If you are looking for an interesting read and want to learn more about the Hive blockchain, here is a great learning experience post you can have a look by @kennyskitchen talking about the @hbd.funder account getting lots of votes.
Now in order to learn, read the post and then forget that nonsense and move into read the comments section, and pay attention to what @blocktrades and @smooth are talking about. Also, you might want to pay attention to what the people who are "against downvotes" are saying too, as most of them seem to have close to zero idea about how the blockchain works at any level.
There is a lot there to read, but it is worth it if you are looking to learn and, are interested in how the future of Hive is going to look.
I have been meaning to write a post about the Hive Development Fund for ages, but never seem to get around to it. However, in short if you don't know, it is a fund where staked members of the community are able to vote on proposals for various activities. There is a mass of HIVE there that is earmarked for development and when a proposal is "approved" by reaching a voting threshold, it start receiving daily payments to cover various costs of a project, whatever those may be. You can have a look at them here: https://peakd.com/me/proposals
Now, obviously the larger the stake, the more the say, as remember, stake is your voice and you can use this as you choose. For example, the stake that Kenny "controls" is delegated from @jamesc, who is largely inactive on Hive by the looks these days, but he is using his voice through that delegation to support who and how he chooses. Kenny himself holds about 3000 HP and is powering down - he is using his stake as he chooses too - largely by not having much, though he has been on Hive (Steem) since mid-2016.
But, tis isn't Steem, we actually have that development fund to develop stuff now and in the future and I think it is going to be one of those critical points that attracts application project talent and supports them to grow into and onto Hive. The higher the price of HIVE goes, the more that fund is worth and therefore can support.
However, most people focus on what they get as rewards, not what happens with the development of the blockchain they get it from. This is quite apparent when looking at the comment sections and the people who are worried about downvotes "destroying Hive" - because they are people who are getting downvoted. Yes, downvotes are destroying Hive, *in their opinion, as they aren't earning on what they are posting - which is all they focus upon.
This of course gets framed as a "loss of freedom of speech" but this actually isn't the case. In fact, after several years of saying they could, I think some of them have built an interface with no downvotes and a second-layer token through Hive-Engine - no one stopped them from building all of this on Hive - their freedoms are intact, as are all the words that they have ever submitted to this blockchain - and the one that came before it.
This is what the future of Hive looks like - communities building what is suitable for them on the blockchain and no one is going to stop them from doing this, however, this doesn't mean the base-layer token that secures the blockchain and is one of the core value mechanisms for providing that security, need be jeopardized. Second-layer tokens are the future but many people do not want to "give up their easy HIVE" as earnings, which is natural. However, since stake is our governance voice on Hive and part of the governance is in the distribution of the token itself, this is going to be contested in many ways.
So, what this means is that just like all the tokens that Splinterlands and uses, as well as the LEO token and others, in order for them to have value, projects are going to have to add value one way or another, which means creating a demand for the token. The problem is, when there is more volume being sold than bought, the price of the token goes down. With a lot of this particular group, they just don't have the interest from buyers who are willing to hold, and many of them have sold what they have earned in other tokens consistently already, which is why they have no stake, not because of downvotes.
It is a hard thing to build a business and this is what has to happen in the blockchain and crypto industry in order for real value to be generated through actual activity, not just speculation on the future. The Hive Development Fund gives the Hive community a "kitty" to use to support all kinds of things and what should actually bode well is, at least some of the people with stake are pretty knowledgeable and bullish.
I am always bullish to a fault on Hive... but this makes me more so:
People look at that hbd.stabilizer payout and think "that could be mine" to some degree (don't believe it when they say - "it could go to real content creators" as they mean themselves), without having any clue as to where it is actually going, or what it is going to do. Perhaps if they spent some time actually learning about how the Hive blockchain works instead of complaining about downvotes, they would feel a little bullish themselves and realize, there is more to this than what they think there is.
But, most won't, because that is human nature too. People are only interested in the immediate gains they can get, not what they could get, especially if there is no clear timeline on when those gains might be realized. I am sure that many people were selling their HIVE at 11 cents at the start of the year and even if it went to 20 and they sold and then returned to 11 cents, they wouldn't be the ones buying back. I will be though - My plan is to whale up on stake, picking up what people don't want so that when that development slush fund has an effect, I am here staked with a place to play, write and be part of a community I value and, has value.
Five years I have been here in January - I am still learning.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]