People would say Bitcoin is the most secure blockchain in the world. Hmm, maybe. They certainly tried to keep it as secure as possible over time, from the technical and node distribution standpoint (that didn't prevent pooling).
But where I think they excel more than in security is in their connections. Bitcoin, native or wrapped, is connected to everything in the cryptosphere and is often an onramp and offramp to fiat. While I think there is a chance a different blockchain more secure than Bitcoin is or will be out there, one as connected as it is is very unlikely to grow. That is its strength, and they should take great care of it.
Bitcoin runs on a POW protocol. While this protocol has been attacked for its energy consumption needs, its proponents think of it as the most decentralized one. If mining pools didn't exist, I would agree.
At the same time, bitcoiners often look down upon protocols such as POS and DPOS because they are prone to centralization. In many cases, I believe they have a point. But that's often the case due to a poor distribution of the governance token, either from the start or in time.
Hive works on a DPOS protocol, as many know. The 20 top witnesses + 1 rotating backup witness produce all blocks for the chain. Moreover, top witnesses make decisions regarding some parameters of the chain, keep the price feed, or decide if or when to fork. In some cases, a simple majority is enough, in others (like forking) a supermajority is needed. In other cases, a median between top witness parameters is taken into consideration.
I believe Hive has a relatively balanced distribution of the governance token, especially compared to other blockchains. Could be improved, obviously, and that's an ongoing effort, but it's not bad.
When we talk about blockchain security, we often refer to the base layer of the blockchain, or layer 1. That's where security is the tightest. Layer 2s sometimes have elements of security of their own, other times they rely entirely on the security of the base layer.
For bitcoin, the mainnet is layer 1. The Lightning Network is layer 2. I don't know enough about LN, but from the stories @brianoflondon shared, I wouldn't keep some bitcoin on a LN node if you gave it to me for free.
For Hive, the base layer holds the account management system, HIVE and HBD accounts and transactions, and the blogging logic, plus custom JSONs. For now, most other tokens are on Hive-Engine, which is a sidechain (different than layer 2). A sidechain has its own rules but uses the same mainnet as layer 1. In our case, Hive-Engine uses Hive as a database for its Custom_JSONs but has its own rules.
What many started to remark even from our break away from the old chain is that we also have another layer on Hive, more powerful than Layer 1.
According to rules of the layer 1, JS with the help of friendly exchanges would have won the conflict on st**m, and nothing could have been done. We would all still be there or stop using the chain.
Without the power of the community, Hive would have been a failed fork. If no one or few had followed the people who resisted the takeover, we wouldn't have talked about Hive today, most likely.
So, the community is stronger than layer 1. It was also called layer 0, because of that.
In the crypto space, we started to hear these words years ago: "code is law".
Here's a clear example where code is not law. The community decided that the law by code was wrong, and left. And so, the code law was made irrelevant.
As a former programmer myself, I kind of liked the idea of "code is law" for a while.
But... AI is code. Should the AIs make our laws? Not that we make perfect laws, as humans... In fact, many of them are pretty crappy. Just a point of reflection.
What I like even better is the idea of the community as Layer 0. We have proven the ability of great cohesion against what was perceived as an external threat.
I also believe because of our track record and the proven power of Layer 0, unpopular decisions are not taken lightly on Hive. This can be a good thing in some cases and a bad one in others. But... we all learn as we "grow".