The latest Hive Core Dev Meeting was pretty interesting, and not because major releases were announced, that was last week or the one before.
This time there are at least two points of discussion that draw my attention.
Hive Scaling
The first one, which I noticed @taskmaster4450 wrote about as well, is the tests done by the Blocktrades team on HAF regarding its ability to remain synced at a much higher block size.
The block size of Hive is 64 KB, and it's more than enough for the activity we have on the chain now. I remember at some point there were some discussions on the previous chain to increase the block size to 128 KB, but the decision was against it, for good reason, because it wasn't necessary, and time proved it.
Since then, HiveD was tested with a block size of 2 MB (roughly 30x the current size) and passed, mentioned Blocktrades in this month's Hive Core Dev meeting.
But they didn't know if HAF would support such a block size, so they tested it now. And it passed too.
Basically, from the block size perspective, Hive can handle 30x in activity (even more since our blocks aren't filled right now), without a problem. Of course, that's one of the factors that matter for scaling, but we know scaling is a major focus of the Blocktrades team.
Backend Work for Potential CEX Listings
I don't like CEXes. I know many of us on Hive don't. And I understand that they can potentially harm Hive, even if not directly in a coordinated attack, as Binance and others did on the previous chain. They did it before, and they will again if that suits them.
But I am realistic enough to say CEXes are the best route for onboarding new users (especially as investors) from outside the crypto space, which is very important for a social blockchain and ecosystem.
How do you bring fiat into the crypto space, other than peer-to-peer? Mainly through major CEXes, which also represent on-ramps from fiat.
Now, if you can buy HIVE directly with fiat on such an exchange, or even if they can load fiat and then buy HIVE on the same exchange, and then send it to their username on Hive, it's much easier than any DEX solution I know. And easier to explain to someone who comes from outside crypto. Tell me I am wrong!
Well, it looks like we keep trying to get Hive on various CEXes... By we I mean @crimsonclad... 😅
She got some feedback from Coinbase, for example, that before we talk with them about a listing we need something integrated. Currently, @howo is working on integrating Rosetta with Hive, which is a prerequisite to even begin discussions of listing HIVE on Coinbase. This integration may help listings on other exchanges, where this is a requirement.
What we should be aware of is that things don't stop at listings, if we get them. We need liquidity and transaction volume. Without a regular transaction volume, most listings are lost after a while. No CEX will keep a pair that doesn't bring them any revenue. If you are involved in the Splinterlands ecosystem, you know of the repeated and tweaked proposals to hire (and extend the contract of) a market maker for (in the final version) ALL SPS listings. Without a market maker, there is generally insignificant volume, and the risk of delisting for this reason alone grows.
Otherwise, I am very happy with our focus on improving our DEX listings and bridges to other ecosystems. That makes us less dependent on CEXes and more resilient in case of potential delistings from CEXes. As someone who is already on Hive and who is/was worried more about not remaining isolated rather than finding a way in, DEXes are perfect for me. But for newcomers to crypto, probably CEXes are still the easier way.