Week through Adrian's Lenses (18-24 May 2024)

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This is the #72nd edition of the "Week through Adrian's Lenses" weekly Hive and crypto news roundup.

Let's see what we have for this week. We cover:

Hive

  • HiveFest
  • Lite HiveD Nodes
  • Peak Open Projects / Polls
  • Hive Newcomers Experience
  • Propolis Wiki
  • Splinterlands
  • HiveCuba x2
  • Class Action

Crypto

  • Ethereum ETFs Approval (not!)
  • Bitcoin Pizza Day

Week on Hive

11 of 27 tracked posts made it to this week's issue of the "Week on Hive" roundup.

In the Spotlight

HiveFest Update: First Speakers, Hotel Recommendations, Tickets

After finding out the location (Split, Croatia) and period (10-15 September) not so long ago, this week a new announcement from the Hivefest account introduced the first confirmed key speakers at the event (howo, arcange, blocktrades, theycallmedan, starkerz, vaultec, techcoderx, and stoodkev), as well as present hotel recommendations, and announce that purchases for tickets to Hivefest 2024 are open.

The regular price of the ticket is 299 HBD, which can be subsidized for lucky plankton and minnow users who cannot afford it but want to participate, and with the option to overpay to cover such subsidies.

Governance / Development / Dapps

Cheaper Nodes For Services with Split Block Logs

One feature I didn't expect on Hive for the time being, but here it comes very close to being released: split block logs, which would allow lite HiveD nodes.

HiveD nodes would have the option to hold the full blockchain as one file (as it is now), or hold a minimum specified number of blocks from the end, split in 1-million-blocks log parts, except the last one, which would contain the remaining blocks to the head.

That accomplishes multiple things:

On one end, HiveD nodes don't need to hold the full blockchain. This is a good and potentially a bad thing, too. The good part is it reduces storage costs for those who choose this option. Particularly useful for services and maybe some smaller apps. And if services start running their own lite HiveD nodes, that reduces pressure on public API nodes. The potential bad thing is it can add another centralization risk, especially if many choose this option, relying on fewer providers of the full blockchain.

On the other end, another benefit of the split logs is that only the last ("top", as Dan calls it) split log file is both read and written to. The rest of them are read-only. I'm not an expert in taking care of the health of SSDs on the long term, but my logic says this is a good idea, even if someone holds the entire blockchain as split logs instead of one file.

For full details, read the development updates from Blocktrades.

Review of the Peak Open Projects

In the eve of a maintenance proposal, Peak Open presented the 10+ projects under its umbrella.

Among them, the Polls protocol was recently upgraded to support multiple choices and results by HP. Also to have the option to only show results after one votes.

Some Ideas to Simplify Hive Front Ends

@lordbutterfly provided some ideas on how to simplify Hive front ends. I believe changing the name of HBD would be counterproductive, despite being probably a good idea to have "USD" in the name for "mass adoption", but otherwise, many great suggestions others probably thought of in time but didn't verbalize them. First step was made: feedback! Now the hard parts... decisions, changes.

Earn HBD as an Editor of Propolis Wiki

25 HBD for the 'edit of the week' and 50 HBD for the 'editor of the month' are for grabs on Propolis Wiki. Not guaranteed rewards, however, pretty good chances to win? Here are the details.

Games

Matt's Alternative Solution to Address Bot Farms in Wild

Matt presented an alternative solution to address bot farms in the Wild format, as a SPS draft proposal, to assess what the community (stakeholders) feel about it, although he mentioned this is not related to SPS and could (and still can) implement them discretionary.

The proposal involve changes to the Wild format that would:

  • double the SPS stake needed to maintain the same reward multiplier
  • introduce a Wild Season Permit that would be required to be purchased every season to play in Wild; the permit would cost cost 2000 DEC/DEC-B or 40 VOUCHER tokens (all burned), and needs to be purchased every season

Matt hopes that if bot farms would stop playing, the SPS rewards would increase in Wild, thus this cost wouldn't be overburdening.

Matt said in this proposal it will be on the agenda of the town hall, but I haven't had time to listen to it.

Meetings / Events / Communities

Hive Cuba Open Sourced Their Peer-to-Peer HBD <-> FIAT Bot

@HiveCuba community has a Telegram bot to transfer P2P HBD to Cuban Peso and back (without KYC, obviously). They open sourced it.

Hive Cuba Presenting Hive to Computer Science Students

Hive Cuba again, talked about blockchain (through @manuphotos, from the photos) and presented Hive to about 100 students from the Faculty of Informatics of the CUJAE University in Havana. He mentioned SPK Network and VSC Network. Looks like other faculties of the university might show interest after this conference.

Settlement Offers from Meta and Google in the Class Action Lawsuit

For members of the class action against Google and Meta (started during the legacy chain time, if I remember correctly), this may be of interest. Basically, both giants offered to not seek to recover their court expenses from Andrew Hamilton and his firm, if everything closes here. The settlement offer is: they don't admit to anything and don't pay anything. The alternative may be... expensive.

Week in the Crypto World

Ethereum ETFs Were Approved... And Not!

To be honest, I find this sort of a trick. But I am surprisingly ok with it because it's too soon to have a strong (and long) uptrend.

So, what was the trick? The SEC was forced to take a decision yesterday regarding filings for exchange listings of spot ETFs based on Ether. And it approved them, on Nasdaq, CBOE and NYSE.

What it didn't approve yet, was any spot Ethereum ETFs. Sounds complicated? Well, the SEC approved their tickers on exchanges, but it didn't approve the actual funds ("ETF registration statements detailing investor disclosures")... So they can't start trading yet.

Unlike exchange listings, these approvals don't have a deadline. But given the signal that was given, I don't imagine the SEC will drag this process much longer. I'd prefer something like mid-end September for market timing reasons, but I think next month (June) they'll be approved.

This is a very good article explaining everything.

Bitcoin Pizza Day Was This Week

I suppose we might've been bombarded by this topic already. So I won't insist. It is however an important moment of crypto history (first known/advertised purchase of a physical good in the real world using cryptocurrency). If you don't know the details, here they are.


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Thanks!

The people at the helm of affairs on SPL looks to be way in over their heads with these wild decisions.
One thing I know is that we're not yet having proposals that's targeted towards sophisticated marketing, to me this seems like the most important at the moment.

There are many things I don't understand about this proposal. One of them is why publish it during a festive period for Splinterlands? It's clear marketing is not a strong suit over there.

The Splinterlands news does not look good at all. If they ban us from playing in Wild, I think I might just stop playing as much. It just doesn't make sense because modern is already way too crazy. I can't even get out of Silver in modern and if they add a fee to play in modern, I just don't think it's worth it when I can only get like 5-10 fights a day on average.

The fee is for Wild, not for Modern. I did have an initial bad reaction to seeing this. I'll probably make a decision at the right time. I won't play in Modern, that's for sure. I have no time to play my account daily 20-25 times. Nor the desire.

The SPL news is a bit saddening. Instead of just outright banning bots, they keep trying to look for ineffective ways to combat it, and hurting actual players in the process.

I'm not sure how many "people" play in Wild and how many bots, from bot farms or individual accounts. But 75k in Wild compared to 3k in Modern says A LOT about PEOPLE's desire to PLAY Ranked themselves.

I play in Wild, and I know a lot of actual players in my guild that also play in Wild. We switched after facing a lot of max/high level teams even down in Bronze.

So, playing people wasn't a good experience either... I see a lot of anti-bot sentiments among the Splinterlands players, even when they've been restricted to one league. Given the strong developments of AIs recently, and that we come from a new industry in Web 3 or crypto, this kind of attitude toward bots (in general, not the bad ones) is surprising to me.

Let's remember it all started from having one or some human-only tournaments. Then, it extended to no bots in Modern, tournaments, and brawls. Then, battle helpers were banned everywhere bots were disallowed. I was ok with all these decisions. People needed their "safe" places. But maybe I need my "safe" place too, where I can play my account (only one) using a bot, without being penalized for doing that.

Otherwise, give me viable alternatives to Ranked, and I'll never play Ranked again, myself or a bot on my account. I dislike it profoundly anyway - to be forced to play an average of 25 games daily, to remain "in the cards". Maybe I don't have time a couple of days. Maybe I just want to play 5 games, not 25. That's why I like Brawls, and I play them, and would never play Ranked again, under similar conditions.

Playing people was nice, it was the gap in the power of the decks. Constantly fighting Gold+ level decks in Bronze was insane. Maybe it is the lack of players. When I switched to Wild and even reached Champ league, I earned more Glint and almost similar SPS compared to when I was in Modern Bronze. So there was no going back at that point.

I am not a fan of bots in games in general. Bot farms extract a lot of rewards from the game, which lowers the rewards for all, and prevents the game from being enticing to new players. As for single bots, I think bots are just too good for competitive play. We already see it in Chess and Go, and other games. AI can find the optimal team and moves which give them an unfair advantage. Land is already supposed to give the passive gameplay.

Splinterlands is an evolving game, chess and go are not. So bots are way too overpowered there.

If we can't play against bots (witch are not AIs) in an evolving game, how are we going to compete with AIs for jobs? Looks like the fight is lost before it began.

Land is already supposed to give the passive gameplay.

Land, in this current stage, is a pale alternative for Ranked. Rental market practically doesn't exist, and that was a viable alternative in the past. Interestingly, what made it a viable alternative were... bots, not humans.

Splinterlands is an evolving game, chess and go are not. So bots are way too overpowered there.

Depends on how you look at it. When a new set of cards come in, or new rulesets and abilities, bots can immediately run simulations and find the optimal team immediately.

If we can't play against bots (witch are not AIs) in an evolving game, how are we going to compete with AIs for jobs? Looks like the fight is lost before it began.

You want an honest answer? You can't compete with AI once they are able to do the job. There have been a lot of job firings already. Programmers in IT, writers, artists, etc. Thinking that the battle hasn't begun is incorrect. A lot of employees are already losing. I wouldn't even recommend college entrants to take Computer Programming courses right now. I don't know why you even included jobs by the way. I think sports and games are some of the sectors that are a bit safe from AI and robots. We already know they will be better [aimbots, instant decision making, instant reaction time, etc.]. But these are sectors that value the effort of regular humans, as we can see with the enduring popularity of Chess. AI has surpassed any human in chess, but human tournaments and games are still popular.

Land, in this current stage, is a pale alternative for Ranked.

Botting isn't really playing. It is setting up a bot, and letting the bot 'play'. It is something passive done by the actual player. Land is exactly this, without taking the rewards from players that actually play the game. I see botting as a people wanting to have their cake and eating it too. That is literally like using an AI in chess tournaments, and win the championship.

bots can immediately run simulations and find the optimal team immediately

Actually, the way these bots work are through a database of existing battles to choose the right tactics from. And when new elements are added to the game, the ones that learn first and populate bots' databases are people.

Plus there are unpredictable elements against which they have no leverage. One example is the tactics ability that allows a player to change abilities or stats after they see the opponent's lineup.

I've heard a few other ideas that would give people leverage in the game, in certain situations.

AI has surpassed any human in chess, but human tournaments and games are still popular.

And I have nothing against human-only tournaments in Splinterlands, lol.

Thinking that the battle hasn't begun is incorrect.

I still think the battle hasn't even began. It's more like a demonstration phase right now. With consequences on the job market, that's true. But AIs are still far from what they'll become.

Botting isn't really playing. It is setting up a bot, and letting the bot 'play'. It is something passive done by the actual player. Land is exactly this, without taking the rewards from players that actually play the game. I see botting as a people wanting to have their cake and eating it too.

You don't seem to understand the problem. More options are needed, instead the route chosen and cheered by the community that theoretically supports decentralization and freedom of whatever is to impose more restrictions.

I also wish to meet all the people I have been working with for a long time in the same way.

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Wow good friend, I really enjoyed your update on the HiveFest speakers and events. It's exciting to see such a diverse group of key speakers lined up. I hope the lite HiveD nodes doesn’t affect decentralization or I shouldn't be worried about that

It's exciting to see such a diverse group of key speakers lined up

It's already a pretty impressive lineup! I expect some major stuff at this HiveFest.

I hope the lite HiveD nodes doesn’t affect decentralization or I shouldn't be worried about that

Let's see that released first and how it will be used. Anyone can hold a copy of the blockchain even if they aren't block producers or provide other Hive nodes. But it is also important to have them available publicly via APIs from different sources to make sure it doesn't affect decentralization.

Indeed.good friend I guess we'll have to wait and see thanks so much for the information brother... It's very very informative

There is a case to be made that lite HiveD nodes will lower the barrier to allow more operators to create their nodes. Overall I consider it a win for HIVE.

Yes, I agree. Plus, I think it helps with the long-term health of SSDs.

I believe it's certainly a win for Hive indeed 👌

Please can you give a wider explanation about split logs?

If you don't intend to run a Hive node, you probably won't be interested in them.


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Thank you for your updates @gadrian. I will read over them and read more details as well on your links. Have a nice weekend. !BBH !CTP #ctp

Take you time, Barb. It's not easy to be on the verge of moving.

Thank you @gadrian 🌟😊👍

@gadrian! Your Content Is Awesome so I just sent 1 $BBH (Bitcoin Backed Hive) to your account on behalf of @adcreatordesign. (1/1)

Thank you @bbhbot 😊