There are blockchains that spend hundreds of millions of dollars per year to help developers. This type of (mostly VC) money is what HIVE has to compete with. Decentralization or other philosophical argument means very little to a developer when there is money to feed them is in question. When is the last time HIVE had a hackathon? I have brought up the idea before and none of the Whales seem to care for this type of initiatives.
HIVE reminds me of Linux and open source in many ways. There are too many elitist who are against doing the things that will help the regular users + DAPPs. When some Linux Distros started catering to regular users, these Distros managed to get high adoption. Software such Blender have become industry favorites while GIMP has such a bad UI/UX, I would rather stick with closed sourced web apps.
Better Alternative to Hackathon
I have been talking about hackathons because they are a common part of the industry. I get Brave ads and occasional ads about these events that grant money to those who develop good DAPPs on these platforms. For an entrepreneur facing a high risk with little job security and a rapidly shrinking runway, these funding sources remain incredibly attractive. On the other hand, HIVE has mostly been actively hostile against funding most projects and expect developers to bootstrap and remain independently sustainable.
What you are looking at is the answer to one of the biggest concerns a Whale would have about funding DAPPs with DHF. Products of hackathons have a longevity problem. The DAPPs developed at these events or funded by these ecosystem development funds are mainly built to create short term impressions and results. These DAPPs may even be easily forgotten.
Are You Old Enough to Remember CryptoKitties?
There was a time CryptoKitties made Ethereum almost unusable by being the cause of many transactions. The amount of $ETH that was spent on CryptoKitties transactions may even exceed the current marketcap of $HIVE. The project fell down almost as soon as it rose to prominence. Funding a short term fad with DHF is a serious and valid concern. Many of the big projects end up being kings for merely one bull market.
The Best Funded Game in Cryptosphere
Axie Infinity is the biggest Web 3 game with massive brand awareness, VC interest, social media presence and every other thing that could help a project financially and at marketing. In terms of Daily Active Users, Axie Infinity is only at 15th place. I looked through few currently popular games on Google Trends.
Compared to Axie Infinity, other games barely manage to register in terms of search volume. I encourage readers to go to these websites and do your own research with parameters you are interested in. User activity and market prices are not strongly correlated.
LEO Referrals Have Great Incentives
Users come to use the DAPPs. An organic userbase is better than having a group of fickle investors and short term traders. DHF should fund users that bring in users + investment. A milestone based funding system is better than hackathons or development funds.
DAPPs can be funded based on several metrics. A combined algorithm that consider;
- New users onboarded
- Daily/Monthly Active Users
- HIVE Power held by users
- User participation in HIVE social media activities
It will be extremely difficult to "game" a reward system that is focused on multiple metrics mostly geared towards long term results. LEO Referral system encourage users to help the new users they brought in to become active and spend money.
Rewards That Does Not Deplete
@gadrian shared details about this simple web app created by @yabapmatt and currently maintained by @nuthman. HIVE Power in an account keeps going up due to staking rewards + curation rewards. It is possible to have make over 12% APR for a HIVE account. There are projects such as @holozing that instead of raising funds through a Presale; ask investors to delegate HIVE Power.
Flywheel of Blockchain Social Media + HBD Rewards
Take a look at an account like @risingstargame that vote for posting on HIVE about their game. Some DAPPs such as @splinterlands mainly focus on promotions done outside of HIVE. I had lost the appetite for traditional social media even before I started on STEEM in 2017. I think it should be upto the DAPP developers to decide how to use their votes.
I like what @valueplan is doing outside of HIVE to bring awareness. We could use a custodial managed account (with some stake based polls) to support new DAPPs with HP delegations and later $HBD rewards for reaching various milestones.
Most DAPPs Didn't Receive DHF Funding
The two games I interact with the most are @splinterlands (6+ years on HIVE with over 1.8 million HIVE burned) and @risingstargame (nearly 5 years of continuous developments as a idle game + Music NFT). They have both asked funding from DHF and were rejected.
What I suggest is a system of rewarding milestones after they were achieved. There will be no need to make a bet on the futures regarding some promises. Most of the DHF funding could be used for HP delegations and be burned if the project ever shuts down.
200X Bigger Than CryptoKitties
These statistics are presented by @sentipl. Read his blog for more in depth knowledge. As for the chart, the drop is only around 5.5% active players over four weeks. It may look worse because the chart has been cropped in. At full scale, the line will be mostly sideways. This is one of many sleeper hits on HIVE that is putting one of the biggest DAPPs from few years ago to shame while being bootstrapped.
Imagine what they could do with a little bit more support after proving their abilities. Imagine more developers trying to hard to make HIVE grow to earn some HP + HBD. Imagine those developers pushing users to post on HIVE few times a month. It could be one of the best things to happen to HIVE. DHF will only have to spend a tiny fraction of its funds.