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I’ve been onboarding some new friends onto Hive recently. The experience both for them and me, reminds me of how overwhelming Hive can seem at first. 

I’m going to try to create a getting started guide here. I will likely need to do more than one post to avoid the post being overwhelm. 

### Getting Signed Up. 

I usually recommend going to [PeakD.com](https://peakd.com/) to signup. I have been told on mobile especially that [Ecency](https://ecency.com/) works well. 

You will choose a username that can be up to 16 characters in length. Keep in mind, you want to have people find you fairly easily. Choose something that is easy to tell people.

### The Keys For Your Account 

Once your account is setup, you’re going to be issued with a set of keys. Yes, I set a set. Make sure you save them and keep them private. The keys are: Owner, Active, Post, Memo 

**Your account is in two parts:** Content and Wallet. They use different keys. 

The **Owner key** you will rarely if ever use, BUT, DO NOT lose it. It will make the difference between you being able to access your account and not. 

The **Active key** is used when signing into your wallet. 

The **Posting key** is used for signing into the content part of the site. 

The **Memo key** is used for encrypting and decrypting memos sent through your wallet. 

I can almost hear you saying, OMG, how am I going to keep all that straight? You will, deep breath. 

### Hive is One Account Multiple Places to Login

There are many Dapps built on the Hive blockchain for you to use. Most of them will allow you to earn as well. There is a growing ecosystem on Hive. Lots of places for you to explore.

The account you just opened will give you access to the Dapps and connect any earnings back to your wallet. 

### Hive KeyChain     

Before you take one more step, I strongly suggest you either download [Hive Keychain](https://hive-keychain.com/) for your browser or for mobile. It allows you to store your keys in the app. When you are on a Hive d’appp that needs a key authority, Keychain will supply it, after you confirm permission. 

**DON’T try to use KeyChain as your primary place to store your keys**. 

At some point you’ll also encounter a dapp that uses Hivesigner. It has the same purpose as Keychain with a different method. I’d suggest, wait until you encounter it before you worry about getting setup. 

### HIVE, Hive Power (HP) and Hive Backed Dollar (HBD)

Okay, you have your account setup, your keys safely stored and KeyChain setup. Let’s review what you’re earning. 

The native coin of the Hive blockchain is HIVE. 

As a content creator, you earn HIVE when your content is upvoted. How much you earn depends on how much Hive Power (HP) the voter has. You also earn when someone upvotes a comment you made. 

**Upvoting content is known as curation**. 

HIVE is a liquid asset, meaning you can buy and sell it as HIVE. 

What grows your voting influence on the platform is having Hive Power (HP). When HIVE is staked (locked in) it is called HP. 

The more HP you have, the more your upvotes are worth. Your HP also earns interest while it is staked. Currently 2.84%

When you want to withdraw HP into HIVE it takes 13 weeks. You’ll get 1/13 of your available HP every 7 days. 

**You can also earn Hive Backed Dollars (HBD) on your posts.** 

HBD is a stablecoin -- 1 HBD = 1 dollar worth of HIVE. That doesn't mean a lot right now and that's okay. Consider it future reference.

When you are going through your settings you’ll find a choice to get 100% HP or split your rewards between HP and HBD. Once you do start earning HBD, you can move it into Savings and earn 20% (currently).

**I’d suggest until you have at least 500HP stick to 100% HP for your rewards.** 

 When you place either HIVE or HBD into Savings, there is a three day wait when you want to withdraw it. If someone should get into your account and you have your HIVE and HBD in Savings, then the thief has nothing they can steal. 

### Resource Credits 

Okay, let’s see: 

- You have a Hive account 
- You’ve carefully stored your keys in a safe place, preferably two safe places
- You’ve installed Hive Keychain and entered your keys into it. 
- You’ve got a pretty good idea what HIVE, HP and HBD are
- Now, to start doing things on Hive you need Resource Credits (RC)

Yes, I hear it — **Wait, what’s Resource Credits?** 

Resource Credits (RCs) is the cost of a transaction on the blockchain. Transactions are things like posting, writing comments, voting etc. 

They are not really an out-of-pocket cost, they do regenerate, some every hour. 

**How do you get them?** Great question. 
You get RCs through your HP. The more HP you have, the more RCs and the more transactions you can do on Hive. 

### Getting HP to Get Started

**Delegation**
Most Hivians when they onboard someone to Hive they will delegate them some HP which gives them HP to get started. 

What’s delegation? It’s like a loan of HP to get you started. Once I delegate some HP to a new Hivian the system sees them as having that amount of HP and RCs making it possible for them to do things. 

When I decide that the HP could be put to better use, I remove the delegation and it returns to me about 5 days later. 

**Buying HIVE**
If someone doesn't delegate to you, your other option is to signup to an exchange that carries HIVE.[ Here's instructions from Coinbase on how to buy HIVE](https://www.coinbase.com/how-to-buy/hive-blockchain). 

Once you purchase it, you can send it to your wallet on Hive. Follow the exchanges instructions. 

### Time to Take A Learning Break 

I know, that is a lot of information to take in. There is more to come but I’m going to pause here and give you time to get your head around the basics. 

Getting familiar with these terms and basic idea of how things work, will help as you move forward. 

Tomorrow, I’ll talk about getting started building a following and creating content. 

**Did I leave you more or less confused?** 

NOTE: 
1. Header image created by author 
2. This is day 23 of 30 in the #HiveBloPoMo Challenge for April.


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*Shadowspub is a writer from Ontario, Canada. She writes on a variety of subjects as she pursues her passion for learning. She also writes on other platforms and enjoys creating books you use like journals, notebooks, coloring books etc.*
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