If you are into NFT and blockchain gaming, you have probably heard about Splinterlands. It is one of the oldest trading card game running on the Hive blockchain. Since Hive is not as widely known as Ethereum, EOS or Wax, I wanted to make a short introduction to one of the most original NFT blockchains.

What is Hive blockchain?

From a technical point of view, Hive is a fork of Steemit (2020). Created in 2016 by Dan Larimer, Steemit was a social media website rewarding its users with STEEM, a cryptocurrency. Steemit and its parent company had a hard time surviving the 2018 crypto market crash and were bought by Justin Sun, a blockchain billionaire, in 2020. A big part of the Steem community refused that acquisation and chose to fork the chain, giving birth to Hive.

Hive has interesting features: the chain offers fast and fee-less transactions, has built-in social features (blogging, content curation, reputation system) and has implemented original funtionalities, like a riskless NFT rental system or a native stablecoin.

Hive and the Hive token

The native token of the Hive blockchain is named without surprise HIVE. Hive uses a DPoS system, requiring you to stake some HIVE tokens to perform actions on the chain. Stakers also earn around 3.5% APY on their staked HIVE.

Hive has also a second native token: the Hive Dollar (HBD), pegged to $1. It can be minted on demand on most wallets by locking enough HIVE.

Even if HIVE and HBD are second rank tokens based on their market capitalizations, they enjoy a strong support from exchanges and are listed on Bittrex (HBD and HIVE), Binance or Huobi (HIVE only).

Getting started on Hive

Discovering Hive can be unsettling, even for seasoned blockchain users. It's mostly because Hive is a social blockchain: you go there mostly to interact with people and not just make transactions. I'll guide you through three important steps: creating an account, getting HIVE tokens and using the blockchain.

Creating an account

An Hive account is mostly an identity: you have a human-readable username and use it to create and/or curate content. The account creation process is not as straightforward as it can be on other chains.

The simplest way to create an account is to use a third-party website like peakd. It will need a mail address and a phone number to create your account. After that, you will have an username (mine is @mann0000) that can be used to receive HIVE tokens.

Another option is to buy a Splinterlands spellbook for $10. It will create you an account automatically but also delegate you enough Hive power to perform all your transactions without having to own HIVE tokens. The spellbook is also a mandatory purchase if you want to play Splinterlands, by far the biggest dapp on Hive. One stone, two birds!

Getting HIVE tokens

Once you have created your account, you can receive HIVE tokens or any Hive assets by giving your username. The fastest way to get HIVE is to buy them on an exchange, then make a withdrawal.

Some exchanges may ask you for a memo. It's a text shown on transactions. They aren't important for withdrawals and you can write whatever you want.

Storing and using HIVE securely

That part is the hardest and the most important. Your Hive account is made of six components:

• Your Account Name: it's your public identity and is used to receive transactions. It can be shared freely.
• The Master Password is your most valuable credential. It "contains" all your keys and must never be shared. Giving away your master password means giving away access to your account.
• Your Owner Key is a the most priviledged key and is able to perform all actions on Hive. Like the Master Password, it must not be shared.
• The Active Key, Posting Key and Memo Key are keys with less priviledges and are sometimes needed to perform specific actions on dapps. Selling and sending cards on Splinterlands require for instance the Active Key but playing is done with the Posting Key alone. You can for instance share the Posting Key with a trusted person to allow him/her to just play the game without compromising your cards.

The next important part is choosing a secure way to authenticate on Hive dapps:

• The most convenient and less secure authentication method is to paste your credentials directly on the website. Storing your credentials on a password manager like Keepass adds an extra layer of security.
• A good security/convenience arbitrage is to install Hive Keychain. It's a browser plugin storing your credentials like MetaMask and asking you to sign transactions when needed. Hive Keychain also integrates advanced features like staking, voting and HBD conversion. If you use Hive daily, it's the most convenient option. There are however alternatives and even mobile solutions here, feel free to try 2 or 3 of them before making your choice!
• In crypto, one of the most secured storage option is using an hardware wallet. There is a Ledger application for Hive. While this option is relevant for long term and passive storage, using it for day-to-day operations is really time-consuming: an active hour on Hive can involve signing dozens of transactions and validating them on a Ledger can add easily 10-20 seconds per transaction. Act accordingly!

Useful sites I'd loved to know earlier

Hive has a small but vibrant ecosystem with dozens of applications and games popping here and there. I won't try to make a complete list of them, but give you some insights to maximise your experience there.

• Peakd is at first glance a blogging website. It is in fact the cornerstone of Hive: it allows you to create a wallet and integrates all utilities you need to stake, transfer tokens, make HBD and more. Don't forget that HIVE is mostly a social token and everything happening on the chain ends up on Peakd.
• Hiveblocks is one of the most detailed blocks explorer. It will give you useful stats on your account and is a must-have for troubleshooting or understanding transactions.
• Hive Engine is the biggest exchange on Hive. The interface may look cumbersome but the exchange supports a lot of more or less exotic cryptoassets and Hive tokens.
• NFT Showroom is an art NFT marketplace, with awesome creation and curation features.
• Last but not least, Hive.io is the chain official website.

Feel free to comment or share your own tips!