It's been encouraging to see the price of Hive trend steadily upwards over the last several months - the latest 'leg up' seems to have Hive settled comfortably above $0.80 which is just fantastic, and a boon to all of us who bought when it was MUCH cheaper.
I like to think that this is because Hive has developed MORE utility over the past year or so - both in the sense of it having a greater range of uses and in the sense that more users need more of it for various reasons.
In short, more people need it for a wider variety of purposes.....
Splinterlands (of course!)
The most obvious 'cause' of Hive's increased utility is the phenomenal growth of Splinterlands....
I tested out (with an alt account) how much Hive Power one needs to be able to rent out a few dozen cards a season, make a few transfers and post a few comments every day, and I struggled to get by with < 50 HP, and given that there are hundreds of thousands of accounts playing, that equates into millions of HP having to be powered up.
Not every account is that active, but many will need more than 20 HP certainly to have enough Resource Credits to be able rent and buy cards.
And as to people with hundreds of thousands of dollars of assets invested in the game, surely it makes sense from a security perspective to have at least several thousands of Hive powered up....?
Cub Defi....
Cub Defi provides a relatively easy link from Hive to Binance Smart Chain and shortly to Polygon, which offers an easy, low-fee way of transferring assets to and from Hive.
Other games
There isn't anything that comes close to Splinterlands - but any NFT game which has assets stored on Hive such as @risingstar @exode and so on requires people who play to have Hive Power up so they have sufficient RCs.
Hive and the Tribes
Anyone who establishes a new tribe/ token creates yet another use case for Hive - if the standard means of curating is to power up an alt, that's another 10-20 Hive we all need right there, and any new users brought in because of the special interest community - more Hive required for posting!
Pooling on Hive-Engine
There's also increasing utility in keeping Hive liquid and pooling it with various Hive-Engine tokens for a return.....
Again, the most obvious candidate here is to pool Hive with DEC for an SPS return, giving you a 160% yield, but there are also tempting offers elsewhere:
@flauwy's oneup:hive pool is currently offering a nearly 300% return for another 60 days or so and there are several other options which give you over 100% return.
There are also some tasty returns for staking !PIZZA with swap Hive too and a few other tokens.
You can check out the diesel pools here.
Trading on Hive-engine
Of course it's possible to sell DEC, SPS and LEO on BSC, but the only place you can set limit orders for these tokens is on Hive-engine, which again requires you to hold on to your Hive!
HBD: the 10% stable-ish coin - and maybe more?
OK HBD IS NOT STABLE, but it's stable-ish and it's spent the last 6 weeks hovering around $0.96, and that 10% yield is tempting people in - me included, there is now $1.6 Million locked in HBD (source).
And when you earn in HBD, it doesn't feel like it matters that much that it's not $1 - If I can earn 10 HBD in November and that's worth $9.70, I'm happy enough if I can then cash it out for $9.70 in February, even $9.60 wouldn't be too bad....
IF HBD could be REALLY stable, that would encourage me to actually buy some rather than just hold it in savings!
PeerPlays DEX
There was also a recent announcement about a collaboration with PeerPlays giving Hive users access to a DEX, but I think this is forthcoming, still, more utility!
3SPEAK - DID SOMEBODY SAY AIRDROP?
There is also an airdrop coming from @threespeak in the not too distant future.... I don't know how big this is going to be, but it could encourage more people to lock up Hive for longer periods...I think it goes on for a year, starting in January 2022.
NB I'm sure I heard this January date announced somewhere in the last month, but I couldn't find reference to it on either @theycallmedan's account or the @threespeak account? Maybe I just heard it on a show or through the grapevine?!?
Anyways, I'm sure it's coming at some point!
Final Thoughts: Hive's Increasing Utility....
It's a nice feeling to have - I've NEVER before felt that it's so useful to hang on to my Hive - ironically (?) ATM it feels more useful to have liquid Hive, because of the pooling options, but once the Speak Network drop starts, I guess I'll Power some back up again.
Whatever I end up doing, it's nice to have several options.