Probably most people reading this knows a thing or two about taking the wrong turn in crypto at one point or another, which seemed right at the time.
Today is Hive Power Up Day (HPUD), the first in the second half of 2025, theoretically the fourth and final bull market year of this cycle.
For me, HPUD also comes as a reminder that I took such a wrong turn at the beginning of the year. Not a big issue, more like a detour due to anticipating a different kind of activity during the year, but let's be honest, after alts pumping at the end of 2024 and beginning of 2025, who would have thought 2025 will continue to be such a ghostly year for alts? At least until now...
What I did at the beginning of the year was to power down my posting account, anticipating multiple pumps for Hive... There were a few, mostly at the beginning of the year. But it turned out I had too much liquid HIVE not doing anything waiting for something that never came. And no, I didn't want to move them to Binance either for the fantastic APR, while it lasted.
At some point, a few months ago, I partially gave up, and powered back up about half of my liquid HIVE. Still kept the other half... hoping. But nope!
It turns out it would have been better had I stayed with my stake intact from the beginning of the year. I made some simple calculations, and at half the year, I would have earned more HP from curation and interest, than the HIVE I earned trading. Maybe the difference was the toll for having enough HIVE liquid at all times, for the opportunities that never came, or not as many as I expected.
Of course, we have to be realistic. Both situations turned out not as beneficial as having HBD in savings for the whole period (HIVE was 38c at the beginning of the year during a major uptrend). But how many did bet on HBD from the beginning of the bull market year? Maybe once the geopolitical situation started to be more complicated, some did (which was the right move on their part). And how many would bet on it right now? That is if we are still in a logic somewhat like the 4-year cycle.
It would be unfair to pick on the small-cap HIVE, when something like ETH had a pretty awful year too, along with pretty much all alts.
It's obvious BTC doesn't want to relinquish its tight grip on the crypto world yet, if we look at the BTC dominance chart:
Maybe in the fall... Maybe... Hmm, that sounds like wishful thinking.
Nonetheless. I continue with my regular Hive routines... Among them, powering up every day and on HPUD:
After all, influence on the reward pool and governance has nothing to do with the price of HIVE in USD. Only with the amount of HP.
Happy Power Up Day!