Happy Hive5 Birthday everyone! 🎉🐝

Today marks exactly 5 years since we forked away and started our own steemy adventures! Five years of Hive blockchain, and about a decade of our amazing community—can you believe it? What a wild ride it's been, from the early days of Steem to the community!

Celebrate with the HiveWhale Spraying! 🐳💦

To celebrate this epic milestone, the HiveWhale is officially waking up from its annual hibernation today. Right here in Harlingen, The Netherlands. Starting this afternoon (CET), you can join the fun and spray the whale yourself, directly from wherever you are in the world, simply by sending some HBD or Hive to @whalefountain! (Bear in mind the operating hours of the HiveWhale! The beast is spending a pretty static rest in the Harbour of Harlingen, thus operating in CET timezone.

Wait... What's the HiveWhale again?

For those new to the Hive community, the HiveWhale is an 18-meter-long concrete sperm whale fountain located in Harlingen harbor. Originally part of the famous "11 Fountains" art project by artists Allora & Calzadilla, it first became known as the SteemWhale before it was obviously forked onto Hive.

Back then I built the operating system for the Whalefountain on a Raspberry Pi which controls physical relays / electrical switches, which in turn control an air/compressor based control system (don't want to short circuit and have live wiring on the sea floor :D) managing the whale. I wrote a little API which enables hooking up the Hive chain onto the @whalefountain

How Does It Work?

It's simple: just send at least 1 HIVE or HBD to @whalefountain on-chain, and within seconds you'll trigger a real-life water spray from the whale's blowhole. Watch live (with 30 second delay) on hivewhale.com and see your transaction come to life! Plus, you'll receive your very own unique GIF memory —think of it as your personal NFT-ish souvenir to prove you were part of this historic day. And on top of that you will earn a @hivebuzz badge too!

Why Is It Back?

The Hivewhale always takes a little nap during autumn and winter. With high tides and storms the fragile electronics would not survive. Every year, the return of our HiveWhale symbolizes not only springtime awakening but also the spread of creativity, and community spirit. And here's another awesome bonus: every spray helps support ocean conservation efforts as I sometimes donate the equivalent of its revenue to a local ocean preserving foundation. So while you're having fun spraying water across Harlingen's harbor, you're also contributing to a great cause.

Here's to the Next 5 Years!

Hive has proven itself resilient, innovative, and powered by an incredible global community. So cheers to five fantastic years behind us—and here's looking forward to many more ahead! 🥂🐝🐳

See you at hivewhale.com
—let's make a splash today!

@roelandp

Vote for me as a witness