This is the #102nd 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
- Best Hive Memory 2024
- Hive - Physical World
- X Giveaway
- Hive Core
- HafSQL
- Hive P2P
- PeakD
- Top Comments
- Censorship
- Eddie Earner
- Splinterlands
- Holozing
- StakeHouse Den
- Golem Overlord
- Exode
- WOO
- SoulKeep
Crypto
- Jerome Powell
- El Salvador
Week on Hive
21 of 42 tracked posts made it to this week's issue of the "Week on Hive" roundup.
In the Spotlight
Best Hive Memory of 2024?
@hiveio started a challenge to write about your best Hive memory of the year. This is a sort of a tradition at the end of the year, so see if you want to share yours.
If you need a highlight to inspire you, here's the aftermovie of Hivefest 9 from Split, Croatia. Maybe that sparks some memories... I wouldn't want all best memories to be about Hivefest though, since most Hivers didn't attend. 😀
Marketing / Awareness / Branding
Hive's Expansion to the Physical World
The 18th borehole in Ghana that was sponsored by Hive was inaugurated recently and talked about in local media.
I haven't seen much Distriator activity from Europe (other than The Kingdom in Krakow), that's why, when I see something coming from the old continent, I'm happy to include it in here. That's a coffee place being added plus a guide that can be shared to other businesses.
New shops continued to be listed to Distriator in Nigeria, but I won't insist on that since I already covered the topic (with different shops) in the previous edition(s). They are however important developments, since Nigeria is the country with the 2nd highest crypto adoption ratio in the world, after India, and Aba city seems to be highly active for SpendHBD, helped by a good and well-organized local team.
Speaking of Nigeria, look how easily you can gather a good number of well-educated folks out there for an event about Hive.
50 HIVE to be Won on X...
... if you complete these tasks and get selected.
Governance / Development / Dapps / Education
New Hive Core Devs Meeting
The non-consensus changes to HiveD were days away at the time of the meeting. The hard fork itself is set for February 8th, but likely it will be pushed further down the road because the Bloadtrades team still has something rather big to work on that they want to include in this HF.
@howo missed the meeting, but added in bullet-point style what he's been doing, and he says he has almost completed coding the Rosetta API which is a prerequisite for being listed on Coinbase. He says it will be finished this month. That doesn't guarantee any listing, we must re-iterate.
Here's the recording and transcript in his post.
HafSQL Update - Breaking Changes
@mahdiyari updated HafSQL to use the new REST APIs instead of JSON RPC methods. Database tables and views have changed too. All these are breaking changes compared to the previous version.
The new version wasn't live at the time of his post, since HAF 1.27.6 wasn't released.
HiveCuba's P2P Payment System Reaches Venezuela
The P2P payment system (a Telegram bot) implemented by @hivecuba to tranfer between HBD and Cuban Peso and vice versa, is now available in Venezuela for their currency Bolivar, via Web3 Labs. You can read more here (Spanish only), and find a guide here.
PeakD Ad Test
PeakD concluded their first ad test without good results, monetarily, but without complains from users either. Of course, this first test was for visitors and users who opted in. They will continue with a second test for logged in users as well, with the possibility to opt out. If results will be equally poor, they will remove ads altogether.
New Service for Rewarding Top Comments
@topcomment is another service to reward top comments, on top of/distinct from @commentrewarder. The way to use it is to mention @topcomment in a reply to the comment you'd want upvoted by the bot. It doesn't have a high HP for now, so use it especially if you don't have enough HP to upvote yourself. I think there should be some restrictions to prevent abuse (like someone invoking the bot for many comments of the same author, over and over again). Here are more details.
One of Our Witnesses Might Move Away from Malaysia due to Online Censorship Laws
@techcoderx shared this with us. He is considering moving to another country rather than hosting his infrastructure abroad, to protect himself from potential legal issues. His question stands: What if the same happens in the next country and so on?
Eddie Earner - New Token, Nothing Changed
If you had/have EDS tokens, you probably know the story. If you don't, it might be news to you: the token for the Eddie Earner project is now EDSI, not EDS. Overall, nothing was lost, other than the fee to create another token on Hive-Engine, and maybe the trust of some people who may expect human error to not happen, ever. Of course, maybe something like multisig would be better to avoid such mistakes?
Games
Conversation with Matt
@thepeoplesguild had Matt Rosen as their last guest of the year. I haven't had time to listen to the conversation yet, but I hope it was interesting...
Longterm Vision for Holozing
Acid describes what the long term vision for Holozing is from now on. The first surprise is that the healers will be minted on Ethereum instead of on Hive, hoping to attract more capital from there based on the model of Splinterlands with Runi. I'm not so sure this is a good idea. Runi was not mandatory to play any part of Splinterlands and I didn't buy any. Healers are mandatory to play Holozing, and Ethereum fees are what they are... And Runi wasn't really a success, most purchases being made by players (mostly whales) already in the game.
Otherwise, some interesting plans to offer easy sign up methods, and physical collections alongside the digital ones. It's worth to read entirely, I couldn't really summarize everything that is good to know.
StakeHouse Den Pack Presale
There is a pack presale going on for the newly proposed and accepted by stakeholders game on Arcade Colony, StakeHouse Den. The presale extends until Jan 31st, and is reserved for max 25k packs, 50% discounted. The presale pack price is 2 SCRIPT or 2000 CREDITS. The sale is on Arcade Colony website. More details in Arcade Colony discord.
Golem Overlord Introduces a Content Bounty System
It's an actual system added in-game, with bounties for the best content they select that respect the rules. Check it out!
Exode Sells 1 Market Node
That is the only market node to exist for a good while, the post says, but plans are there will be more, thus the term used is "decentralize", even if we are talking about 1 node...
WOO Looking Back at 2024
WOO wrote a post with their main highlights of 2024. Do you remember WresleCon?
SoulKeep Updates
The free tickets have been removed from tournaments. Now, every entry into tournaments costs some DEC. They will also make a decision on multi-accounts and bots since that is obviously an issue, the way rewards are distributed.
Week in the Crypto World
Fed "Is Not Allowed to Own Bitcoin"
Jerome Powell set the tone for the recent deep dive of bitcoin (and by contagion, alts), when he said Fed "Is Not Allowed to Own Bitcoin" as a response to calls to add it as a strategic reserve.
El Salvador Made a Deal with IMF at the Expense of Bitcoin
El Salvador is no longer the pilot country where BTC is legal tender. IMF has put an end to that. Businesses are no longer required to accept BTC (but they can do it voluntary), taxes can only be paid in USD, not in BTC, the Chivo wallet will be "sold or wound down". And more... Hey, the anti-BTC forces have been hard at work this week...
List of Older "Week through Adrian's Lenses" posts
Want to check out my collection of posts?
It's a good way to pick what interests you.
Posted Using InLeo Alpha
Thanks for mentioning my service.
It's not a bot by the way. For now I'm doing this manually.
@friendlymoose
Ah ok, I thought it's automatized. Manually it's better to avoid abuse, but doesn't scale up much. Good luck with the project!
Indeed. I have to see if it becomes a success. When it does I'll have to find a way to scale the project.
That's a lot of news. I hope Hive does better next year. The restrictions in Malaysia are worrying and I mention the UK social media laws in my post. You can have a decentralised platform, but the users may be under restrictions.
Yes, that's what attracted my attention too and I commented on your post as well. However we take it, the world we live in has changed a lot. And some are definitely taking advantage of that, while others don't understand it much and the first instinct they have is to censor, if they can.
What I like the most is seeing P2P adoption and ability to easily exchange HIVE for fiat. We need to create our own Bitcoin Beach. The goal should be to create a few circular economies.
I'm not a fan of this strategy. Having wrapped versions on Ethereum, WAX etc. is a good move IMHO. Betting on Ethereum users to suddenly be a fan of a HIVE game might not work out. The most annoying part is the high fees. I do have a stake in the game and I want the best for the project. If I was proven wrong, it would be a great thing for my portfolio.
It's difficult to create circular economies. They haven't done it in El Salvador either for Bitcoin (and I'm not referring to the recent deal with the IMF, although, in effect, that only affects paying taxes in BTC and the future of the Chivo wallet). It could be easier for a stablecoin like HBD than for BTC, but I don't think we'll see circular economies any time soon. Maybe used as an alternative payment more often in some areas. That we already are on route of accomplishing, I hope.
Wrapped NFTs may be a solution, although, at least on Ethereum, there might not be the demand for them, wrapped or not. WAX may be different, but I don't know what kind of money is there anymore. The only unknown I see is that Holozing is a new game while Splinterlands wasn't. Maybe that may stir some interest over there. But I don't know... They would have been more interested if the entire game was on an Ethereum L2 or something. But with one NFT on Ethereum and the game and the rest of assets on Hive, I don't think we would attract many investors or gamers from Ethereum. Not significantly more than if the entire game and assets are on Hive, maybe even less if some people on Hive don't pursue the Ethereum venture.
The difficulty in circular economy is exactly why we need to attempt at it. I don't expect everyone to start using HBD as much as credit cards. If there is at least one shop a HIVE user could use their HBD once a month, we can create strong retention. A local supermarket is perfect for this. Anyone can earn few dollars on HIVE being active and they can directly use the earnings to pay for their essentials. If their is one supplier on employee who is willing to get paid in HBD, we have a working prototype.
At one time, a Region in Praetoria was sold on WAX and this was the biggest transaction that had happened according to @aggroed. I have not kept up with the developments there.
That would be an alternative payment method, and we are doing relatively well at that in a few small areas of the globe. A circular economy supposes more than that. That a (local) economy can function without another currency (national or USD or whatever). That means anything from retail shopping to B2B transactions, to taxes being paid in that currency (in this case, HBD). We can be happy even with retail and B2B transactions only. That's not easy to accomplish at all, even if we focus on a small geographical area.
Ah yes, I think it was 700k USD or something like that. But then WAX was a serious competitor in the Web3 gaming world. I'm not sure it's the case anymore, but, like you, I don't know the exact situation.
It looks like a lot happened. I heard about what happened to EDS but only after the entire thing happened. I think I was a day late, but I wonder what will happen to the original EDS tokens.
Currently, they lost most (practically all) of their dollar value, since they aren't backed by anything anymore. I haven't sold them, SSUK said he might think of an utility for them, but that's uncertain.
Bad news from El Salvador for sure, and the Fed can't own BTC. Rough week! I would love to see Distriator in first world countries, in the US it would be great. Not sure it will ever happen though.
The Holozing healers on ETH only smells like a disaster waiting to happen. Runi didn't do well, and I rarely even see one played anymore. Having a mandatory card on the ETH network with the high gas prices might keep some people from getting in the game. I really want to see Holozing do well, it would be great for Hive!
Yeah, pretty rough! While I don't think the strategic reserve status was truly on the table at this time, the hit in my opinion is in El Salvador, although even there, practically very few businesses truly accepted bitcoin. But as an image for bitcoin, this pushback doesn't look good. But let's see, the deal isn't signed yet by the man who calls the shots over there, only experts reached the agreement so far.
What would be great would be if Distriator or HBD directly (but that lacks the cashback component) were accepted by a major payment gateway that can then be adopted by businesses world wide more easily.
I hope not, but I don't like the perspectives either...
Most of them are locked on land.
Yeah, it's like having all the summoners on ETH for Splinterlands. Bad idea, in my opinion.
We all do. It would make such a difference for Hive! Plus, I like the game already from all the info Acid shared so far.
It's good to see commentrewaeder having some competition there. I think having a lot more of this engagement rewarder schemes means that more people will be tempted to use them.
In the meantime I discovered they curate manually based on the mentions received. It's still a small-scale project, but if people use it, the owner could probably go to the next level.
Well perhaps the bigger accounts can try it out just to encourage the creator to push it to the next level.
Hmm
As for my best Hive memory, was when I became very active on Hive which was three months ago
Well, you need to write a post about that and link it in the comments of the hiveio's post. That's the challenge.
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