Well, Bitcoin is certainly doing well!

To say the least, it has been interesting to watch Bitcoin certainly rise and set multiple new highs following the US presidential election. We are now holding within striking distance of the milestone $100,000 mark.

I suppose I'm as happy as the next person to see the bellwether cryptocurrency go on a steady upwards run, but in a somewhat Hive-centric way I find myself feeling a little frustrated and pondering whether or not Hive is going to have a run at new highs. Or is that simply a boat that has long since sailed?

Yes, I know Alt. coins tend to follow behind BTC, and I find a small measure of comfort in that... but it worries me that Hive seems to be sinking and sinking, in terms of the overall market cap rankings. That means we are losing ground, relative to everything else in the marketplace.

Don't get me wrong, I'm very fond of this community, and my activity here is not related to the price of Hive, but I'm just wondering what we are doing individually and collectively to help make Hive rise out of the doldrums it has been ”enjoying” for quite a long time. It's not a low price that's the enemy of growth, it's obscurity and simply being forgotten.

In the legacy markets, I have seen more than a few companies with brilliant ideas and brilliant products sink into nothingness because of nothing more than the fact that nobody was really aware of them. That's actually an old story, in the business world.

Meanwhile, it sometimes strikes me as ironic — and I know I'm not the first one to have pointed this out — that the very system that was created to attract people to develop new things here (the DHF) is at least partially the very thing that might be contributing to keeping the price of the token consistently low.

After all, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that when there is an imbalance between demand and supply in any marketplace — and you have a lot of people who are earning money from the DHF and depending on that for their livelihood — they're going to be selling Hive, which is putting a constant downward sell pressure on the token. I'm neither lauding nor condemning that particular situation... it's simply a fact.

Meanwhile, the DHF is being parceled out to developers and others who are primarily working on the principle that Hive is so awesome because it comes with a "built-in audience" so efforts towards gaining new ground externally — the way Splinterlands did, in its early days — is not really happening much. Yes, there are exceptions...

Of course, we also have a system by which people get rewarded for created content... in which many of the creators are not necessarily interested in investing their stake back into in the platform; instead they just want to take it out and go and buy pizza with it.

Again this is not a criticism, simply a fact.

If you advertise something as "an opportunity to make money," people expect to make money.

Imagine...

Imagine if you worked for a company where management says "you'll get a bonus every three months but UNLESS you let us hold on to the bonus, we're going to condemn you as not having team spirit!"

Most people would likely just say "Thanks, but no thanks!"

Of course, a lot of the outcome is ultimately down to us, the regular users. What sorts of projects are you actually supporting?

Personally, I choose to support things that make Hive better and easier to use for non-technical people who are not already here... things like @peakd and @keychain... while I steer clear of projects that are mostly focused on loading more marginal features that only are likely to appeal a small technologically savvy percentage of the existing community.

Some people occasionally comment that Hive is becoming more of a "utility coin" and I'm fine with that... but you need to offer that utility to people who are outside Hive's borders, not those who are already committed to being here! That means your project better include an external marketing plan, not just a "community members will love this!"

But this is just my opinion, of course!

I am slowly building my stake here, and I would really like to see the value of that stake grow, rather than shrink!

Naturally, it makes me happy that Hive is ticking up a little at the moment... but I also can't lose sight of the fact that Hive ended 2023 at $0.368... so we definitely have a ways to go!

Till the next one... Feel free to leave a comment — this IS "social" media, after all!

=^..^=

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