I think by now we all know the top funded project from Valueplan is the rally car. It takes up a large percentage of the Valueplan budget. Approximately 22% of the overall spend in 2024 was on the car and in 2024 alone it cost the Hive Community $282,148.729 dollars to fund it for the year. Now this is alot of pressure on the Hive supply alone and I can see why the Hive token has problems on the markets languishing where we were for years until Hive launched on Binance Futures. Some think the rally car is a great idea. Actually on most of the drivers posts they receive nothing but support for their car. In fact the photos are done well and so are the videos and it is safe to say there are other crypto communities that do acknowledge that we have our own rally car. Those who do offer praise and good fortune may not be aware of the enormous cost involved however. Whereas the Hive everyman/ everywoman likes adventure and the Hive Community getting out there, the Hive Accountant in me in my boring suit is winching like I am watching my billionaire employer getting into his hot air balloon. How much does this all cost us???
Cumulative Funding
| Year | VP Funding in Hive | Funding in HBD | Total Value in $ |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 so far as of 17th Jan | 28,687.81 | 0 | $15,845.00 |
| 2024 | 825,779.91 | 49,955.47 | $293,167.22 |
| 2023 | 399,476.17 | 332.00 | $136,798.59 |
| 2022 | 156,167.48 | 7580.00 | $69,546.62 |
| Total | 1,410,111.47 | 57,869.47 | $515,357.43 |
Let us break it down by year for you all. The funding began in July 2022. A simple filter of the Valueplan wallet under the name @ssekulji. He is the man behind the wheel of the car. (Good guy by all accounts) Copy and paste that into an excel document and you can add up the costs for yourself. Now the rally car guys like to be paid in Hive rather than HBD, because of ease of withdrawal I presume, so the majority of their withdrawals are in Hive. There was however 5 payments in HBD. 3 were correct and intended but 2 were major errors.
The first HBD payment was their first ever payment of 7580.00 HBD all the way back on the 14th July 2022. The second and third were for a web3 Berlin event in July 2023 for small amounts totaling 332.00 HBD. After that there were two payments. Both in 2024 and both in error as Hive was meant to be paid to them instead of HBD.
On the 20th January there was a payment of 18,126.888 HBD. This was meant to be 18,126.888 Hive which would convert to 6000 HBD. So there was a difference here to the sum of 12,126.888 HBD.
The same mistake happened again on the 11th February 2024. The rally car drivers were expecting 10,000 worth of HBD in Hive which would amount to 31,828.584 Hive but instead they were funded the 31,828.584 in HBD. a monetary difference of an extra $21,828.584 heading their way. God I wish my bank would do this to me sometimes.
Now the error was corrected to the best of my knowledge and it took a refund and some to'ing and frowing by the Valueplan admin team to make it right but these were the payments by HBD which sort of mixed things up a bit. Thanks to @spiritsurge who was getting a difference figure than me for the total spent in 2024. I was undercooked because I had the February's HBD figure in 2024 in as Hive rather than HBD. Anyway onto the annual totals.
Cumulative Refunds
There were two refunds. One for 0.1HBD as a test and the other for 11,018.401 HBD made on the 16th August 2024. I mentioned in Valueplan Part I about the admin team making transactions to correct the HBD transactional error so I presume this is the result and $11,018.501 was transferred back to Valueplan.
Cumulative Refunds
| Year | VP Funding in Hive | Funding in HBD | Total Value in $ |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 so far as of 17th Jan | 0 | 0 | $0 |
| 2024 | 0 | -11,018.501 | -$11,018.501 |
| 2023 | 0 | 0 | $ |
| 2022 | 0 | 0 | $ |
| Total | 0 | 11,018.501 | $11,018.501 |
2022: Getting Started 3 X Local Races. 2 X DNF, 1 in 20th Position.
So in 2022 there was 156,167.47 and 7580.00HBD spent on the rally car. The car in 2022 Citroen C2 R2 Max. I will include a photo of this below for reference of the different cars that were used.
Point to note I start this history after July 2022 when the first sponsorship by Valueplan was made. There clearly was sponsorship before this but not under the Valueplan umbrella as you can see a witnesses name over the Hive.io logo. The car entered a couple of local regional tarmac rallies in 2022. They did not finish the first rally due to technical difficulties and the second one due to power steering issues. The failure in their home country did not perturb the drivers however. The drivers successfully applied for an international rally car license which allowed them to apply to race in the Monaco WRC in 2023. However the Citroen needed upgrading so they had to buy a new car. Their new car for 2023 would be a Renault Clio Rally5 funded mostly by Hive. Goodbye Citroen. Well there was one more regional race that season which they came 20th in. An improvement on the 2 x DNF( Did Not Finish) but disappointing none the less. Hopefully 2023 would turn things round in the new shiny car. I was under the impression that you had to qualify to gain a place in the WRC but apparently not. All you need is money, a car that is up to standard and a rally car license. Correct me if I am wrong here.
2023: 4 Races in Total. New Car
In 2023 there was nearly double the amount of money than in 2022 spent on the car. They were in the WRC now baby and things get expensive. 399,476.17 Hive and 332.00 HBD was spent amounting to $136,798.59. Point to note the drivers did attend a web3 event in Berlin to promote the Hive Blockchain which is included in their overall cost. They had a new car now so the morale was high. Also due to a late application they were refused entry into their first WRC event. This was a massive disappointment because everything was funded to partake in the rally. They still attended the event in Monaco however to see how it looked, a sort of recce mission for next year to check what the service areas looked like. Below is a lovely photo of the team and their supporters before the Croatia WRC in April 2023 with the new Renault.
But with Valueplan and the arguments about whether we should be spending all this money on , nobody ever asked the question on how is it doing??? So why not have a look at the results as well.
Results Breakdown
(No Pun Intended)
| Date | Race | Result |
|---|---|---|
| 19.01.2023 | Monaco WRC | Refused Entry Due to Late Entry Application |
| 20.04.2023 | Croatia WRC | 48th out of 48 finishers. +2 hours:27 minutes :36 seconds behind winners 7 retirements. 3/3 Last in Class RC5. |
| 01.06.2023 | WRC Sardina | DNF. Among 11 cars that Did Not Finish due to a Cut Break Line in the second last stage. |
| 07.09.2023 | Greece | 49th out of 52 who finished. 1 hour 50 minutes and 44 seconds behind winners. 17 retirements overall, 2nd in a two horse race in RC5 class |
| 25.10.2023 | Central Europe Germany, Czech Republic and Austria | 54th out of 54. +2 hours 59 minutes 18 seconds behind winners. 13 retirements overall, 2nd out of 2 in the RC5 class |
Race Classifications
it is worth noting that rally cars are divided into Classes. There are the following classes. RC1, RC2, RC3 , RC4, RC5 and M. So the Citroen was in the bracket RC5.There were not many cars in this classification. 2 or 3 including or own car so it was hard to climb the leaderboard as I would say the RC1 and RC2 classes always lead the rallies. Also the M Classification stands for Motor Company Professional Drivers so we are talking highly trained individuals here. Hard for the lowly RC5 to come anywhere near the top times. Colin McRae could be driving the car , it did not matter.
Insurance claims
In one of their posts here after the car received damage in Sardinia the guys talk about waiting to receive funds from the insurance company for damage done to the car. I was not aware that insurers would insure rally cars. This is news to me. I was under the impression that any damage done to the car would be at the cost of the team but this is actually good news for Hive. We do not have to pay for major damage repair. I am sure there is a long list of small print here with the insurers but a much needed safety net I would imagine.
Even taking the race classifications into account the drivers will admit that 2023 was a disappoint year for them. With 1 DNF and last place in 2 races, their best being a third last place in Greece was a disappointing season for them. But they were gaining valuable experience in the WRC. 2024 would be their year. But they would need to go up a couple of classes to really try and compete. This is where another new car comes into the picture. Introducing the Ford Fiesta Rally 3 which would compete in the RC3 class.
2024: 5 Races in Total
The Ford Fiesta Rally 3 which is a bigger beast again. Despite the challenges in 2023 Valueplan decided to double down on the rally car and spent 825,779.91 Hive and 49,955.47 HBD on the car totaling a total USD spend of $293,167.22. Now there was a refund of 11,018.50 HBD so total spend is $282,148.72. There is somewhat of a trend starting in the figures year by year. Each year is pretty much double the previous year. Maybe this is what happens when you go up in the Classification levels. Also the payments by Valueplan in this year are in equal amounts each transaction which look like recurring payments rather than for anything in particular. Ok let us now look at the 2024 results. The Monaco WRC was raced in the RC5 category as they did not get their RC3 new rally car until March.
Results Breakdown
| Date | Race | Result |
|---|---|---|
| 25.01.2024 | Monaco WRC | 63 out of 64 finishers. +1 hour 51 minutes and 54 seconds behind winners. 4 Retirements overall, 9th from 9 (last) in RC5 |
| 18.04.2024 | Croatia WRC | 48th out of 62 finishers with 5 cars retiring +1 hours:12 minutes :33 seconds behind winners. 13th out of 21th in their car class. Best result yet. |
| 09.05.2024 | Portugal WRC | 1 of 26 cars to retire. Gearbox Failure |
| 05.09.2024 | WRC Greece | DNF. Reason states Personal so unsure why. No result posted by drivers which is strange |
| 17.10.2024 | Central Europe WRC | 39 from 40 finishers. 1 hour 11 minutes and 3 seconds behind winner. 3 retirements. Finishing 11th from 12 in their RC3 class. |
Ok so 5 races in total. They raced in the same races with the exception of Sardinia which they switched to Portugal. The good news is they started and finished Monaco in 2024. They finished second last but small victories here. There were only 4 retirements in this one so I presume by WRC standards the course was in good condition.
The next rally was held in their home country of Croatia. They finished a respectable 48 from 62 cars that finished. Improvement here. They finished 13th out of 21st in their car class. Not too shabby at all. So this meant they finished their last 4 outings which is improvement.
Onto Portugal with some confidence. This was quickly taken away after gearbox failure in the difficult conditions of a Portuguese summer. 26 cars retired in total from this race. It must have been a tough one. Maybe Portugal will not be raced in 2025.
The Acropolis Greek WRC was next up. But this was a strange one. The driver normally posts alot about each of his races . Maybe 4 or 5 times. It is what I like about him. He always posts unlike others who receive Valueplan funding. I do think the drivers have passion for their sport which I why I do not target them much in my posts. They hit the jackpot with Hive so good on them. Whether Hive should be spending this amount of money is another story. There were pre race posts about the Greek WRC but there were no posts around the results or what happened during the Greek race in 2024. The description on the Did Not Finish is "Personal" so I am not so sure what happened here. Maybe someone got ill or was injured. It was like as if it was brushed over.
Source
Anyway onto the next one. The Central Europe WRC was next which was their final race of 2024. This happened also to be their best outing finishing 39th out of 40 finishers overall with 3 retirements. They finished 11th from 12 in their RC3 class. In the WRC3 class they finished 8th. Glorious points! But it is also important to note that it was 8 out of 9 in the WRC3 event. So overall you can only summate that 2024 was not a success either judging by the results but there were some glimmers of light.
So why the poor performances. Are Hive not giving them enough money? I do not say this as an insult but with a WRC hat on. Does it cost a million dollars to get to a decent standard? But this is presuming our drivers are also up to the standard required. A half a million dollars in funding to date does seem like a reasonable amount to compete at a high level but maybe this seems like alot to the Hive Community but a drop in the ocean in the rally car community. I am not sure.
2025
So as of the 17th January the rally car has received 28,687.81 Hive which amounts to 15,845.00 HBD which converts to approximately the same in dollars. The Monaco WRC is where the two boys are next. This will be their second time around some of these stages so best of luck to them. Whether they get double the funding on 2024 is unlikely but not impossible. Even if they receive the same they are doing very very well out of the funding and best of luck to them.
In Summary
Maybe the question mark for me is not if there is anything dodgy going on here. I never really doubted these guys. Rally cars cost a bomb. Everyone knows this and it is the only reason why only car companies and millionaires can afford good cars in it. The lads look passionate and try their best. I was surprised that there were no major qualifications into the WRC. Now clearly if they are finishing these races there must be some element of talent with the driver and wingman. But take their most successful race in Central Europe. They still finished second last overall. When they mentioned in their post around being 1 place away from the RC3 points by finishing 11th. There were 12 cars in the race under this class with 1 retirement so I wouldn't be shouting from the rooftops just yet.
But do we really care Where They Finish??
Now the Hive marketing goal is not to have two champion rally drivers winning every race so at least this is nice so no real pressure from us on the blockchain. All we see is an automobile with a lovely Hive logo in mid air flight and we get excited. But on saying that , the goal definitely isn't to make the Hive Blockchain look like the slowest dam blockchain in the world full of technical difficulties that we can't solve. Sponsors all want to be on the best car. It is the way of the world. This is brand image. Nike hired Tiger Woods and paid him millions every year because he was the best of the best. Nobody wants to be on the Larry Lasts. We all know by now that there is not an active rally car community on Hive. There are 6 active users in the c/rally community and 2 of are the drivers so there is no onboarding here. On the positive side it has got press coverage in national and international media so maybe this is a reason to keep the wheels turning. But many on Hive think it's money down the drain. Maybe it is but we are sure as hell making two peoples dreams come true and maybe when Hive forks as a blockchain in a few years from now we may think to ourselves. Hell why didn't I apply for funding??