Thanks for sharing your thoughts Matt, I for one would like to see you put a few more imperfect posts out :)

I agree that content without engagement isn't complete, and most of the time I find the most interesting (and funny) text in the commentary.

Actually much more was expected from you about what new direction Hive can Take. May be you write about that in your future posts...

Hive currently - seems directionless. But having blogging inbuilt into the blockchain has made this and steem the most scrutinized blockchains. So I also consider that that has made them bit robust. The trx speed and relatively free trx is something that we need to capitalize on...

**@yabapmatt of all people how did you not mention blockchain gaming as a use case?** Or would you bundle this into apps. keep up the good fight brother 👊

Thank you @themarkymark for mentioning gaming 🙏🙏

# [My thoughts on the future...](https://peakd.com/gaming/@agr8buzz/my-thoughts-on-the-future)

The market is getting crowded with all the different blockchains you mentioned but I still think Hive should still have some sort of first mover advantage especially due to the socially invested community.
As a content creator I am passionate about the blogging aspect but it is far from perfect. I had hoped that this would create one of the worlds best libraries but I can't see that happening in its present state. The seven day window has created a certain populism which doesn't value evergreen content. The last hardforks improved things but it still has a long way to go.
The most popular posts are the ones about the library and the burning of dust votes on comments has disincentived engagement.
I am happy to hear that the larger stake holder would like to move things up a gear and will continue following along in the discussions while I try a steer Hive in the direction I would like.

Great writing form you and I hope you do more. Especially now when we are at a crossroads. 

I see much potential value in all the use cases mentioned above. What I also see is that fundamental to them all is for Hive to improve the governance system. 

As some of you will know I have been attempting to attract interest in The Matrix-8 Solution for this purpose, with little success so far. I believe that this potential solution for governance could set Hive in the forefront for trust. Governance is key to all other use cases imo.

Yesterday I read a superb article on this subject which goes into great detail, written by former co-founder of Coinbase Fred Ehrsam. **I highly encourage reading the entire article** 
https://medium.com/@FEhrsam/blockchain-governance-programming-our-future-c3bfe30f2d74
Here are some quotes.

"*blockchain governance system design is one of the highest leverage activities known*."

"*For users: Spend more time looking at the governance system of your blockchain, less time on the issue of the day. Current events are just a manifestation of the larger system that caused them. So while it’s easy to get riled up by the news, the highest leverage point for change comes from designing or changing the system, not arguing about its current manifestations.*"

"*I believe governance should be the primary focus of investors in the space. The fundamentals of cryptoeconomics and overarching governance schemas of these networks are critical to survival, under-appreciated, and poorly understood. Investors can add significant value through the luxury of being able to observe and learn from multiple projects at one time. They should be active in the governance of the tokens they participate in and transparent with a community if they feel the design of the system can be improved.*"


I think anonymous deliberation and voting plus [Trusted Reputation](https://peakd.com/hive-153630/@atma.love/trusted-reputation) are two key areas of good decentralised governance which are not in place with the Hive DPOS. Fred talks about these in his article. I also note that Vechain are working on an anonymous voting system for the same reasons. 

Anyway, I encourage all to read the article linked to above AND to read about The Matrix-8 Solution (a multi-level, real time Pure Democrity) which I feel strongly addresses many of the issues mentioned and can make Hive a leading Blockchain and attract billions of users for the governance (and voting) system for worldwide use cases. 

This post answers some questions about Matrix-8 https://peakd.com/hive-153630/@atma.love/matrix-8-questions-and-answers

This link is for the New Age DApps community where you can find more posts including the white paper for Matrix-8 https://peakd.com/c/hive-153630/created

Namaste
Atma

I think continuing to build the backbone and structure of Hive to serve multiple purposes is the best strategy right now. The use case of Hive for gaming is growing pretty good, the game builders are learning more and more about what they need Hive Backbone wise in order to progress to the next level. To me the game side of block chain technology is like the old school game developers before everyone got bought out, they are pushing the envelope of the tech.

The social interaction side is also pushing the boundaries, we have several nice front ends, the social users are telling the front end developers what they would like to see and how they would like to see the system progress, once again pushing the edges of the technology.

Just two parts of the Hive Block Chain experience, there is room for them both, and room for so much more, I don't think the focus should be on just one use case, Hive Block Chain is the use case. 

Steem was becoming stagnant, no growth, they kept pushing SMT and other block chain developments further and further down the line, they were becoming complacent and taking a **good enough** attitude on any developments they did do. 

Focus if one must but focus on the big picture for now. There are so many people building out applications, and those applications going in so many different directions, they are using what is there, and building what they need to use and sharing it.

First off, nobody cares about social media. People just use it because they are so damn bored and money is made from adverticements meaning that contents value has always been on that it attracts attention rather that having any authentic quality. In youtube we can see that there are people with 1 million followers, 100 000 views on a video, 10 000 likes and 1000 comments meaning that people don't even care about voting, let alone commenting. Only change I support for distribution of hive is moving power-up rewards to savings account to separate investors and the actual social-side and app users better. Other proposed changes are just providing speculative fixes to non-existent problems (unfair rewards curve etc.).

Secondly, people keep on mixing vision and plan. We allready have the chain with basic functionalities, we don't need any ground-breaking visions but simple updates to expand on those functioinalities, which should be trivial from other than work perspective at this point. This it-self already provides plan for most parts. 

Thirdly, I was big in to the smt's, but if custom json transactions can allready provide all that smt's could provide and more, whithout too much complexity to employ, we should just provide proper tools and demo the use cases for people (though remember that people are stupid).

(Thirdly point onetly,) greatest break-trough that block-chain can do for gaming is not that you can trade your assets (though this is part of solution) but that you can finally earn (something concrete) from your labour in video-games. RuneScape (old school) is great example of game that could benefit from tokenizeing it's resources (materials and levels). A simple demo game that looks like Adventure Quest but has some of the elemnts of RuneScape (mining, crafting armor) should be demoed.

Fourthly, adverticement should focus on telling devs about the custom json possibilities of hive block-chain bluntly since it appears that no-one knows about it. Some developers of existing games should also be reached and persuaded to switch or integrate hive, since no other chain even appears to be able to handle games.

@themarkymark @blocktrades @edicted

Para mie el mejor concepto, de la vida es vivir el presente, el futuro es incierto, gracias por compartir, te voto y te sigo.

Dear @yabapmatt

> Hive’s future as a 2nd layer blockchain network

I've been thinking a lot lately about idea of moving rewards to 2nd layer and I'm wondering: if neither Steem or HIVE managed (with all it's resources) to create enough value and demand - then how can we expect that those who would launch their tokens (2nd layer) will succeed?

Steem-engine and hive-engine are great example. Literally hardly any token have a value. I'm afraid that most would fail (failure is to be expected in my opinion).

Yours, Piotr

Let me toss another one out at you **@yabapmatt,** even though it typically falls on deaf ears, even after almost four years.

>Basically, why would someone want to get some HIVE? (and speculation on price appreciation or anything that boils down to "to earn more HIVE tokens" aren't acceptable answers).

We need some *solid* use cases that utilize what we have here, engages the membership and will draw in new people because the *use* itself onboards newcomers, not *"the lure of crypto"* or *"the almighty blockchain"* or the *"chance to make lambo money."*

What we need to to EXTEND what is being built on *digital* goods to physical goods and have an app that's a combination eBay/craigslist peer-to-peer marketplace that actually starts to *make good* on the original promise of cryptocurrency: to bank the unbanked and offer a means of exchange outside the fiat world. 

We all *have* stuff, *buy* stuff, *trade* stuff and *collect* stuff... but why Hive?

Number one, low transaction cost, fast, large capacity... check.
Number two, *sensible user names* rather than a long string of meaningless characters. 
Number three, *global* audience. That means global *trade.* 

What I'm suggesting here is *get back to basics.* We can *"fancy up"* the value of the Blockchain till we're blue in the face, but why not apply it to one of the *oldest* human endeavors: Commerce and trade.

What else is cool about it?

THERE is a reason to get your hands on some Hive. We've got loads of anarcho-libertarian types who'd *love* to stick it to the government and fiat. And they all *buy and sell stuff.* We've got lots of people who are sick and tired of giving 10% to eBay and 3% to PayPal and... oh... another couple of percent for international currency exchange.

*"Yeah, but they are still going to go change their Hive to fiat..."*

Think BIG, think LONG TERM... they won't do that if the marketplace HAS THE GOODS they are looking to buy.

Don't think it can be done? It has already *been* done, although it's a *closed* system, where Hive would be an *open* system: Second Life... at one point the internal economy of Second Life reached the equivalent value of US $500 million+... and that was a long time ago. 

Sure, it would probably require some serious coding by a number of developers for a long time... but with the world being sort of uncertain, the idea of creating an entire free-standing economy seems ripe for the picking. I think we need to get into some very *basic* things people do every day... *"ordinary"* stuff that would give *"ordinary"* (non-technical, non-blockchain, non-crypto) people a reason to get involved. 

It has served eBay and Amazon pretty well... I think eBay's annual transaction value is about US $27Bn and Amazon's about $87Bn. Even if we just built a Hive-based *$500 MILLION* marketplace, the demand for Hive would be so huge the price would go 10x or more...

I'm happy to see that you recognize the heavy competition among general-purpose blockchains. Other developers who posted their vision recently seemed to lack affinity for what makes Hive unique.

One underdeveloped niche is content-producing organizations that aren't media or advertisers. NGOs, universities, museums, churches, unions, sports teams etc. produce or curate a lot of content that's more interesting than the average Hive post but needs a bit more promotion than the average professional media article. And a one-time investment that could pay off forever is compatible with their donation-based finances.

I've commented about this niche on Steem before, but nothing happened. I'm not the right person to do all the cold-calling and hand-holding that onboarding these institutions would require.

This isn't really something I have to worry about, as specialization on the network really only applies to devs making core changes. 

Personally I think that Hive's main use-case will eventually pivot to gaming... to the point of RCs being so expensive that those who don't already have a solid network will probably not even attempt to write a blog because they can make more money on the gaming side anyway.  Of course I am extremely biased in this regard so who knows. 

In order for gaming to go viral on Hive, devs must be willing to decentralize their product and lose ownership of it.  I'm not seeing any of that today.  We need to be paying the community to help develop the game in the form of stake and power issued by the game's native currency. The concept of proof of brain and extend far beyond optional tips.  We can create real jobs that pay real money... it just takes a bit of innovative organization. 

HIVE.D!
From the Ship!

https://youtu.be/O7mG7WUVkMw

If the community can hold it together until it forks into something useful. 

Here's what an internet rando thinks:
All that info that gets used to target advertisements at me, well - I should get a cut of what people are paying to target me. So, if you take the HIVE into advertisement, I'd do it with that built in. Probably do a thing where interacting on a HIVE-powered app that successfully hands off into HIVE account creation means:  you have cryptomoney! Now figure out how to cash out if you can.

I'm crazy layman, but my hunch is that the cryptosocial network that manages information targeting right will come out second (below what the sheep are taught to use). That weird 7-day window to value a post is odd AF, innit?  Do I even understand that correctly?

It seems to me that if THAT is going to be a thing, then shit posts below a 'transaction threshold' shouldn't be written to the chain in perpetuity... but that's for smarter folks than me.

I will say this tribe thing turns me on. Where the coin is just the base operating currency and the token topper is like stock in the project. Maybe run with that.

I think the email angle is way underplayed too. I'll receive spam messages if you let me set the pricepoint they have to "postage-stamp" to get my attention. Add a recursive cut to the system while you're at it. Then sure, tell me about your boner-pills bro.

You think crypto is an opportunity to create a morality overlay for advertisements? Community smear marks replace the better-business-bureau and the naughtier you are the more expensive it is for you to advertise?

Stay salty friends. I feel a lot better about this place than I did about steeeeem. Like it filtered a layer of competence off the top of that potential soap.

Oh a lot of ideas!

We need a *Debit card*, something like **Crypto.com**, so we can spend our HIVEs! 
![PicsArt_081602.23.08.jpg](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/hivelander/Nj1yJ9ly-PicsArt_08-16-02.23.08.jpg)

We have to know what people use to do online... There is a super interesting report here:
https://wearesocial.com/blog/2020/01/digital-2020-3-8-billion-people-use-social-media

We need some serious promotion, like [Grayscale's last video](https://grayscale.co/?utm_medium=pr&utm_source=release&utm_campaign=2020_h2_brand_hom&wvideo=vlmdpfbbcf&__cf_chl_captcha_tk__=760cda67635b70805f60ae2ef31d89368b275fca-1597351762-0-AbVDqL8gcF748jb95XiFnFwaF9Qd0yzDElvY5JGXuWMluIyAUi7gC407X16v-2b4AYSm_cINbbi8ZjNdFwQa_AA980J0K0oEjDEuqWyI03vg1HdYno7lRGlyzqSuq8Q8-DZZSuq9QmdoI9QU1N4wo1XdDX4L9GO-PlGsEm_ISxnmP-4JEpSWltUrABImWmxhEy_meNSX3dbDJOfu9zNnLo9jUIHaz38X24v5yxhjfeXbMXu7tyK2FuOl4QPdxwxhwHpWW3lEm6g03RtR8lRbIXKIMPYWffukMJtPDukEdhL-dFOUcQ8HtZO68QYeJxDjCijS5sF7rfokO72qmUj1KJ0L4Ng8fu8AeuLjwKHe3LJPTz2hDPx0xatrEkxpehUxwxCr5iYTApQ8xhNBIOrRwFXkLymy4lUcn6_ld-SCUuu2MKbnC_QTSVtPE5smQJAoSjudP1ztfQpqk21sn_kHCS2leNLtFZr_fWAaB39u6BsSEj868oEJpEsst6aaegqHITaFagzBuYxbyzhsQOjKFVorZ9gHLJYAia-QA9lzOclMrAbI_6dufbm8-Mo4zLmSMP9PXfW2LqwJdLjVzYEwL81Hru3LleLRPHLdsCu-b3mdXeQZ0_Ji8y3mQJ4xG2Zmaxct1CXLBg9XSvBRxIprKyA#watch) or [Galaxy's ad on Financial Times](https://i.redd.it/p4j972eijrg51.jpg)... I liked also @roomservice's idea to promote on Brave browser.

Thanks again for your post!

Hugs

**Hivelander The Mannequin**