Understanding DHF

I am hoping by now most of you at least heard about DHF, Decentralized Hive Fund. If not, that is okay too. Read on. If you have heard about it, read on as well, especially if you are a splinterlands player, because you should try and understand the topic.

Generated with AI ∙ September 6, 2024 at 12:21 PM

The Decentralized Hive Fund (DHF) is a proposal-based DPoS financing alternative. The DHF places the consensus behind direct financing of development and other ecosystem-positive projects into the hands of the stakeholders. The distribution of the DHF is decentralized by design. Support for a proposal is calculated based on the total stake in support of that proposal. When a user opts to support a number of proposals, their stake influences the proposals equally. Support for a proposal may be granted or removed but the mechanism cannot be used to negate the sum of supporting stake with a negative vote. This prevents one single large stakeholder from doubling the impact of their stake and influencing the remuneration of numerous proposals, creating a level playing field.

Proposal funding is released when the total value of that supporting stake surpasses the stake behind a benchmark proposal. The benchmark proposal itself may vertically traverse the rankings as per the amount of its supporting stake. The payments are distributed on a hourly schedule over a set period of time as specified upon launch of each proposal. Proposals that surpass the benchmark proposal and unlock funding will receive the funding as remaining in the total ask of the proposal minus the time that had passed prior to funding. The total amount is only released where the proposal unlocks the funds prior to its scheduled duration.

That is the official version of the definition and creation of DHF. The reason I like to discuss this today is because currently we are kindly supported by a DHF proposal. I like for the splinterlands community to understand more details of the inner working and visualization tools that are publicly available.

The DHF was a concept proposed by blocktrades to allow Hive users to publicly propose work they are willing to do in exchange for pay. Hive users can then vote on these proposals in almost the same way they vote for witnesses. It uses stake-weighted votes, but voters can vote for as many proposals as they want.

Where to view Proposals

There are multiple places. It depends on the front end of your choice. I am aware of 3, but there are more:

• peakd.com/proposals - Hive Proposals UI by @peakd
• ecency.com/proposals - Hive Proposals UI by @ecency
• wallet.hive.blog/proposals - the native location

It addition to these, I sometimes directly go to:

https://hivehub.dev/proposals (Built with passion by the Peak Open Projects Team)

This is much more than a proposal viewer and I really like it.

How many are they?

As I count, currently there are 16 DHF proposals that are funded. There are 6 that are not funded or upcoming (I excluded the bottom 2 as joke/early test). Again, to get funding a proposal must be above return proposal at all times during the history of its funding period.

Who voted them?

Yes, this is good to know, and shows many interesting details and parameters. I particularly like this pie charts at https://hivehub.dev/proposals

It allows you to have a quick look on who voted on it and how the votes are distributed as per stakes. Let us compare this Splinterlands Proposal display with a proposal which receives a lot many votes, say the core development proposal by howo

It is quite obvious that blocktrade votes for core development proposal which helps running the blockchain, as he should as the core developer and largest active investor of hive blockchain himself. Currently the top 9 proposals are supported by blocktrades, while the 7 below that (total count is 16 funded) are not supported by blocktrades. I mean, I am sure they are supported, just not voted :) It is much easier to get a proposal funded if it is voted by the largest active stakeholder.

What happens after the proposal is funded

I mean other that they start receiving HBD I mean :)

DHF funding is dynamic. A proposal can lose support at any time. Typically by two ways

• A stakeholder can remove vote from a proposal
• A stakeholder can vote on the return proposal high enough that it displaces a funded proposal

There is also a third natural thing that happens continuously. All hive stakeholders HP grows organically, and also by curation and author rewards. Proposals slowly grows in vote values based on people who voted on the same proposal, as their HP grows slowly.

So with all else being equal, both a funded proposal and the return proposal grows organically in vote value as the stakeholders HP grows. If the stakeholders who voted on return proposal grows their HP at a faster rate than the stakeholders who voted on a funded proposal, then, all else being equal, a funded proposal can get de-funded. This is a natural phenomenon, and is a good thing in my opinion. He helps the project to continueously work and update with the community to lobby for their cause. We always seek to earn the support from the stakeholders who haven't supported us so far. That should be the motto of the DHF.