Everyone has the chance to enter Web 3, but not everyone comes out the same way.
On Hive, we know centralized sites will try and break us. Bluesky mentions Steemit but not Hive. No one from web 2 is doing us any favors. We already know that they think we are specs of dust. We know they're coming at us; we know they're gonna throw everything they got at us. So this is how we beat it.
Withstand. Sustain. As times get tough, we rise up as a community and fix them because we know what we are working for is more significant than me and you, so we got to press forward, and we got to conquer it.
Everybody is good until they don't feel like it. When they don't feel like it, the actions and everything they said to go out of the window. I find it amazing how a person can say they want something; they can tell, I'm all in with you, let's ride. And then conditions and circumstances change, and the words they once spoke means nothing to them. I was taught to stay true to what you said you would stay true to, long after the mood you said it in has changed. Meaning on the days we said we don't feel like it; doing what we said we were gonna do, we are gonna step up and do it anyway because those are the days that build character.
I just want one thing from you all. I know you can code. I know you can market. I know you can build incredible communities. But not everyone has that same bite. When the price isn't moving, people don't have that same hunger when they move up. People have a light switch mentality. They turn it on and off depending on what the price is doing what other people are doing.
Character is everything. Who you are as a person will always be more important than who you are as an investor, as a developer, as an Hiver. Talent can only take you so far; consistency in character is what gets you through the hard times.
I never forget this time. I've seen people working their asses off during a cruel bear market. I remember clearly what happened with Justin Sun came here and offered to pump our bags. Any other community would have welcomed that with both hands.
When Justin Sun tried to centralize this chain, I saw a force rise up like I've never seen or felt before. I saw energy, the character of Hive. You can't fake who you are, and during the breaking point, colors are always revealed.
I remember the day people that once rode with us screamed, "it's over, it's over! Justin Sun has control of all of the top witnesses. We must make a deal and compromise to survive."
Justin Sun wanted to make a lot of us "rich." He said he would give us anything we wanted. We wanted exchanges. We could have exchanges. We wanted marketing. We could have unlimited marketing. We wanted liquidity. We could have the most liquid pools. We could have it all.
PREPARE FOR GLORY!
We did what no other chain has. We refused to be ignored. We took back the majority of the top witness slots and send a clear sound message that you don't fuck with us.
We were the shot heard clear around the world, and the implications of what we have set in motion won't be fully felt for years to come. We paved the way for others to break free if they are capable.
This community, after everything we have been through, would not give up. That isn't money-driven. Founders abandoned and our price in the dumps; no one outside even cared we existed before the hostile take over. That's not talent. That's essence. That's who we are. The Swarm gets hit with anything and keeps moving forward in the face of risk in the face of the unknown.
Some people show up for the bull run. When it's a person's essence, true Hivers will meet the challenge anytime, any day in the face of any adversity, price high or low, moral high or low, confidence always high.
I love crypto, coding, putting things down on paper in theory, and building fantastic game plans is cute. They can do it; they can run an ICO and raise billions, you can hire a great marketer and pay for great coding from developers. But when you boil it all down to what it is. Layer zero. Community. Me and you.
And if you are centralized already sitting on your fat token sale profits, that means you don't have more heart than us; if you haven't been working hard during the bear-like us, if you didnt sacrifice more than us, we will overcome any adversity. We are not retreating, we are not running, we don't care what the market cap says on paper. We don't care how many exchanges. We don't care how many resources. We live and die by this; every person must search their own soul.
You don't judge a person where they stand in times of comfort and convenience. You judge them where they stand in times of challenge and controversy. When you work for something, it gives you a different type of attachment to it. The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender. That's why people can give up so quickly. They don't have anything invested. They didn't work for it; they didnt sacrifice for it. Every time it gets tough, they go turn to look for something else.
But when someone has been working for something and been building for something, it will be a cold day in hell before taking it from them because they value it differently. Even if we hit a few bumps, it's okay. It's a part of the process of growing.
Trust the process, love the process, respect the process. Nothing will supersede it.
People don't burn out because of what they do. People burn out because life makes people forget why they do it. Opposition, adversity, challenge, never forget why you do what you do. I'm not talking about money. I'm talking about what you stand for.
A remix of the great speech from Inky Johnson: 