What a wild right it was the last few months. The bear is out in full force, causing havoc everywhere it goes.
It is said that disruptive companies excel during recessions. This is where the old way of doing things gets exposed and newer options have an opportunity to excel.
Cryptocurrency is undergoing a major transition right now. We were clearly shown that centralization, even within cryptocurrency, has major flaws. The bear started roaring, causing much to simply fall apart.
That is the old way starting to crumble. We discuss new ideas all the time but, realistically, how many were truly entered.
Centralization Failed
How often do we discuss the idea of decentralization? It is a topic that we harp upon regularly. For the entire bull run, many on Hive pointed to the fact that resiliency comes from decentralization.
It appears that very few in the industry took heed.
The bear exposed projects such as Celsius, 3AC, and a host of others. All these entities are centralized. Over the last few years, we see tens of billions in Venture Capital money flow into the space.
Of course, we know how they like to structure things.
In the end, centralization was proven, once again, to be vulnerable. Naturally, not all that is centralized has fallen to pieces. Nevertheless, a lot of it is broken.
When we look at the decentralized aspects of the industry, things become a big clearer.
Building On Top Of Resiliency
Relatively speaking, Hive is a very small ecosystem. The blockchain has a rather low market cap yet it keeps chugging along. So far, during the bear, not much broke on Hive.
One could say there was not a lot to go wrong to begin with. There is validity to that claim. The fact that Hive's base coding is rather concentrated is what provides some of the resiliency.
Hive is decentralized to the point where it is not under the control of anyone. Even the largest of token holders are in low single percentages. Couple that with the widespread number of block producers and we see a system that is very powerful. Over time, it seems like a few more people are cluing into this.
Projects that are building on Hive are able to tap into its account management system which is one of the best in the industry. This gives users the knowledge that their accounts cannot be closed. Also, the fear of transaction fees skyrocketing is not really present with this ecosystem. Applications are going to find, after the next update, how they can amass enough credits to have their users operating without issue.
Finally, Hive is proving the ability to scale. This is something that is going to stand out in the next few years. One major problem in this industry is the fact that few chains are able to scale properly. It seems like a lot of flaws are exposed when traffic increases.
All of this offers resiliency.
It Takes A While To Become An Overnight Success
The bear market exposes that which doesn't have "staying power".
We know the world of cryptocurrency was filled with a lot of hype. That was one thing Hive did not receive. Instead, we were like those on the outer edges, just continuing to work in spite of the accolades all the popular people were receiving.
Through it all, we just kept building.
Now it is time to harken back to disruption. We saw the popular projects run up the pole, only to come crashing down. UST/LUNA is a prime example of an epic fail. Many feel that Justin Sun's USDD is just waiting to implode. In the meantime, we have discussions about how to provide value to HBD and $HIVE.
A big part of resiliency comes with time. Throughout the entire ecosystem we see upgrades that help to push things forward a bit. Those projects that are interested in building for the long term keep adding to the offerings.
Basically, Hive becomes a bigger threat the longer it stays around.
Major Disruption Already Occurring
It is easy to miss the impact of what is taking place but we are already in the process of disrupting many industries. Simply looking at social media and finance, two very powerful industries, we see major changes taking place.
While the masses are not truly aware, the basic features offered are major game changers. Imagine having a social media platform whereby your account cannot be taken from you. As stated, this is a built in feature of Hive's account management system.
Rarely do we see established industries collapse overnight. It is usually a process that takes place over a period of years. This is going to be no different.
That said, the benefits of Decentralized Finance (DeFi) are already shining through during the bear market. We are likely to see more entities starting to fall off as the market continues to wreak havoc.
It Is Easier To Kill 500 Pounds Of Bear Than Cockroach
Killing a wild bear is tough. However, that is a lot easier than killing an equal amount, by weight, of cockroaches.
The reason for this is rather simple. If one can muster the power, i.e. a strong enough gun, the bear stands little chance. However, it is impossible to get a target on cockroaches. They are all over the place.
This is what decentralization is. Hive is like the cockroaches, going in all directions. It is really hard to get a line of sight on it. Projects are branching out absent any unification. This is a powerful mechanism.
We are well aware the regulatory wagons are circling. If the bear doesn't get a lot of projects, the politicians and bureaucrats will. Here again, Hive is insulated to a degree.
Many are aware of the upset that the Hive blockchain caused to Hive Blockchain Ltd. The latter is a company with a trademarked name. It did not like that someone else was using a similar name and sought to sue.
Here is the issue: who do you go after?
That is the epitome of decentralization. When there is no point of vulnerability due to the absence of a point person (company), operations are suddenly outside the scope of the established system.
People on Hive are from all over the world. We have infrastructure going in that is housed in many different countries. Users are drawn to what interests them, providing support in that area.
A key feature in all this is patience. There is no debate that Amazon completely disrupted the retail shopping industry. However, it did not happen instantly. There was a long period where the company basically scaled up.
In fact, the idea of the retail apocalypse occurred more than 15 years after Amazon started.
We are dealing with something similar. There is a lot of infrastructure required to disrupt these industries we are going after. That said, it will happen in time. Decentralization is a powerful mechanism, especially when coupled with finance.
Hive is simply progressing along without any major issues. While other chains are trying to figure out how to scale, the potential of Hive just keeps growing. This is going to have great value to developers in the future as they all hunt for bandwidth.
We are in the early stages right now. However, there comes a point when things absolutely go parabolic in terms of the user base. It might still be a few years from now, but we are edging closer to that day.
In the meantime, those on Hive keep building. This is where those who are putting in the effort now will benefit.
As other projects are exposed, Hive simply gets more powerful by default.
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