 GiB
These specifications ensure that my node can handle high transaction volumes and maintain optimum performance, contributing to a smoother, more secure blockchain experience for everyone.
4 What challenges have you encountered as a witness, and how have you worked to overcome them?
@seattlea The biggest challenges I have encountered as a witness was with upgrading the witness software, which probably explains why we have top 20 witnesses running out of date witness software versions as low as 1.27.0 which is 11 versions behind.
While upgrading witness software I ran into all kinds of issues particularly with loading snapshots and variations in witness plugins that I am running versus the snapshots. I learned a lot during these upgrades, but it did cause me to miss some blocks. Since I have upgraded to 1.27.11 I have not missed a block yet.
5 What specific contributions have you made to the Hive ecosystem outside of maintaining your node?
@seattlea I believe that Hive is a social networking site. The success of Hive depends more on this platform becoming a successful blogging platform and not a niche blogging site it is right now. I have been actively trying to on-board new bloggers into Hive.
My main focus has been on bringing more Splinterlands players into Hive by explaining them the benefits of blogging on Hive. I am looking to build my Hive stake to make a bigger difference when curating great content on Hive. I only do manual curation and I am very active on the Hive blogging platform.
6 In your opinion, what differentiates a great witness from an average one on Hive?
@seattlea I believe great Hive witness is the one that is involved in the social aspects of Hive: actively blogging, manually curating and commenting on the platform.
7 How do you engage with the Hive community, and what should users know about the importance of witness voting?
@seattlea I read lots of content on Hive every day and try to upvote great content as well as comment and post my own content.
It is important to vote for Hive witnesses because in a decentralized network like Hive, the more people who step up to validate transactions and secure the chain, the stronger and more robust our ecosystem becomes.
Also, it is important to vote for witnesses who run the latest Hive witness software and are providing a Hive price feed. It is a bad look when some of our top 30 witnesses are running 1.27.0 software or have not provided a Hive price feed in 1735+ days!
Any serious investors doing their due-diligence would look at that and think to themselves is this Hive blockchain really that reliable and secure as they claim if they cannot have all of their top 50 witnesses doing their job well in providing Hive price feed and running reasonably up to date witness software?!
8 What are your top priorities or goals for Hive’s future, and how are you helping achieve them?
@seattlea My top priorities are making Hive a more popular blogging and gaming blockchain I try to achieve them by manually curating great content trying to promote Splinterlands and Hive on other social networks such as X and Reddit. I am also actively building my Hive stake. You will never see me power down ANY Hive tokens, everything I earn on Hive goes into staking and I am actually buying Hive and staking as well to speed up my Hive Power accumulation.
9 Do you support any particular proposals or improvements on Hive? If so, why are they important to you?
@seattlea I am currently supporting the following proposals:
VSC proposal 2025: Smart contracts, cross chain, and beyond #342
Development of several new open source projects by the Peak Open team #350
Ecency development and maintenance #5 #336
Worldmapping 2.0 - Travel Guide, Hive Map Service, Quality Curation & Mobile App #348
Hive Keychain Development Proposal 2025 #341
Hive Dev Proposal #325
Return Proposal #0
Actifit Proposal #3 - Collabs, Development, Infra & Growth #337
The Hive Gamification Proposal #331
I believe that it is important to have a diverse set of projects on Hive and these proposals are all important to make Hive a better and more popular blockchain.
10 What do you think Hive witnesses should do better collectively to improve the blockchain?
@seattlea I believe hive witnesses should be more involved in manual post curation to ensure that top quality content is most visible and rewarded as well as recruiting and rewarding new authors to our blockchain. Imagine if we could recruit and retain somebody like Steven King as our Hive ambassador?!
To succeed long term we have to get multiple popular authors on our blockchain and witnesses collectively hold a very large HP that can be used to recruit and encourage quality authors on Hive.
11 How transparent are you with your operations, and where can users track your performance or contributions?
@seattlea Users can look at my blog and my comment history and see how active I am on Hive.
12 What do you wish more Hive users understood about how witnesses work or what witnesses do?
@seattlea I wish more Hive users would look and understand the resource like:
https://hive.arcange.eu/witnesses/
There is so much information on that screen. For example, take a look at how many witnesses are powering down their Hive (black pig icon after their name). Not that powering down is a crime, server bills need to be paid… But take a look at top twenty and how many of those are Whales? We see only six whale icons; we see some dolphins and mostly orcas. Some like OCD hold their HP in other accounts, but I would bet that most do not… Top 20 (Consensus witnesses) earn 12,400 or so HP every month for years, I would have expected to see way more whale icons in the top 20…
I already mentioned out of date software and defunct price feeds, but we also have a lot of witnesses that have been turned off for more than a year and they are still ranked very high, take a look at all the greyed out lines… We as a community on Hive should do better voting for witnesses and removing out votes from those who are no longer around.
13 Have there been any moments where you had to take a difficult decision as a witness? If yes, what was it?
@seattlea I believe that I am too new and small for that 😊 Most of those kinds of decisions are at a Consensus witness level I believe…
14 Are there any technical or political limitations that restrict your ability to contribute more as a witness?
I think what restricts me is not technical or political limitations but how many hours there are in a day and having to balance Hive and my professional and personal life.
15 Why should people vote for you as a witness, what makes your witness stand out from others?
@seattlea By running my own node, I add another layer of security and redundancy, helping to spread out the responsibility of block production. I am one of only 22 Hive witnesses who run the latest version of Hive Witness software 1.27.11
Long-Term Commitment: I have pledged to keep my node running without powering down—at least until the next Bitcoin halving, which is estimated to take place in March 2028, and the bullish cycle that follows. My account history speaks for itself—I have never powered down, and I intend to keep it that way.
Support for Quality Content: As my Hive Power continues to grow, I plan to use it not just for personal gain but to actively support quality content and genuine creators on Hive.
I value every single vote from the community. My goal is to serve not only as a technical node but as a trustworthy steward of the Hive network—one that listens to and works for the interests of every stakeholder.
It is so awesome finally having a chat with you @seattlea
Thanks so much for creating time for meet our Hive witness. Have a wonderful day 🤝🏻
You're welcome.
NB: those were @seattlea exact words to the interview questions. Nothing was changed.
PROMOTING AND INTERVIEWING HIVE WITNESSES IS ALL I DO
Special thanks to @resonator @canadian-coconut @felixxx @ausbitbank @ranchorelaxo @familyprotection @sanjeevm @gogreenbuddy @solominer @edicted @honey-swap @fedesox @trafalgar @yeouido.park @balte @xeldal @deepresearch @fw206 and everyone who has been supporting my interview. Thanks to you all.
You can read more about @seattlea here
please vote and support @seattlea to be your witness today!
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