This is a great discussion. I'm still new to Hive and really haven't got fully to grips yet on all the various states of Hive and their properties. However, I do think the option of staking Hive with a long-term power-down and therefore a high APR is a very good option in this climate. You can't get that sort of APR in any of my local banks.

So perhaps, as someone mentioned, a selection of power-down terms with different associated APRs to incentivize longer-term investments over short-term ones. This would help with Hive stability and growth.

But, yes, more options for turning fiat directly into Hive is where outside crypto-curious users are going to come from. The more gateways the better. And perhaps a dapp that can plug into online (or offline) stores for accepting feeless payments would be a great way of attracting commercial activity into the eco-system.

But this would all need a concerted effort, given the commercially-backed competition out there.