Last I checked we should have RC pools operational on Hive by the end of the year. This is a big deal, and won't be a moment too soon. It will serve as the backbone of all on-chain operations, making it somewhat ironic that it only requires a soft-fork to implement (achieving backwards compatibility with any nodes that choose not to upgrade).
Why RCs are superior.
Hive is one of very few networks that turns their own bandwidth into a yield farm. This is a huge advantage over other networks for several reasons. The first of which is a kind of recycling of value.
What happens on Bitcoin or Ethereum?
You have a transaction: you pay for the transaction with the native token. This transaction is then stored for all time on the blockchain. Usually this is well worth the code to the end user.
However, on Hive all you need to transact is HivePower, which you probably had anyway because of all the other benefits like upvotes and governance representation. It's possible that Hive becomes very expensive should there be high demand to use the bandwidth on the main chain. Considering our current max block size I highly anticipate that exact scenario: it is unavoidable.
The point is on Hive bandwidth is currently a renewable resource, and even if Hive became so expensive that it was worth buying RCs directly, that situation wouldn't be any worse than what Bitcoin or Ethereum are already doing right now. We can only benefit from this maneuver over time, as the worst case scenario is still better than what a lot of other chains are doing right now.
Business demands bandwidth.
What happens when a gaming company builds on Ethereum thinking they have more than enough bandwidth to operate? Oops then Uniswap and DEFI comes along and destroy your entire business model; too bad, soo sad, time to pivot, if you can. The point here is that all devs on these networks are victims of a completely uncontrollable volatile cost of resources.
Hive is not like this at all, because if you build on Hive and you already have the stake to back it up, it won't matter if the price of gas (powered up Hive VESTS) goes up. You'll still farm the same number of RCs as those devs buying in behind you jack up the prices.
Hive is the only place where you can pretty much lock in your bandwidth and build here knowing for a fact that fees won't increase to the point of unprofitability.
RC Pools provide the ultimate increased separation of bandwidth and token. By being able to delegate our RCs to a pool that has permissioned users, it allows projects to scale here in a way that they just could not do in a lot of other places.
Even if Hive remains an extremely niche asset the value we generate here will continue progress exponentially. There's enough room in this digital landscape for everyone and everything. Hive doesn't need more than a couple million users to achieve great things. However, I expect to scale quite a bit higher than that if I'm being honest.
Synopsis:
- Allocating bandwidth as yield is a superior option, as even in the worst case scenario the person paying for bandwidth will get it much cheaper and the money goes to a stakeholder.
- Separating the Bandwidth resource (RC) from the Monetary resource (Hive) is a huge upgrade that allows us to create entire business models with a guarantee of future scalability.
- There are three benefits to powering up Hive.
- Allocating inflation (upvotes)
- Governance voting (witnesses and proposals)
- Bandwidth (Resource Credits)
- The Bandwidth part of this equation is grossly underestimated at the moment.
- RC pool tech could allow our entire network to be streamlined in a way that just can't be copied by most other chains.
- moon