Creeping Inequality in Hive - Inevitable when people don't buy in....?

in #hive-1679223 years ago

In terms of HIVE POWER distributed between the different levels of account (Whale to Redfish) and in terms of the number of accounts in each bin (size category) Hive has been mostly stagnant over the last sixth months with a slight tendency to greater towards greater inequality.

This is the same trend I found when I used to do these reports every month, so nothing has changed, no surprises and based on a quick review of the top Hive accounts by Hive Power on HiveBuzz this trend just seems to be a result of the same old accounts having slightly more HP.

Increasing inequality is to be expected when all accounts earn the same percent curation return - over time those accounts with millions of HP are just going to accumulate so much more than those with only 10s of thousands!

MVESTS September 17th to March 16th....

In terms of MVESTS controlled by the different layers of account, the percentage controlled by Whale accounts (now the top 37 accounts) is now 49.3%, a 3% increase from the 46.5% it was in September 2021.

Meanwhile the percentage controlled by all the other bins (Orcas etc.) have decreased slightly....

September 2021 (6 months ago)

MVEST distribution sept.png

March 2021 (today)

MVESTS.png

Number of accounts September 2021 to March 2022

In terms of number of accounts there is one less whale account, meaning a slight trend towards more hive power being distributed between fewer accounts, but not a drastic change over a six month period.

Maybe more depressingly the number of mid ranged accounts have all decreased, so slightly fewer Orcas, Dolphins and Minnows.

There are many more Redfish, probably down to @splinterlands.

September 2021

Whales Sept.png

March 2022

whales.png

Final Thoughts - the ordinary folk just aren't buying Hive...!?!

Maybe stagnation is the most accurate describer word here - we seem to have a situation for the most part where Whales just sit on their holdings, accumulating slowly while Orcas, Dolphins, Minnows steadily drift off - 'it's been a good run, see ya and thanks for all the Hive'!?

(Of course a few mugs like me mainly hodl too).

Meanwhile there is no evidence of fresh investors buying in any significant way from what I can see....?

Personally I still see Hive (and Splinterlands and LEO/ CUB) as hodls, but I see little in these trends to convince me to increase my Hive holdings...

Sources - stats are from @arcange's daily Hive Stats.

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I think this is one measure, but not the only one and certainly not one on its own that would prevent me from continue to hodl and invest.
HIVE has great people involved in it, a large number of developers, a great long list of witnesses and lots of things happening. We also have this amazing facility (blogging) where everyone can learn from each other.
Like me, you've been to HiveFest and met many of the activists and supporters behind HIVE. I agree, sometimes the long-term vision and purpose of Hive gets obscured or lost in the everyday, but it's still there, and still a contributory factor to being here.
There's always churn on social media and digital media platforms generally and HIVE is very young. It won't suit lots of people, but that's okay, good to see them, perhaps they will come back in the future.
Meanwhile, my plans for a passive retirement income are already coming to fruition, with HIVE at less than a dollar, and without having to do lots of work blogging, and I'm looking forward to HIVE growing and other opportunities to invest in an alternative economy.
But you know, and other people have said the same in comments on your blog, the people who are Orcas now, joined around the same time, know each other and each other's reputation (ie how they behave, what they are about, rather than the number beside their username), grew their accounts together and tend to continue to network together.
We can either change some of our behaviour and open our networks to newer accounts, or we can accept that those newer accounts need to go through a similar development process to build their own networks.
I was chatting to @nathen007 the other day (he was talking about micro-loans), and remembered HBI shares which I don't hear much about these days, but they were so important when I was a fledgling minnow/dolphin. Perhaps there is a role for Orcas to play in developing the HBI network? It's win-win and helps to tie people in HIVE.

I know what you mean - there are a lot of opportunities for sure, I'm not too down on the place don't worry.

I'm not sure we need HBI anymore, there's so much opportunity on HE in liquidity pools and a 12% return on HBD, so much more going on than there was for sure!

!PIZZA

I'm not too down on the place don't worry.

😍

I'm not sure we need HBI anymore

I was thinking specifically how we can support newer members?

I guess HBI was good for that for sure! I quite like @stevec's 10K Minnows project.

Oh yes, that's a good option. And there's the teamuk bot, I guess, too.

There's some definite room for concern regarding this, but I guess it's too utopian to expect it to just go away.

I don't think it will go away, at least it's not out of control.

I'm sure the whales wouldn't like their influence on the platform to diminish, but it would probably be better overall if we'd have a better distribution.

I'd just like to see a stronger 'middle class' - inequality is bad for everyone, even the rich!

As a beginner, I am at loss to understand the post.. Hope very soon I will make up to understand.

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So you earn money on HIVE through interactions. If you make a post and people upvote it and comment on it you will receive some hive based on those interactions. The amount you receive is based on the account status of those who engage with your content. You can stake/Power up your hive which increases your status on hive. The more you have powered up the more your interactions will reward others. Basically because crypto has been going sideways for the last 6 months the amount of new users in crypto low, Those that have been in for a while are holding or slowly adding more to their portfolios. but without a wave of new users wanting to purchase the Hive tokens to get their accounts to a certain level of status the existing large wallets continue to grow at a rate much faster than everyone else because of the effects of compound interest. (You receive interest payments on staked/powered up HIVE)

By all means please correct me if I'm wrong

could it be that hive will no longer matter in the end. Most of those splinterlands redfish probably do not even really realise that they have a hive account, they just play the game. So there will be those who stick around voting in circles and the chain just providing resource credits for different projects

yep, there is a trend away from blogging which is the right direction

Why do you feel this way? Doesn't blogging help encourage conversation and community growth?

no it's definitely part of Hive, but Hive is much more than a blogging platform (see all of the dapps that we already have). For example, it might be a good idea if we could earn Hive by providing liquidity to pools etc. (it's already possible with Swap.Hive)

Resource credits - if there is ever a market for them is something to look forward too!

The biggest problem is all the choices on Hive. We now have people who are going heavily into different areas. There are those who are loading up on Splinterlands, LEO, and now getting into DeFi.

All of this comes into play. Few of the larger players are going that direction (or they have more resources) and can get into different things.

How many Minnows and Dolphins are putting all they get into buying Hive and powering up? That is the difference.

So it is a double-edged sword.

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I hear you, someone else just mentioned that a fair few Dolphins have pushed some of their Hive into SL/ LEO.

I pat myself on the back that I did this during the sale of my Steem! THAT was the time to be buying LEO.

Well, then and about a month ago when I bought a little more.

It's nice to have all these options.

hmm.. i'm starting to get the feeling you guys are going to soon start to see things my way. looking at my watch on time here.....i would predict it won't be long now

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Very interesting, thanks for the overview.
How long should it take to get to each stage?
Is it better to buy hive and power up or put in HBD/ Delegate to LeoVoter?

I do all three...

Although only about 2% in HBD and something like 20% delegated to LEO VOTER.

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The whales likely have plenty of liquid funds so don't need to power down or their powerdown isn't significant enough to drop them out of whale status. The same isn't true for those stuck in the middle. The drop in users from minnow-orca does not surprise me, I would guess a decent portion moved their funds into one or multiple of the other opportunities HIVE introduced us to over the past X months.

Fair points, I certainly moved some of my Hive funds over! Like a few others i know!

I've been a dolphin for pretty much forever and I just keep coming and plugging away. Unfortunately the bar just keeps getting moved and the rich just keep getting richer. It is a bit of an endless cycle. I don't plan on going anywhere though.

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It's no different structurally to the FIAT economy, at least not in pure economic terms. The more you have the richer you get.

the rich keep gettin gricher because a lot of them actually invest/buy Hive. Only the witnesses and a couple of users manages to grow their stake to such heights without actually buying some Hive. Of course buying Hive can be a good idea as one can grow one's account faster and faster the larger it gets

Yes, that is a good point. I have been known to buy some Hive here and there myself. Just not on the same level as others!

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I didn't query the data too intensely but I don't think there's that much actual buying going on, more just powering up, and more and more and more liquid sloshing about every day, which seems to be traded back and forth harder and harder.

Hive is great, but it's not a token I'm buying anymore of, just a hold.

hmm okay, seems like you are somewhat bearish on Hive as a whole then. There is a good possibility of having $5-$10 this summer. But from a blockchain/project perspective I am actually quite bullish long term. There is just too much development going on currently to ignore it. Perhaps we have to rethink the reward pool/blogging side of Hive a bit as this seems to be the weakest point of it imo.

Well if there's a crypto moon I doubt Hive will be left behind, one just can't predict these things.

I'm happy with my stake anyways!

I'm relatively new to the HIVE community but from looking at the overall crypto markets there hasn't been enough excitement around crypto to get new buyers in, and I also think we have seen so much institutional price halting for the past 6 months that many of the new heads are bored. It was nice to see a big bump in privacy coins due to the conflict in Ukraine... especially when at the time BTC was trending down and sideways. Frankly I don't like to see bad things being the catalyst for crypto to do well but we do have to remember Bitcoin was created during the aftermath of the 2008 market "crash"(barely) and unfortunately part of watching crypto grow and evolve is watching some institutions and systems we have known all our lives will have to fail and fall. I do take a "Glass half full" perspective though, I know from my time on this earth that things must die and decompose to provide space and nutrients for new life.

I would say be patient, be positive and stand for what you believe in.

Oh don't get me wrong, Hive is still my main holding in Crypto, so I'm hardly giving up on it, if crypto does well, Hive will probably do well too!

It's one of the few coins with a real use case!

I agree there is no need for big tech to horde our data to make money on our expense. This does allow us to earn off our content, and more importantly is censorship resistant

Indeed, many advantages here!

!Pizza

Yep I've noticed quite few dolphins have powered down to below dolphin level of holdings?
Maybe people are just switching to other tokens like cub or bitcoin?

Rich get richer is just the way it is...it seems?

I was going to get into the whole cub farms thing but couldn't be bothered with the multiple steps required and I don't want to use meta mask or ethereum.

I'm slowly staking hbd 👍

Quite possibly a lot of Orcas/ Dolphins have just got into Cub, the returns are well worth it.

What don't you like about MetaMask?

What don't you like about MetaMask?

Primarily the eth fees but also its poor security.

Ah I use mine with a Trezor and mainly on BSC and Polygon.

It’s been really difficult bringing new blood here. I think we will need new hive token users in order to get a lot of new investment (other than the Korean pump and dumps) because so many of us have been here for years already. If we were going to buy in big, we likely have already.

The tipping point will be when we have enough active users to create hive marketplace that people want to use. That's probably the most critical thing for hives long term health but the marketplace won't do much if there aren't enough people on hive to use it.

I pay for some services in hive, I'd love if if there were more available.

The users are ticking up, but it is slow, I'm still amazed more people don't use it TBH!

I can’t understand how so few Splinterlands users started blogs. It’s still great for the ecosystem overall but I wish there was more crossover from that side to blogging. I’m counting on 3speak! Or maybe Brian of London’s project.

@brianoflondon 's V4V project is super exciting! Bitcoin Lightning is starting to pick up in Central America (where I am) and it this could be a huge gateway into the HIVE ecosystem. Bullish on v4v!

I'm surprised how few people make it over from Splinterlands to blogging!

I keep an eye on the numbers and we're just not gaining minnows or dolphines. Well we gain some, but lose others. Need to keep people engaged and that's why I run things like @tenkminnows. One friend did buy enough HIVE to get to minnow fairly quickly. Just needs to hold his nerve through difficult times. This is why I think a longer power down is good as you have to ride it out. Depends on your confidence in the platform.

I guess the longer you've been here, the more confidence you have in it!

I have confidence in the people.

It is not only about buying, but there is a trend of popular poster getting more rewards and becoming more popular. I haven't done statistical analysis, it is empirical only, I notice the same people getting hundreds to thousands in rewards almost daily over and over. Our Blockchain is in a path of social and financial centralization

Yeah it's also embarrassing to see those rewards, but still it is better - better than those silly rewards Exyle used to get for his damned barbequed meat pictures!

it's a lot better compared to several years back, so there's that...

We are miles ahead of Steem, our sister chain, but there is a long way to go

There was an episode on The Simpsons where Bart finds out he has a twin brother who is kept in the attic and eats fish heads. Reminds me of our sister chain, lol.
Bart & Hugo Simpson.jpeg

wtf lol

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Frankly I stopped caring too much about inflation and distribution.

The issue is simple, inflation is too high to support redistribution without crashing the price.

Most of the whales behave well now and spread around their votes, so it's not a serious issue anyway.

If a content creater is somewhat decent and consistent they will slowly increase their holdings, too.

Hive keeps imporving, but the rest of crypto caught up a lot too. So Hive has to keep improving.

Keeping all your eggs in one basket is risky. That said Hive is still by far the best social media blockchain.

I think the DAO fund is a great way of sucking up inflation To Be Fair, I might have a dig into that, it's a good mechanism.

But yeah, the elephant in the room is the fact that Hive is a perpetually inflationary token, one of the things I tend to AVOID when I'm looking for new tokens to pick up!

Good point on the DAO. I forgot about that :)

It is all very interesting to read.
Hive is just about to turn 2, so that is a big deal, we are still quite young and, since breaking from Steem, it has fractured some of the user base.

I feel, that we need another year or so to develop and make a bigger name for the chain and define what it does. Larger projects that launch on HIVE will, but also, drama - free development and growth will help. I do see that happening. New tools and ways to develop on hive come every darn day and that is so cool!

What I would love to see, are developers making Unity 3d, or Unreal plugins that can interact with HIVE directly., This means developers will have a simple way to make use of hive.

Also marketing... I thought there was a big marketing proposal that was funded.. but I guess it did not go well?

Yes we are still young, very fair point, lots of money available for development so hopefully we'll see some real progress next couple of years.

There was a marketing proposal, true, but I know what you mean, it does seem a bit muted.

That's a shame to see. But it's good of you to bring this up for all of us to see. This is the kind of thing that really needs to be addressed or it could grow out of control. We really don't want a kind of extreme unbalance like we see in the real world, with the extreme stats we read of the 1% controlling something crazy like 90% of all money and resources.

Any ideas how us proles can help address this situation? Besides trying to promote Hive all I can (as I've been doing for the past 5 years) to bring on new people I don't have a lot of other ideas. Though just bringing on new people might not necessarily help with the unbalance, unless some of those new people have deep pockets and are willing to invest heavily.

!PIZZA

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I think you're doing all that you can TBH!

It's a tough one...

I think that's definitely part of the solution. Beyond that I think we need to address mindset. I don't know about everyone else but I found crypto because I recognized the centralized banks are modern day slave owners. (sure human traffic does exist and there are literal slaves) My point is I didn't buy Bitcoin to make money I bought as a step towards freeing myself. This is opportunity crypto gives us all. We need to collectively adjust our focus. Money has been priority number one for far to long. I don't believe in equality we are all born different, under different circumstances with different talents... but I don't see a reason why we cant have a more balanced world. A more fair world. Not radically equal like communism, but fair.

This is why just keeping plugging away every day will pay off at some point in the future as knowing you are in the top 200 of a blockchain like Hive should bear fruit. I do believe there are some differences from when I fist joined 4 years ago and that the ones who are here now actually care about what happens. What I mean is many have grown into Dolphins and Orcas and are active making for a stronger supporting middle class.

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Oh it does feel different from the Steem days, and you can grow for sure if you plug away, we'er both testament to that, but I'm not at all comfortable with this trend...!

One would like to see more decentralisation, not less, which is where we are heading.

Yes that is true but I am hoping things change when the numbers increase. One would imagine they will at some point and they better grow as we all need them.

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yep can confirm ;)

I fear that many users in the plankton don't know how the platform work.

The rewards come from interest on one's HIVE. A user needs to have a decent amount of HIVE power for the upvote to have any value.

A good way to educate users is to have them study different accounts on HiveStats.io. I will show the @revisesociology

https://hivestats.io/@revisesociology

Holy cow! This account has 45,600 HIVE POWER .

This account receives about 1 HIVE in curation rewards each time the account votes at 100% .

The minimum curation reward is 0.001 HP. Accounts will less than 45 HP rarely receive curation rewards ... even when upvoting at 100%

It turns out that one needs to have about 100 HP before receiving curation rewards on every 100% upvote.

I think the best way to encourage new users to buy HIVE is to emphasize the point that users don't get curation rewards until they have 50 HP. One needs about 100 HP to get a curation reward on every post.

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