In yesterday's post, we talked about the earning possibilities on Hive at the base layer, regardless of the market conditions or the phase in the cycle.
But such a discussion is incomplete without delving into the second layer of Hive, where many other possibilities open up to the curious user.
Hive-Engine
Many of these possibilities revolve around the oldest and currently the main sidechain of Hive, namely Hive-Engine. Being first in the market and older than Hive itself (before the split, it was a sidechain on the legacy chain as well), developed by a trusted team on Hive which is behind Splinterlands too, attracted many projects to open gates (tokenomics, reward distribution mechanism, user interface or only part of them) on Hive-Engine.
Hive-Engine has its own set of witnesses, but despite that, and unlike Hive at the base layer, it is quite centralized around the team that developed it.
As I mentioned, there are many possibilities to earn on Hive-Engine. So many that I would rather split them by categories than try to talk about individual options. Let's see what we have:
- games, the kind where you earn rewards with real value by playing and not only
- tokenized social media applications (same as at base level, but with their own interfaces, tokenomics, and reward distribution, known as PoB - Proof-of-Brain, i.e. posting, commenting, and curating, and getting rewarded for that)
- dividend, growth, daily-drip, or combined types of small/tiny managed funds
- miners, megaminers - lottery-based mining of a base token; the name of the miner/megaminer is the name of the base token + "M"/"MM" (if the base token has miners); example: base token: LEO, miner: LEOM, megaminer: LEOMM
- "proof-of-movement" - getting rewarded for being physically active in "real" life
- tokens from other chains (starting with SWAP) - suitable for bridging to other chains or to hold SWAP versions of those coins without leaving the Hive ecosystem; example: SWAP.BTC
- tipping tokens (distributed by invoking a bot through a comment, usually using a starting "!" followed by the name of the bot, for example, CTP); note: you need to have minimum requirements to be able to invoke each bot; some people don't like tipping bots because most of them leave annoying comments behind
- trade tokens for profit
- diesel pools - using them for deeper liquidity (potentially), providing liquidity for fees, potential rewards, and potential additional rewards (BXT)
- becoming market maker for a/your token to reduce the spread and to potentially earn passive rewards (you can lose too!)
- arbitraging between the token market and diesel pools or between the SWAP token prices and the prices of the support tokens on other markets
- stake tokens to be able to earn through curation, mining, sometimes for the investment funds to work as intended, or to be able to tip via the comment bots. Usually, if there is a staking option, you have to check out the benefits of having the tokens staked, and how much it takes to unstake the tokens if you stake them.
- delegate HP and receive second layer tokens and/or curation in exchange
- delegate 2nd layer tokens and receive 2nd layer tokens / curation rewards distribution in exchange
- lease out RCs and receive SWAP.HIVE in exchange (not really a market yet for this)
- airdrops/claimdrops - these are generally based on certain conditions being met (for example, stakers of SPS in Splinterlands receive a daily airdrop of GLX on GLS)
Ok, that's what I could come up with before my mind overheated... Feel free to add more in the comments below.
DLUX (HoneyComb), SPK Network, VSC
I'll treat the other 3 sidechains I know of on top of Hive in one section because they are a little bit related although not entirely.
Of the three, SPK Network is obviously a giant and still relatively far from being 100% completed. But SPK Network uses the HoneyComb technology as well as the main developer who worked on that, disregardfiat, who is now working on SPK Network-related infrastructure.
VSC, while not connected with the others at first hand, may have some common ground at some point, and it is developed by vaultec, who also works on SPK Network-related infrastructure (encoder nodes, for example).
Ah, I almost forgot, but in the same space, we also have the Ragnarok game, which is in the development/testing phase.
So... what opportunities do we already have in this space that I know of?
- developers? - I believe there's always a need for good developers
- node operator (for SPK Network, and possibly Ragnarok) - SPK token rewards for SPK Network node operators
- encoding node (SPK Network) - getting rewarded for encoding videos
- Proof-of-Access (PoA) (SPK Network) - getting rewarded for storing videos on your hard disk (currently in HIVE, but the final goal is to change this to SPK rewards)
- testing (Ragnarok, others when needed) - there are rewards for testing Ragnarok and providing great feedback
- delegate LARYNX Power - there is a small SPK APR for delegating LP to node operators (effectively voting on them)
- stake LARYNX Power - there is a smaller (half, if I remember correctly) SPK APR for staking LARYNX and not delegating it to node operators
- taking part in various calls to action and being rewarded for that
Splinterlands Validator Nodes
We haven't talked much lately about the sidechains Splinterlands is working on for its own platforms, Splinterlands and GLS. When these validator nodes are operational, that's another way to earn, but right now owners of validator licenses earn their rewards for holding them.
Anyway, Splinterlands is too vast to dismiss the ways to earn with it in a paragraph (or a few). I just wanted to mention the sidechain part for now, and we will see on another occasion what are the ways to earn within that ecosystem.
Ending Words
It's already a pretty long post and I haven't gone into details on any particular subject. Just an overview of the ways to earn at the second layer of Hive.
Did I miss anything? Let us know!