The News

After the recent price spike $HIVE settled at a slightly higher level than before, but has now dropped a little. That will be disappointing for many, but it shows that we have to keep publicising this blockchain if we want it to succeed.

On that topic there has been more discussion about the branding and marketing of Hive. @demotruk has created a proposal about rebranding. It is for a token amount, but it is about gauging interest. The fact is that the name Hive is used by many companies and projects, including a crypto mining company. As he has said you could easily search for the old chain, but if you put Hive on its own into any search engine you will not find your way here. I get that the community had to react rapidly to the fork, but after several years it is obvious that the name is not great.

I was wondering if we could use some variation of the name. I searched for 'hivecoin' and got results on Google. I am not sure if that is related to my browsing history, but perhaps if we could get people looking for something more unique then they would find us.

I have mentioned 'hive.io' to people as that will at least get them to the project home page. @iamkaye points out out that the site is lacking in SEO (search engine optimisation). That is an art and may be trickier now that people rely on 'AI' tools to find things.

@jza also wondered about if we have any marketers. There are people here who want to improve matters, but they need to work together and there may not be any money in it initially unless they can get proposal funding.

The fact is that Hive has not grown as much as it really should and there will be various factors involved. One is that you need people to be able to find it and then get signed up. At the moment it is hard to research as it can be hard to find news unless you search for things like 'hive social blockchain' (not Hive Social as that is something else). Hive can be confusing with the various front ends, but then they do not always make it obvious what the back end is. I know some say that people should join for specific dapps, but they ought to know what else is available. We had that issue with Splinterlands where many thousands joined, but hardly any looked at blogging or even other games. That was a lost opportunity.

It can be a frustrating experience to be part of Hive, but I still believe in it. What do you think of our situation?

Friday Follows

• @keychain are adding new ways to create accounts using other cryptocurrencies.
• @sportsblock are getting into the predictions market
• @asgarth from @peakd posted about more updates, including something for the meme fans.
• @killerwot is posting chapters of a science fiction story.

The Dog House

I have posted many times about the dangers of being scammed. With any sort of cryptocurrency if you give away your keys then you no longer control your wallet. @friendlymoose encountered some such scammers on Discord. I have seen this too where they pretend to be some sort of official support who will try to divert you to a different channel and get you to expose your keys. Do not fall for it.

The End

I am getting close to ten years on this blockchain and I have seen a lot. I came here hoping to earn something, but after all this time I am not so worried about that for myself as I am fortunate to not be desperate for money. Although my posts make something it is barely enough to keep me in coffee. If it eventually 'moons' then that is great, but in the meantime I am having fun with the community and hope I can help out others. I think a fair few of the 'old guard' have a similar attitude. There is nothing else quite like Hive and it offers lots of opportunities to socialise and to build cool things. It will never be perfect, but then nothing is and I focus on the positive.

The man behind:

@tenkminnows: Helping good Hivers level up @proofofbrian: A bot that checks for tag typos #BritList: A monthly list of Hivers in the UK