More than a week has passed since part of the Steem community split up and created the new Hive platform. How did this affect the price of STEEM and what is happening with the new blockchain?
Last week, the Steem community leaders decided to switch to a new platform, Hive.io, to put an end to the struggle to manage the network that developed after Justin Sun acquired Steemit startup. Hard fork successfully passed March 20 and led to the emergence of the new cryptocurrency Hive (HIVE).
Now HIVE is trading at $ 0.197, and the STEEM price is $ 0.141. However, a few days ago, the price difference between the coins was almost doubled - they cost $ 0.321 and $ 0.168, respectively.
“This is a real demonstration that the community cannot be bought,” said Dan Hensley, a major holder of STEEM, and now HIVE.
In February, Tron project founder Justin Sun acquired a Steemit startup, thus gaining a significant share of Steem coins and influencing the outcome of consensus voting on the network. Shortly after, major exchanges, at the request of Justin Sun, used the coins they stored to change the consensus of the Steem blockchain. Justin Sun explained the consensus change in Steem by a hacker attack, but the community did not accept his version of events, and the struggle for control over the network continued.
During the Steem community-initiated hard fork, the blockchain was copied so that all content published on Steem, as well as wallet balances, appeared in Hive. However, coins from the initial development fund, controlled by Steemit and Justin Sun, were not transferred to the new chain.
"Although it is very interesting to see that HIVE is trading above STEEM, I would not attach too much importance to this," said cryptocurrency trader Brian Krogsgard. "I believe that the three-fold increase in the STEEM rate two days before the hard fork was due to the upcoming snapshot of the balance of all wallets."
Steem Network Management requires that users truly block their assets. As soon as someone decides to vote with their tokens, they are blocked for a certain period. Token blocking is removed weekly. All STEEM holders received HIVE tokens for free, which will be blocked according to a similar scheme. Hensley said his first batch of STEEM tokens will be unlocked this week and he plans to sell them until his stock runs out.
Apparently, many community members plan to follow suit, and it is likely that the STEEM rate will drop significantly.
Steemit reaction
Justin Sun-controlled startup Steemit has taken a defensive position. Steemit officially acknowledged that it began to censor recordings in which users were encouraged to leave Steem and switch to Hive. The startup explained its actions as follows:
“Will any commercial website support entries that encourage all users to switch to another site? No. This is not in the interest of the Steem community and ecosystem. ”
As one long-time Steem user on Twitter noted, a ban on “promoting third-party platforms or for promoting each other without written permission” was added to the Steemit terms of service. Hensley said that alternative solutions for content creators, such as PeakD, Hive Blog and 3speak, have already appeared in Hive.
“I think that with the departure of the community to the new blockchain, many are selling STEEM as fast as they can, and this creates a lot of pressure on the price,” said Reland Lanparty, long-time “witness” Steem, who closed his site immediately after hard fork.