The world of blockchain is still very young.  This is notably true for Hive, which just celebrated its first birthday since the fork took place.

Over the initial year, a lot was done to the base coding yet it is something that few truly understand.  What took place and why was it done?

Last week, @raymondspeaks and myself had the opportunity to interview @blocktrades regarding the state of the chain.  If you have not seen [this](https://leofinance.io/@brofund/yhaoovvz), it is worth watching.

One of the key areas that was focused upon was the optimization of the chain.  Not a lot was done to the base code over the last few years which made the chain extremely expensive to run.  As it grew in time, this made it difficult to handle, not only from a financial standpoint but also the sheer volume of the data.

Optimization is not one of those sexy topics and having hard forks revolving around that as well as updates does not excite users.  However, there is an important component that comes out of this.

When we look at Ethereum, the two biggest problems we see are the cost of transactions and the speed.  It is limited in the number of transactions that it can do.  The same goes for Bitcoin.  Many point out the fact that it is absurd to spend more on a blockchain transaction than the banking system charges.

Hive already has the fees covered.  Since it is fee-less, all transactions rely upon Resource Credits which are derived from Hive Power.  Thus, as long as that exists, one can transact all day long.

Yet what about the number of transactions?

<center>https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1200/1*1J08qvsHdxnA7SBbl9Sgkw.png
[Source](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1200/1*1J08qvsHdxnA7SBbl9Sgkw.png)</center>

This is one of the key points from the interview.  Blocktrades mentioned that one of his top priorities after the fork was to work on the scaling of Hive.  Though the efforts, this blockchain can scale to a much greater degree than it could before.

In fact, it is now order of magnitudes better in that area.

How much can Hive handle?  Sadly, this is a question that depends upon many variables.  The true answer is that we will not really know until we get to that point.  This is one of those finicky things about development.  Nothing on the testnet can replicate what happens as compared to the mainnet. 

In other words, real world traffic is often varied and impossible to guess.

For example, when trying to determine the number of users, what type of data are they sending through?  If Hive becomes a platform where Layer 2 is made up of games, that is much different than millions of blog posts going through.  Financial transactions are also much different from Custom JSONs, which take up a lot less room.

Nevertheless, Blocktrades feels comfortable that Hive can scale to whatever degree is required as growth takes place.  Of course, as we near the next barrier other things can be done to enhance things even greater.

Also, we must keep in mind that optimization is still taking place.  This is an ongoing process that seeks to keep making Hive more efficient in its operations.

It seems that Hive is being positions very strong in this regard as compared to some others.  Development teams elsewhere chose to focus upon different criteria while leaving scaling aside.  We are seeing the results in some of the more popular chains.

Having the "horsepower" on the chain is very important.  It means little until you need but, when you do, it is great to have.

If we look at this situation from the ground up, having a strong base layer will only enhance all that is tied to it.  Again, look at the applications on Ethereum and what they are dealing with.

Another important area as it pertains to growth is the ability to deliver enough accounts and Resource Credits to the user base as it grows.  Many who are unfamiliar with how this process works, which is likely most of us, had some concern about that.


<center>https://www.cryptounfold.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/blocktrades.jpg
[Source](https://www.cryptounfold.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/blocktrades.jpg)</center>

Blocktrades once again put that to rest.  There are ways that the Witnesses can alter things that will deliver more accounts and ability to transact to a growing user base.  Thus, we can see a great deal more growth before that becomes a problem.

Many might look at this cast it aside since the blockchain is using very little of its capability.  That might be the case yet the best time to deal with scaling issues is before the scaling is needed.  Again, if we look around, we see how difficult it is to scale when a blockchain is at peak capacity.  It opens the doors for others to sneak in.

We often mention how Hive can so far in its first year.  At the same time, we marvel about how this is not the same ecosystem as it was last March.

Now, we can go one step further and say it is not even the same blockchain at the base layer.  The code was changed to optimize it in many different ways.  Even the replay times were dropped significantly.

<center>https://steemitimages.com/DQmNRCEaw2UYYMMnr1wjPZ4d9jDbrAN1u4nQxWA9kRki6pi/image.png
[Source](https://steemitimages.com/DQmNRCEaw2UYYMMnr1wjPZ4d9jDbrAN1u4nQxWA9kRki6pi/image.png)</center>

A final note from the interview:  Many want to know about SMTs.

The view on that is very simple.  Buildings SMTs at the base layer makes little sense in terms of the time required to bring them to light.  The reason being is they will be limited in what they can offer. 

At the base layer, SMTs would resemble Hive.  They would be Proof-of-Brain, providing the ability to replicate what Hive offers.  However, that is all.

Thus, a much better option is to add a Layer 2 Smart Contract solution that is fast, easy, and cost effective to operate.  This would allow developers to create tokens for whatever purpose they wanted, while programming the contract as they see fit.  

It is something that different teams are working on.

In the [interview](https://leofinance.io/@brofund/yhaoovvz) there are also some things discussed upon the upcoming hard fork that will take place in the next few months.

Exciting times ahead.

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