New: Vouch and Sponsor — Help More New Users Enter the Lottery

Many legitimate new users arrive on Hive through service accounts like @hiveonboard or @ecency rather than directly from a trusted onboarder. Until now, the system had no way to include them in the lottery.

Today's update adds two new tools that anyone in the trust network can use — no special apps needed, just a comment on a new user's introduction post.

Vouch

If you know who onboarded a new user but their on-chain account creator is a service account, you can attest who really brought them to Hive:

!vouch @realcreator

Comment this on the new user's introduceyourself post. The system will credit the attested creator for trust scoring and beneficiary rewards. The voucher receives nothing — you're a witness, not a claimant.

Example: A new user was created by @hiveonboard, but you know @alice invited them. Comment !vouch @alice on their intro post. If @alice is in the trust graph, the newbie becomes eligible.

Sponsor

If a new user has no trusted onboarder at all — and nobody can identify who brought them to Hive — but you believe they're a real person worth supporting:

!sponsor

Comment this on their introduceyourself post. You're claiming responsibility for that account: putting your reputation behind them. As a sponsor, you receive the onboarder's share of the beneficiary rewards (25%).

Sponsoring requires a higher trust score than vouching, because it's a weaker claim — there's no verifiable onboarding relationship, just your judgment.

Rules

• Vouch takes precedence over sponsor. If someone vouches for the real onboarder, that overrides any sponsorship.
• One action per person per newbie. You can either vouch or sponsor on a given intro post, not both.
• The newbie still needs a qualifying intro post — tagged introduceyourself, with an image, at least 24 hours old, and upvoted by a trust participant.

Other Changes

• No more empty posts. The bot will no longer post on days when there are zero eligible newbies. Posts only appear when there's someone to support.
• Duplicate fix. A bug that allowed the same newbie to appear as a beneficiary on multiple days has been fixed.

How You Can Help Right Now

1. Browse recent introduceyourself posts
2. If you see a legitimate new user, upvote their intro post and leave a !vouch @creator or !sponsor comment
3. Upvote this post and its comments to fund the lottery

The Swarm Post distributes author rewards to newly onboarded Hive users, selected via a trust-weighted lottery with verifiable randomness.

Today's Pool

How It Works

• 10 lottery rounds at fixed times: 00:00, 02:24, 04:48, 07:12, 09:36, 12:00, 14:24, 16:48, 19:12, 21:36 UTC
• Round 1 is this post. Rounds 2–10 are posted as comments below.
• Each round selects 1 newbie as beneficiary alongside their onboarder(s)
• Selection is weighted by onboarder trust and newbie activity
• Randomness sourced from the Bitcoin block at each round's scheduled time (not posting time)
• This means the operator cannot influence outcomes by delaying a post
• Full documentation

How to Help New Users Enter the Lottery

If you're part of the trust network, you can help new Hive users become eligible for the lottery:

Vouch — If you know who onboarded a new user but their on-chain creator is a service account (like @hiveonboard), comment on their introduction post:

!vouch @realcreator

This tells the system who really brought them to Hive. The attested creator receives the onboarder's share of the rewards.

Sponsor — If a new user has no trusted onboarder at all but you believe they are a real person worth supporting, comment on their introduction post:

!sponsor

This makes you responsible for that account. You receive the onboarder's share of the rewards. Sponsoring requires a higher trust score than vouching.

Support

Upvote this post and its comments to fund new Hive users. Your vote weight counts toward the trust graph.

Round 1 — Selected Newbies

@tessyy

• Creator: @samostically
• Onboarder trust: 172987.90
• Activity weight: 1.0000
• Score: 172987.9048

Beneficiaries

Account	Share
@samostically	50.0%
@tessyy	50.0%

Verification

• Scheduled time: 2026-05-05T00:00:00.000Z
• Bitcoin block: height 947943, hash 0000000000000000000029656f1072709b033a9886cc25f28988041f09eb4131
• Block selection rule: latest BTC block at or before the scheduled time
• Seed: SHA256("0000000000000000000029656f1072709b033a9886cc25f28988041f09eb4131hive-swarm-post2026-05-051")
• Result: 2082e6b4e1689d3cbebd25960143877bcfb640608f1a708dabf93c021a160d6b

The block used for randomness is determined by the round's scheduled time, not the actual posting time. This prevents the operator from influencing the outcome by delaying the post. Anyone can independently verify this selection by looking up the BTC block at the scheduled timestamp.

Posted by @swarmpost — source code