Trends tend to have origins that can be followed and tracked by those with the right tools with eyes in the right places. Once we start tracking few specific spots, it becomes easier to get insights on how the trend is being transmitted. $BTC has been a cannery in the coal mine with Ethereum following along. Then we have the Top 100 cryptocurrency where HIVE used to be a part of. Even among the Top 100, there are the "Blue Chip" projects such as Cardano, Solana, Uniswap, Hedera, Polkadot etc. After that we can have various popular DAPPs and finally in the fringes we have games like Rising Star and eventually we get to the newly launched memecoins of various sorts.
The Flow of Funds (Investments)
I don't like the fact that BTC is leading everything. I have compared it to dial up internet. It is great to have a massive movement started because of it. Yet technologically, BTC is not good at all. @dashpay lives upto the mantle of "A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System" far better than BTC. That does not matter as much when it is the most famous cryptocurrency with massive brand awareness. $BTC $ETH and only a few others have ETFs for easy investments. If you want to buy a lesser know cryptocurrency like STARPRO with a credit card, the infrastructure is just not there. One of the shortest paths is HIVE-Engine.
If we can get an investor to purchase one of the supported cryptocurrencies, it is possible have it bridged to HIVE-Engine and use it to swap for any of the other Tokens we have built on top of HIVE. The challenge is teaching these investors about self custody and using wallets. All of this is second nature to us. We are likely in cryptosphere because we have a high aptitude for learning these concepts and tools. We cannot say the same about the normies.
Few of The Supported Assets
This process of onboarding users to even a reputable game withe nearly 5 years of experience like @risingstargame is very difficult. The user needs to be familiar with Keychain to manage assets on HIVE and have another wallet such as Ctrl Wallet (or a CEX account) for their other cryptocurrencies. This is more difficult than telling them to use a credit card or buy some ETF on the brokerage account they already have. Once they have owned some custodial cryptocurrency, we can then begin to teach them about DEXs such as LeoDEX or @v4v.app.
We Built; But They Cannot Come
The typical Web 2 game on smartphone or PC has easy ways of accepting customer's money. They have to go through a 30% for the store and another set of processing fees for the TradFi bankers. The developers can more than make up for it due to the increased amount of purchases. Unfortunately we had to face the Operation Chokepoint 2.0 and many other pushbacks.
There are two ways out of this situation.
- Ability to easily buy Tokens and NFTs with credit cards, PayPal etc.
- Having a large number of users and wealth in cryptocurrencies mentioned above.
LEO Merchants Could Be A Game Changer
The project is still under development. Currently the team is focused on LeoDEX and bringing in more revenue. The ultimate form of LEO Merchants is cross chain non custodial swaps between HIVE assets with what is listed on THORChain, @mayaprotocol, Chainflip and Rango. The goal is to make one click swaps from one blockchain to another with minimal hassle for the user.
Do Not Forget Altera
@vsc.network is currently testing their flagship DeFi DAPP that connect many blockchains with a single wallet with a smooth and easy user experience. These projects can make the games far more accessible and onboard millions of users to HIVE. I'm wishing them the absolute best! We need to get as much investment as possible to HIVE from traditional finance (withe $BTC $ETH $SOL acting as intermediaries).
Search Engine + "AI" Responses are Great
People are increasingly reliant on LLMs and top search results. When they search for @risingstargame, they are going to get a very positive response thank to all the work we have done as a community to promote the game. Whenever we publish anything on HIVE, the content appears through many front ends (websites). Make sure to add some backlinks and we can work on our Search Engine Optimization.
1,000 True Fans
@sentipl publish weekly statistics for Rising Star and I have been following them for almost an year. Despite all the bad things we faced through a very difficult bear market, Rising Star has players coming to engage regularly. Following is the chart from May 12th.
The following is from January 6th. There is a slow loss of players. We may not see a difference without a strong a Altseason. Even with that, we are going to need to help players easily get their funds from EVM, Solana, BTC etc. to HIVE.
Think from the point of view of a newcomer to cryptocurrency and help them help you with their funds. That will lead to better market conditions and prosperity to the games and the base layer we are built on.