Hive: A Complete Guide For Beginners

(Harry's Happy Hive Journey)

Created: April, 2021

Reading Time: 55min.

Last Update: May, 2021

DISCLAIMER

You can join Hive in about 5 minutes...

…but you’ll probably feel lost & confused. This guide answers the questions you may have as you take your first steps into the world of Hive. You can jump to a section using the Table Of Contents above, but reading the guide fully is worth it.

I had a rough time learning Hive, so I made this to help others. (Also, it explains deep things in a friendly way, so there’s probably value in here for Hive veterans as well.)

Ready? Let’s go!

Do you like doodles, Harry?

“Um…”

“Weird question, I know. But I’m asking for a reason. Because my crypto guide showed how a blockchain is like an account-book tracking any (digital) transaction. Sure, most of us use it to track only ‘crypto’ transactions…

But what if we had an ‘account book’ that tracked all social transactions?”

“Yo… you high bro?”

“No, think about it…

Every like, comment, & post you make is a “digital transaction.”

It’s you investing your time & attention in a ‘product’ (someone’s post, for example.)”

“I guess. It’s mostly just me clicking around.”

“Exactly. Your ‘clicking’ around is consumerism. It’s you, consuming a product. When you consume something online, that is a transaction. Straight up.”

“So?”

“So for years, nobody really respected you for it. You didn’t get sh*t for investing your attention. Only the social platforms got rich from it. Same thing goes for content-creation. A post you make on most social platforms can go unnoticed and unrewarded. These social transactions can feel like a waste of your energy, right?”

“Oh, for sure. I’ve wasted energy posting, and I’ve wasted energy swiping.”

“Right. But what if a social platform rewarded you for every like, comment, & share?

What if they rewarded every consumer and creator on the platform in cryptocurrency? How great would it be if you got rewarded for every social transaction you made?”

“Sounds like a dream, homes. Never gonna happen. It’s not like Reddit will pay you to click that upvote button. Or Instagram will pay you to click that heart. Or WordPress will pay you to post a blog. These platforms simply won’t do it.”

“I know. But Hive will.”

"Why Hive?" Harry asked.

“Why Hive?” Harry asked.

“Because social’s got everyone by the balls.

Traditional social platforms know your attention is their product. So they all fight to keep you addicted to their apps. They do this because whoever has the most data is the ‘sexiest’ to advertisers. And whichever social is sexiest to advertisers, becomes the richest. These social giants ‘steal’ people’s attention and sell it. But this has gone on for years, and people are getting fed up.”

“True say. And don’t get me started on their algorithms. They used to give me good recommendations, now they just decide what news I see.”

“And don’t get it twisted, I love all these social platforms, and use them. I don’t judge them or wish them any harm.

I’m just outlining how people are feeling about social in general lately.”

“Man, I hear that. I’ve actually felt all those things. I’m pretty pissed at social lately.” I could hear an edge creep into Harry’s voice. Time to change the topic to something brighter.

Unlike Facebook or Twitter, Hive is social media that pays you to ‘like’, comment, & post.

"Let's talk on Hive's benefits", I said.

“Well it sounds like I get financially rewarded just to click around and do what I’m doing all day?”

“Yes, you do. But there’s more.

Freedom:

Because Hive has no CEO, there’s no ‘god’ deciding what you can and can’t post. No one’s out there randomly shadow-banning people they don’t like.

Ownership:

Because every ounce of your data is stored on a blockchain, encrypted by your un-hackable key, only you own your data. Only you can delete it. Only you can edit it. Only you can sell your data to advertisers, or whoever. It’s yours.

Cryptocurrency:

Because the Hive blockchain tracks every social interaction, it is possible to reward every interaction. (Well, in crypto.)

You can read more about this stuff in my ‘Hive’s Invisible, Just Like Me’ post.

The takeaway here is that Hive solves most of the pain-points people are feeling from traditional social media.

That’s why all the Hive-hype, Harry.”

I relaxed my jaw and shoulders. Apparently I was more fired up than I thought. I laughed at myself internally. I just wanted to get my friend on Hive, lol.

Hive is ‘decentralized’, meaning free & governed by the people’s consensus, not by some politician or CEO.

"Alright, I'm psyched, how do I start?"

“That’s kind of a loaded question bro.”

“How come?”

“Because a noob like you doesn’t just ‘start’ with Hive.”

“I don’t?”

“I mean, you can I guess, but anyone I’ve seen try it just gets frustrated and bounces.”

“Why?”

“It’s Hive’s fault, to be honest. No new platform is perfect, and for all it’s amazing traits, a big issue with Hive is that it’s not user-friendly.”

“Ah, I see.”

“I’m serious, it’s brutal. Like, not easy… at all.”

“So Hive’s user-unfriendly?”

“Yeah, but it’s worth learning. In fact, it’s not just ‘unfriendly’, it’s user-enemy. Anti-user. At least for the average person. Which is a shame, because it really is revolutionary. I want people to benefit from it. I know it can help them. I know it can send a message to Facebook, Twitter, and the rest. But only if people can actually use it. And to be honest, I don’t see the average person being able to use it. It feels like a chemical engineering test or performing brain-surgery just to sign up.”

“Can’t I just Google it?”

“Hahah, I wish. Googling it will turn up a few decent guides. And I’ve read some great materials that help beginners get started on Hive, and they’re great. But none of them have covered it simply enough for you, trust me. Or they do, but there’s always some stumbling block that’s unaddressed, or key info left out. This means you try to join, encounter a ‘seemingly unbeatable’ obstacle in your Hive journey, and give up. So until the devs make it easier, I’ll walk you through it myself.”

“Wow, this feels like personal tutoring.”

“It is! It’s your lucky day, I’m giving you a total beginner’s A-to-Z guide to Hive…

…You’ll go from Hive sign-up to Hive superstar!”

Hive’s world of reward-based social interaction is new and rough around the edges.

"Isn't it like joining any site?

Like I’m asking, isn’t it just like every other social platform? I just sign-up with my email and password, add a photo, and voila, right?”

“Not exactly.” I say, “Because Hive isn’t ‘one thing.’ Hive is, um… at least two things.

Using Hive means using:

1. The Hive.io blockchain, and
2. Also an app to access Hive’s social media (such as PeakD or Ecency).

Just like using the internet is two things:

1. Your internet service provider and
2. A web-browser (such as Chrome or Explorer)

“OK, I get it. Just like I need AT&T before I use Chrome, I join Hive.io before choosing an app to browse their social media platform, right?”

“Yes! But unlike AT&T, Hive is free! So head over to signup.hive.io, let’s go!”

Signup.Hive.io

“OK, I’m there. I found the sign-up button. Er, buttons. There’s another one. Wait… there’s one more. And another. WTF?”

“Oh, yeah, I should’ve mentioned.

Turns out Hive has like 9 different ways to sign-up. It’s cray.”

“Why?” Harry squinted.

“Sigh. It’ll all make sense, soon. Just get your Hive.io account and bear with me on this, ok? “

“Fine. But which button do I press? There’s Ecency Signup, 3Speak Signup, HiveOnBoard Signup–“

“That one! That one’s fine. HiveOnBoard. It’s fast and they’ll verify you by phone. Click it.”

“K, I clicked it and it’s warning me that I need to install the ‘Hive Keychain Browser Extension’ first. Uh, dude…

...why do I need a Hive Keychain extension?"

“Because signing up for the Hive.io blockchain isn’t just an operating system.

It’s also like getting a bank account at the same time.

If you want to earn by scrolling your Hive feed, you’ll need an account, which Hive calls a ‘wallet.’ And just like a bank doesn’t give you a wallet in real life, Hive doesn’t give you one either. You create your own using a free ‘wallet service.’ The ‘Hive Keychain Browser Extension’ is my favorite Hive wallet service, because it also keeps track of your Hive usernames, passwords, etc., which makes logging in and earning crypto on Hive easy.”

“So you’re telling me I’ve got to open a new browser window, install this Hive Keychain thing, set it up properly, then come back and reload the HiveOnBoard sign-up page, which is really just a service helping me get my Hive.io account?”

“Exactly…

Although now that you say it out loud, it sounds pretty silly for a sign-up process.

And, uh, there’s a few apps that refuse Keychain, and require another sign-in app, HiveSigner.com instead. But don’t worry about that, you can cross that bridge later, the Keychain Extension does most of what you need.”

“Sheesh. Whatever… it’s just a chrome extension, I got this.”

Harry Googled it and clicked the first result, then clicked “Add To Chrome” and voila, Keychain installed. He made sure to setup his usual easy-to-remember password on it. It was nice. It gave me a breather to stop explaining. Eventually he made it back to HiveOnBoard.com and refreshed the page.

"Now I choose a username and password?"

“Sort of. You choose a username, and Hive.io will create your account. It will also give you a master hive.io account password. This password will be ridiculously long and unreadable.”

“Do I have to type it in?”

“Not if you setup the Hive Keychain properly.”

“I thought I did!”

“Well, you got it installed and ‘ready-for-import’, but once your Hive.io account is finally created, you’ll have to…

Import your username and password into Hive Keychain, once.

Then you probably won’t need to type them often again.”

“Sounds good.”

“Yeah, but there’s more. Hive.io gives you more than a username & password.”

Hive gives you social freedom, as well as money, so you’ll need to setup your ‘Hive Keychain’ for added security.

"What else does Hive give me?"

“You get 4 ‘Private Keys’, which are kind of like keys in real life. The right key lets people get into the right room, or operate the right vehicle.”

“Wait, there’s rooms and vehicles on Hive? I thought it was social media.”

“Haha, no I just mean that your 4 keys can be used to access different ‘tools’ of your account. This way if someone steals one of your keys, they may only have posting privileges. If they steal another key, they may get wallet privileges.”

“So it’s like my own social media ‘house.’ I have many keys on my Hive keychain, & lend keys to who I want.”

“Yes, great metaphor! As the ‘owner’ of all the keys, you’ll probably hold onto the important one’s like the vault-key where you keep your last will & testament. But you may let your kids borrow the car keys sometimes. Because you have separate keys, you feel secure knowing that people can only use the parts of your data that you allow them too. Imagine if you just carried one ‘skeleton key’ around, you couldn’t lend it to anyone to do stuff for you without worrying. Because they could just steal that and take your whole online identity.”

“Hmm… so it’s a security thing?”

“Yeah, most of this stuff is. Hive and the crypto world in general are obsessed with security. I guess it’s good, but it does make teaching crypto tricky.”

"What are these 4 keys exactly?"

“They’re the owner key, active key, posting key, and memo key. They’ll look something like this:

Owner Key: 5KA3mcNgaHrtabqRjjZJ7uiet67vgPhVvNNYMRmh3B3ccojTEg5
Active Key: 5KJsx5CzBzAwbpFjoNzWN4FBSeTy6X3GRkp19GG3de7deo6fNko
Posting Key: 5Jp1f6pf5Y1Q1AuFstK86NkBZkhK5ViAmUaM65ZeAjfwAYqynfx
Memo Key: 5KWg94DPBXSWiVVMpj9VM7tAjYeLLGh6GWYCnoCwpFhbnSBGwCt

(And remember that you have a Hive.io master password too, that looks like this: YvwBqeGEH6yuChjxLaJLXtY9Heat6kav, and gives you access to all your other keys. )

I know you’ll ask what each key does, so I’ll explain:

Owner Key: It’s like the key to a house-safe, where you keep all identity documents and bank-codes. It lets anyone who has it change your password, recover your account, even alter your keys. (Top Tier Access)

Active Key: This is like your house-key. It lets anyone who has it get in a do a bunch of stuff in the house. In Hive it lets you transfer funds, buy influence-points, even vote on the future of Hive, since as soon as you sign-up, you’re now a part-owner. (Second Tier Access)

Posting Key: This is like the key to your media-room, or living-room. It lets anyone who has it post, comment, vote, share, follow, manage profile, etc. (Third Tier Access)

Memo Key: This is like the key to your mailbox. It lets anyone who has it send/read/receive encrypted messages as if they were you. (Fourth Tier Access)

“Cool, so on Hive, I use different keys for different levels of security. And if I’m getting it right…

I don’t want to give out anything higher than the posting key, right?”

“For the most part yes. There are some apps (like ‘HiveSigner’) where you’ll want to give them your Active Key, but mainly you’ll give the Posting Key so apps and plugins can do cool stuff for you, without giving them access to your wallet.”

“Whew, aight. Got it. So I signed up as ‘@HarryDresdenIsTheBest, what do I do with my keys?”

"You backup your 4 Keys & Hive.io main password!"

“Wait, you mean write all five of those crazy-long codes down?”

“Basically, yes. Store them however you want, I’m gonna trust you know how to back something up safely. Whatever you do, a backup is the main thing. And extra important is that your backup is very safe.

Because no one on earth can recover your account if you lose your keys.

It’s like owning the worlds most secure safe, no one’s getting in if the sole owner forgets the code. And you might have a lot of money in there. So treat your backup with respect. Besides, these keys are also how you operate any app on the Hive.io blockchain, including it’s social media apps.”

“Ugh. Fine, if it’s to keep my cash safe, I guess it’s worth. But can’t I just use my normal password, ‘Har0ldDresd3n’?“

“That’s what the keychain extension is for.

You set that up with your normal password, right?”

“For sure.”

“Ok, so once you’re done with this HiveOnBoard sign-up service, and you have a proper Hive.io account, complete with your 4 keys plus long Master Password… you go back to your Chrome extension (hiding in the little ‘puzzle piece’ icon in the top-right of Chrome), and ‘import’ your keys. That way, from now on, all you need to do is unlock your Keychain with your normal, easy-to-remember password, and…

Your keychain will automatically enter those keys for you wherever they’re needed on Hive.”

“I get it. But I still have to backup my keys in case I move to other devices, other browsers, or Hive Keychain stops working or something, right?”

“Yes! Your keys are insanely important, back ’em up! The cliche ‘Not your keys? Not your crypto!’ is true. Once that’s done, click ‘Create Hive Account’ and you’re part of Hive!”

Harry clicks the fuchsia-colored button with glee.

Imagine you own a military-grade vault with your identity & cash in it… losing the keys is not an option, right? Same goes for Hive.

"Note: keychain can pop up asking for 'authorization', Harry."

“It totally did!”

“Don’t worry, the keychain just wants permission to start ‘opening locks’ for you. It wants to automatically sign you in to Hive.io and perform digital transactions for you like ‘commenting’ and ‘posting’. It just needs permission first.”

“So I should grant it authority?”

“Yeah, but to do that you have to:

Enter the (‘easy-to-remember’) password you chose when you first installed Keychain.
Then you have to click Keychain’s ‘Import’ button.
Enter your Hive username and Posting Key. Once done, it will import your keys, and Keychain will have them from now on.”

"Woo! So now I can post?"

“Unfortunately not. You now have an account on the Hive blockchain, Hive.io. Remember, it’s like signing up to an internet service provider like AT&T. You also have your very own Hive Wallet for storing crypto-currency. That’s like having an account at a bank. But just having internet and a bank account isn’t enough. Now, you have to actually ‘go’ to the social platform that’s running on Hive.”

“Let me guess, it’s another seven-thousand steps, right?”

“Naw, it’s way easy.

Just go to peakD.com & let your keychain sign you in.

You may have to click ‘confirm’ or something.”

Harry did so. “I’m there!”

“See? Now that everything is setup, you can use any Hive.io app, such as PeakD’s (Hive Browser) app, and your Hive Keychain will sign you into it.”

“Oh wow, I’m in! Did it auto-select dark mode? This looks cool!”

“Yeah, I knew you’d like it.”

Hive is like the internet combined with a bank-account. You surf it using an app like PeakD or Ecency.

2. Preparations

"So what do I do first?"

“Whatever you want. Some people like to explore, vibe out the platform, see what people are up to first. They might lurk for a while, or test out small actions like voting, re-blogging, or commenting. Others love to create first. They don’t care about all that other stuff, they just want to make an ‘introduction’ post and make themselves known on the platform. Some do a combination of both.”

“Hmm, I want to do both.”

“Sure, but choose one to start with, you can’t do two things at once bro.”

“OK, I choose create. Let’s post!”

“Sounds good. And don’t worry, I’ll teach you all the ‘content consumption’ stuff later. We’ll explore how to earn with your clicks.”

Harry flicked his mouse over to the little ‘pencil’ icon, and I knew he was about to start writing, but I realized I hadn’t explained ‘resource credits’ to him. Dammit, that’s pretty important. I don’t want to crush his excitement with yet another explanation, but he’s gonna have a rough time if I don’t.

"Wait! Let me explain 'resource credits!'"

“Chill homes, we good. What are resource credits?”

“Well, you know how the Hive.io blockchain tracks every digital transaction made, down to the shortest comment, or tiniest upvote?”

“Yeah…”

“Well, tracking all that stuff takes a lot of computing power. And like everything in the world, all those computing resources and electricity cost money. So, there has to be some way to stop a spam-bot from jumping on the platform, upvoting everything, and eating up all the resources. It would crash Hive and there’d be no computing power left for anyone else.”

“Makes sense. Smart way to handle abusers!”

“Yes, it is!”

"So Hive invented resource credits?"

“Yeah, Hivians (or Hivers?) call them ‘RC’, and every account has a certain amount of them to spend. When they do any kind of action (posts, likes, comments… the only thing that doesn’t cost resource credits viewing/reading stuff), it automatically spends their RC. When their RC hits zero, they have no more actions until it recharges. This way people take proper actions and don’t spam.”

“I guess not. OK, so how much resource credits do I have?”

“Basically none. For all Hive knows, you might be a bot that signed up. You might be looking to spam. If you try to do anything right now, with zero credits on your account, Hive Keychain will just popup and give you a weird error. Hive ain’t handing out resource credits to bots, right?”

“Yeah, but, hold up. If I need RC to do stuff, and I start with zero RC… how do I ever do anything? You know this is dumb right? Other socials make sign-up easy, & let me post freely.”

“Yes, but those places don’t pay you. Money is involved here.

Things have to be a little more secure, and handled a bit differently. And don’t worry, RC is easy to get. Stay with me.”

“OK, but I’m sayin’, most people would bounce if –after all this– they can’t even post. I would’ve been gone without you explaining this stuff.”

“I know, I know. So let’s get you some RC so you can start crushing this platform. But I’m gonna throw yet another new term at you, OK?”

“Sigh. What is it this time?”

“Hive power.”

Resource credits are Hive’s main way of stopping spammers.

"Why do I need to know about Hive Power?"

“For so many reasons which I’ll explain later. For now you just need to know because Hive Power helps you get resource credits.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Seriously? Fine, I’ll bite. What’s Hive Power?”

“Well, Hive Power and resource credits are tied together.”

“Great, but I didn’t ask ‘why,’ I want to know what it is!”

“My bad. Hive Power is basically clout, or influence. The more Hive Power you have, the more influence you have on the platform. Your votes & comments ‘mean more’ and your shares ‘reach more.’ And most importantly for you, dear Harry, you can physically ‘do more’ because…

Your resource credits are proportional to your HP.

And before you ask, yes, Hivians abbreviate everything.”

“So what you’re telling me is, that since I’m new, I have no Hive Power (or influence) yet. Which means I have no resource credits. Which means I can’t do sh*t.

How do I get Hive Power?”

“The easiest way is to be gifted some Hive Power, so that’s the method I’ll teach you.”

“Hmm, but I’ll need Hive Power all through my Hive journey right? Shouldn’t I know the other ways?”

“Fine, I’ll list them real quick. To get Hive Power…

You can earn HP by interacting. Posting, commenting, voting, and re-blogging all earn resource credits (but new users can’t do this.)
You can wait for HP. Resource credits recharge daily. It takes about 5 days to fully charge.
You can be delegated (loaned) or gifted HP. We’ll talk about this later.
You can earn HP through dApps. We’ll talk on this later as well.
You can buy HIVE (from exchanges) into your wallet, then convert it into Hive Power, which gives you resource credits.”

“Holy, nevermind, lol, can you just ‘gift’ me some?”

“I could delegate you some, but it’s basically money, in crypto form. I can’t go around giving everyone new Hiver my money to fool around with, you know?”

“But I’m your amigo!”

“Yes, so I probably will delegate you some eventually. But this guide should teach you to be self-sufficient. If I hook you up, then you’ll be relying on me for more.

I’d rather teach you how to get your own Hive Power and/or resource credits. It’s easy.”

“Ok, how?”

"Use this site to be gifted Hive Power & resource credits."

My phone had giftgiver.site loaded up, and I was waving it in Harry’s face, but he just stared at me, confused.

“I’ll explain. You can gift yourself resource credits instantly. Just…

– Go to giftgiver.site/faucet
– Enter your Hive.io username
– Verify with the ‘captcha’
– Click submit, and there you go.

You have a tiny bit of resource credits to get you started.”

“Sweet.” I waited patiently for Harry to visit the site and submit.

“So now I have HP & RC and can I actually use this platform?”

“Yes. And if you comment and post reasonably well, you’ll get rewarded for that with even more RC. But even if your posts suck, you can always head back to that giftgiver.site when you run out to get a bit more.”

“Psssh, please bro, my posts are god-tier.” Harry stuck his tongue out. “Anyway, thanks. So now can I click that little pencil icon and start writing?”

“Yes, please do.”

Harry clicked and was met with the editing page. It had a text editor on the left, (complete with bold, italics, and ‘upload image’ buttons.) On the right, it had a preview pane and a ‘publish’ button.

Your Hive Power determines how many resource credits you can use.

3. Creating A Post

Harry wrote a witty intro post.

Harry wrote up a witty little intro, tagged it as #introduceyourself, but still had more questions.

“How do I resize this image I added?”

“Unfortunately, this isn’t beginner friendly. I’d skip it.”

"But I want to resize my image, it's way too big."

“Seriously, it’s too hard, I’m not explaining it.

You need to be comfortable with URLs, HTML code, pixel-dimensions, etc. If you know HTML, maybe you can figure it out from this example of a re-sized Hive Image.”

				
					<img decoding="async" src="data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%2033%2050'%3E%3C/svg%3E" width="33" height="50" data-lazy-src="https://images.hive.blog/100x50/https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/bashadow/jdaoftGk-DSC_9461macroresizedupload.jpg"/><noscript><img decoding="async" src="https://images.hive.blog/100x50/https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/bashadow/jdaoftGk-DSC_9461macroresizedupload.jpg" width="33" height="50"/></noscript>"

“It looks like you just add ‘images.hive.blog/WidthxHeight/’ to the beginning of your image URL.”

“Oh, so now you’re teaching me? Seriously, good luck. Until Hive makes it more noob-friendly, I’m not touching this subject. People will have to suffer with big images in their posts.”

"Fine, show me how to quote someone in my post?"

“Type a ‘greater-than’ (>) symbol at the start of the line, in front of your quote.”

				
					&gt; "this will be a quote because of the greater-than symbol." - J-Ryze.

"What are these weird symbols in my post?"

“You’ll see symbols like *, #, and _ being added to your posts, because that is how Hive detects bolds, headings, italics, and so on. If you highlight a sentence click the ‘bold’ button, for example, Hive’s editor will put an asterisk (*) at either end of the sentence.”

				
					*italics* , **bold** , ## heading2 , etc.

“Can’t I just use HTML? We learned it in school.”

“I noticed, show off. Yes, you can use HTML as well, Hive does support it.”

"Can I create a link to other sites?"

“Yeah, use square-brackets around your link text [], and parentheses for your link address ().

				
					[Display Text](https://linkaddress.com)

The above will create a link displaying the words 'Display Text', that takes a user to linkaddress.com.

The sets of brackets be right next to each other. You can also just click the ‘chain link’ button in the editor’s toolbar.”

"How about add bullet points?"

“Yes, use a hyphen (-), followed by a space, then your text.

				
					- Bullet one
- Bullet two
- Bullet three
- Etc.

There’s plenty more you can do, columns, numbered-lists, and so on, but I’ll link you a guide to all the symbols at the end.”

“Thanks, now my post looks sweet. I’m launching it!”

Posting on Hive is similar to other platforms.

"Fine, just don't plagiarize even a single part of it!"

“I wasn’t! Why are you yelling at me?”

“Because, Hivers are batshit insane about plagiarism.”

“Will they harm me for it?”

“I wouldn’t put it past some of them.”

“Yikes.”

“Point is…

Hiver’s will downvote you into oblivion for plagiarism or spam, and they are very active about discovering it, so don’t even try getting away with it. Just post normally, like a decent human. And credit anyone and anything you use or borrow from.”

“Got it.”

"What actually happens when I click publish?"

“What do you mean?”

“Well, Hive is different–“
“(ahem,) ‘better’–“
“–different in so many ways. I assume this part is different too, right?”

“You’re right. Smart man, Harry. Let me ask you, what do you think you just did when you clicked ‘Publish?'”

“Um, I posted on PeakD, which is Hive’s social media?”

“No you didn’t.”

“I didn’t?”

"You posted on Hive.io, using PeakD as a front-end."

“A front-end?”

“Yes. Remember that Hive.io is a giant account-book (or operating system.) You have an account on it, and that’s where everything happens. PeakD is just a pretty interface used to access it.

You use PeakD to make a post, but you’re not posting on PeakD.

PeakD doesn’t store any of your data (nor does Hive.Blog, or Ecency) because it’s just a front-end too.

They’re like browsers you use to surf Hive. Or like skins or plugins in other apps. You can use many decentralized apps (dapps) to browse Hive’s social media. Hive.Blog is the original app, but PeakD has overtaken it in popularity. Whichever one you use, it’s still just storing your social interactions on the Hive.io blockchain. Since we started talking, what you’ve actually done is:

Created an account on Hive.io (‘blockchain’), then logged into it using your Keychain, and finally posted on Hive.io. Only, instead of using the Hive.Blog ‘browser’ to do it, you used the sweet dark-mode interface of PeakD.”

“¡Pinche! amigo, ok, ok, I think I get it. I could’ve used the default Hive.Blog skin to post instead, right?”

“Bingo! Like I said, PeakD is like a ‘browser’ for Hive. And it’s the most popular one. The same way Windows has themes and plugins that make it look and feel different, Hive.io does too.

Hive calls these things… dApps.

"Can you quickly explain dapps, then?"

“Sure. For example, PeakD is my favorite dApp for beginners, but we’ll get into other ones down the road.”

“Is it pronounced ‘dee-apps’ or ‘dah-apps?'”

“I say ‘dee-apps’, but it’s your choice. I’ve seen it spelled with a small ‘d,’ other times a capital ‘D,’ and sometimes even a capital ‘A.’ It’s another fancy new word the crypto community has coined. We’ll explore them more once you’re familiar with Hive.”

“So couldn’t I have got my ‘bank account’ at Hive.io, then headed right to Hive.Blog to start posting? That’s the ‘official’ skin right? That way I could skip the Keychain, PeakD, and all this dApps stuff, right?”

“Kind of.

You can’t skip the keychain, ’cause to use a social platform that pays for everything you do on it, you have to have a Hive Wallet.

And though technically you could skip PeakD, you’d be mad if we did.

Firstly because it’s a much better experience, and more importantly, because Hive.io is an operating system that runs many powerful dApps. These dApps are essential, so you’ll need to get used to them. I figured we’d make your first dApp PeakD, since it makes posting and browsing Hive’s social media so much nicer.”

“Hmm, thanks J. You went the extra mile to teach this and dig deeper, all so I didn’t end up lost and confused out in the crypto-social-world.”

“I think I’m blushing. That’s the nicest Hive-Focused thing anyone’s said to me. Thank you! But let’s keep going. Surely you don’t just want to learn how to post, then bounce, right?”

“Right! I posted. So now I’m thinking ‘show me the money!’ The coolest part of everything you’ve told me is that I get paid for doing ‘normal social media’ things. What do I do to get my hands on that cash?”

“Hold your horses, partner. People are already replying to your post, probably because you added that ‘#introduceyourself’ tag. You sure you wanna ignore ’em to chase money that’s already on it’s way?”

“Good point, let’s tackle commenting then!”

“Good choice, Harry. One thing: I know I said we wouldn’t talk payment yet, but let me explain rewards to you before we get into commenting, ok?

“Sure!”

Hive.io runs dapps just like iOS and Android run apps.

4. REWARDS (Crypto!)

"Understand rewards before consuming, Harry."

“Uh-huh. So enlighten me.”

“OK. In real money, you can’t get smaller than a cent, right?”

“I mean… I could “guinsoo-knife” a penny in half I guess.”

“Sure, and no one would take it.

Crypto is different though. Many rewards are given out as a percent of a coin. Because you’re doing so many clicks and stuff on social, it’d be nuts if they were all worth a cent each.

And since rewards are given in a cryptocurrency, they have to be worth 0.001 of a token, or something.”

“Got it.”

“So it costs others some of their Resource Credits to comment on your post. And it will cost you some RC to reply.”

“I think I understand. And since they each count as ‘posts,’ to Hive.io, they start earning RC/HP back for the people who make them and those who interact with them, right?”

“Exactly! Although it’s ‘potentially’ earning.”

“Wait, I thought you said everything earns? Whatchu mean ‘potentially’, mang?”

“Well, weak-ass comments don’t earn. If you say ‘great post’, it’s very unlikely to earn rewards.”

“How come?”

“Because rewards are only paid out once they cross the ‘dust threshold.'”

"What the fk is the 'dust threshold?'**"

“It’s the earnings-bar Hive sets. Your ‘digital interaction’ (post, comment, etc.) has to cross this bar before Hive starts paying out.”

“How high is this earnings bar?”

“Two cents.”

“Hahaha, good one!”

“…”

“Wait, you’re not joking?”

“Nope. It really is two cents. Think about it. If you make a post or a comment, people can vote on it. So they start voting, and your post starts earning. But remember, rewards are earned in tiny pieces, as a percent of a token. So, lame comments like ‘great post’ won’t earn enough ‘pieces of a token’ to even cross a single cent, let alone the $0.02 threshold.”

“Hmm. So everyone’s posts, comments, and votes all earn. But only decent content gets engaged with enough to pass the dust-threshold and begin paying out. The rest sit there at less than two cents, paying out nothing.”

“Yep, and those non-earners are called ‘dust votes!’ We’ll explore rewards more when we talk ‘earnings.’ For now, I’ll just say, very good summary, Harry. You learn fast.”

“I mean, dude, you’re teaching this better than every f**king human on the planet.”

“Please, my ego’s already big enough, I don’t wanna go back to my ‘cocky a$hole’ years.”

“Okay, okay. Heh. So what’s next? Why did I need to know all this before replying to comments?”

Be smarter than most new Hivers, avoid ‘dust votes.’

5. Consuming Content

"Because... look at the comments on your post, my friend."

“OMG, I have 3 comments already! Is this for real?”

“Yeah, Hive’s pretty new. There’s thousands of people using it, but not nearly the same as the hundreds of millions who use Facebook or Instagram. This means you get the benefit of standing out in a world that hasn’t buried you in noise… yet. This also means people can get overly focused on votes and comments. Hivers sometimes seem to all be fighting over the sparse attention available, and since money is involved, they can get a bit carried away. S’all good though. You benefit from 3 comments in 3 minutes now, but it may not stay this way.”

“Aight, so do I reply? Do my replies cost resource credits?”

“They do, you’re really getting this. When I first started posting I used up all my RC replying to comments and then couldn’t do anything for days.”

“So, are you telling me not to reply?”

“Look, it’s like this: Comments are treated as ‘mini-posts’ by Hive.io. It stores them the same way on the blockchain. Imagine if you left a really long comment? You’d want that to count and earn, similar to a post, right?”

“Definitely.”

“Right, so Hive.io rewards people who interact with comments, the same way it rewards people who interact with posts. So by all means, reply to your followers, but understand that this isn’t like other social media where you can just write ‘great post!’ all the time. Each comment matters, and each comment has the potential of getting upvoted or downvoted… which can actually affect people’s cashflow, yours included.”

“Now I’m scared!”

“Don’t be, man. I’m not telling you this to scare you, I’m telling you this so you understand what people are doing when they comment on your post. Yes, they’re engaging with you. But they’re also contributing their own ‘posts’ in the thread beneath yours, and they may deserve those ‘posts’ (their comments) to be upvoted.”

“Right, so I literally have the power to reward them with my replies.”

“Yes, or even just an upvote, if you don’t feel like replying.”

“Oh god, please don’t tell me upvotes are some special thing too…”

“They are. And they have to be, because people are earning through them. It can’t just be some random ‘click like’ and hit the explore-page sh*t. It has to make sense (and cents).”

Comments are basically mini-posts, fully upvote-able and ready-to-earn.

Voting (Votes Are Money!)

"Fine, explain voting before I comment too."

“Ay! What’s with the attitude? Are you not interested in earning money by voting? Because it took me insane effort to understand all this, and even more to explain it this simply. I’m happy to stop and go grab a beer, just say the word.”

“No, no, my bad. I just– it’s just a lot to take in at once.”

“Well, no one’s forcing you to digest it all now. We can always stop and pick up our conversation later. You can learn Hive bit by bit.”

“No, it’s fine, please continue. I want to know what I’m doing so I can succeed here.”

“That’s better. Hmph.” I folded my arms in a huff.

Seeing my posture, Harry took a big breath and sighed. “So… uh… voting?”

“Yes, right! Voting. Voting is a pretty big topic with Hivers. It seems everyone has something to say about it. The reason is that every vote is money. Money can be wasted. Money can be abused. Money can be invested poorly, or wisely. Same goes for votes. Three different people told me three different approaches to voting when I first joined Hive. The conflicting views were nuts. It took me way too long to figure it out.”

“Can you give me it in a nutshell?”

"Yes, but first I'll cover 'reputation' score."

“Are. You. Kidding. Me?”

“More terminology. I know. Look, I didn’t make all this stuff. If I was in charge it’d be better, but I’m not. I’m with you. I’m not blind. I can clearly see how over-complicated it is, and we both know I could simplify it.”

“The dream.”

“Anyway, reputation score is one way Hive, and Hivers, can understand your value on the platform. A brand new bot who just spams the platform will have a crappy reputation score. A founder of the platform who’s contributed thousands of quality posts and comments for years… will have a great reputation score.”

“What’s my rep score?”

“If you’re on PeakD, it’s next to your name. It goes up when people vote on your stuff. Getting downvoted can hurt your rep and make your posts less visible. Every new user starts off with a reputation score of 25, so that’s what yours is at. Maybe a tad higher because you got three upvotes already.”

"Ah, so voting directly affects rep score."

“Exactly. Which is why I had to explain it first.”

“OK, so should I like… upvote the people who commented on my post? Or should I reply to them? Or should I do both?”

“Good questions. And the answer is: it depends. Remember, everything you do spends your resource credits. Which means, everything you do better be ‘worth it’ to you. Let’s say you read a comment. You like it, but not enough to reply. You could upvote it, right?”

“Yeah, I do that all the time on reddit. I be spamming votes like crazy yo.”

“Yeah, but on Hive, upvotes are money. You have to be a bit smarter about it. Make sure it’s really worth it if you’re going to upvote. Same for commenting. Same for replying. Make sure it’s worth spending your resource credits.”

“How do I know if voting, commenting, or replying is worth it? I don’t want to waste my resource credits…”

“Yeah, that was a big question for me when I first started. Still might be. A good rule of thumb is: if you’re a newbie, don’t upvote comments. Period. As a newbie with little Hive Power / Resource Credits , it isn’t worth it.”

“Why not?”

“Well, it has to do with ‘vote mana’, ‘voting power’, and ‘voting weight.'” I knew Harry was going to spaz out because I was introducing even more new terms. “Please don’t get pissed, I’ll explain these terms too.”

Harry ground his teeth as if they were crushed glass. “Dude. I am seriously trying here. I’ve taken SATs with less to remember.”

“Bear with me, man. I’ma do my best.”

“Fine, shoot.”

You can tell a Hiver is new because their rep will be 25.

"What are Vote Mana & Vote Power?"

“No one has unlimited votes on Hive. Your votes will run out. Which means that every vote matters. Which means you’ll want to put some actual thought into your voting.”

“Sounds fair. How do I know how much votes I have?”

“You check your ‘Voting Mana.’ It’s like an ‘energy-meter’ in a video-game. You start out with 100% voting mana, but it drops a bit for each vote you make.”

“What happens when my voting ‘mana bar’ reaches zero?”

“Then you can’t vote, but don’t worry, Hive recharges your voting mana by a good chunk (20%) daily.”

“Cool! I wanna see my current bar, it should be 100% full since I haven’t voted yet, right?”

“Yep! Only thing is, your voting mana can only be seen on external sites. Check out hiveblocks.com/@HarryDresdenIsTheBest.”

“I love it! Hey, there’s a downvote bar too!”

“Yeah, it’s pretty similar, slight differences. Oh, and sometimes this Voting Mana is also referred to as your ‘voting power’, don’t let it confuse you.”

“OK, so mana, power, whatever… when people talk about it, they really just mean how many votes I have available, yes?”

“Basically. They call it ‘power’ because as your voting mana decreases, your votes have less ‘impact’ and ‘influence.’ They pretty much earn you less money if you burn them all up and drop your mana bar low.”

“Hmm. K. You said they recharge though, so I should be able to use like 10 votes a day and just have my voting mana refilled the next day, right?”

“Yep, this is what many users do, so they don’t drop their mana low, and they don’t really lose voting power.”

"Cool, I get it. So what's Vote Weight?"

“Ah, you remembered that eh? Vote weight decides how much ‘money’ you’ll invest in your vote.”

“Do I control it?”

“Yes, if you’re using PeakD as your social dApp (skin), you do. When you press the ‘vote’ button, PeakD will display a ‘slider’ that goes from 0% to 100%. Wherever you set that slide decides how much ‘weight’ your vote on that post (or comment) will have. It also decides how much money that vote will earn or be worth. Slide it to 100% and that vote is worth a good amount. Slide it to 0% and the vote is worth no money.”

“So at zero, it becomes a ‘like’ on Instagram… worthless.”

“Haha, you joke, but that’s basically what happens, yes. The vote earns you (and the person you vote on) zero cryptocurrency. A 0% vote-weighted vote earns no HIVE tokens at all. But at the same time, it also doesn’t hit your mana bar very hard.”

“So if I make my votes a lower vote-weight, they’ll be worth a bit less, but I’ll be able to get more votes out of my mana bar, am I summarizing this correctly?”

“You are. And I’m glad, because explaining voting on Hive has been, um, tricky, at best.”

Harry and I high-fived with a resounding ‘smack!’ It seemed like he was really getting it, and maybe his introduction to Hive wouldn’t be the chaotic nightmare mine was. Still we had more to go. And I still hadn’t told him whether or not to reply to his comments or upvote them.

“Okay, but you still haven’t told me whether to reply or upvote or what here. I’m staring at my post with 3 people who commented. I could be engaging with them by now! I could’ve given them an instant reply on another platform.”

“You can reply instantly here too, I just wanted to make sure you understood what you were doing with your resource credits.”

“My money, you mean.”

“Heh, pretty much.”

“Well, thank you then. But please… for the love of god… can I reply?”

“You tell me. Did you understand how posts, comments, replies, upvotes, and resource credits affect everything on Hive? Did you understand how your choices with them affect your reputation score, your Hive Power, and your influence? Because if you did, you’ll know how to proceed in a way that suits you.”

“C’mon man. Maybe I forgot some of the stuff. It’s too much to take in. Aren’t there people who join Hive and don’t learn all this stuff?”

“Yep, and they have a rough time of things. In fact, they often create an account, post once, and leave.”

“Why?”

"Because their ignorance of Hive Etiquette attracts haters."

“I haven’t seen any so far.”

“Well, maybe not, but their ignorance results in less success on Hive, a less comfortable experience, and yes, maybe even some ‘haters.'”

“Haters, please. So dramatic.”

“Well I mean, they obviously don’t see themselves as haters. They think they’re doing a good thing. Defending Hive and making sure people ‘vote properly’, etc. I just call them haters for ease of explaining.

I mean you may have unpleasant interactions with other Hivians.”

“So you’re telling me if I joined without learning all this I would’ve had unpleasant interactions?”

“Someone likely would’ve, yes. Or at the very least you’d be ‘firmly corrected’ for not knowing. Users on Hive can get… overly passionate…about improper voting etiquette. They see it as an attack on Hive and the community, even themselves.”

“Gimme an example?”

“Sure. I joined Hive and in my first few posts, I was told to only use 10% weighted votes on comments. I was also told not to vote on comments at all because I’m new. It was also suggested I be a good Hivian and ‘always upvote’ comments that I find sincere. I literally clicked vote, and somehow people noticed what I was doing…

…and all three had a ‘correction’ to make.

And I’m grateful they took the time to correct me. I thanked each of them. But in my head I was like… ‘I was new, and had already learned more than any other new Hiver in less time, and getting multiple correction still didn’t feel good enough.'”

“Interesting.”

“Yep. And here’s another…

...Apparently you're 'forced' to vote."

“Wait, that sounds terrible! Who’s forcing who to do what now?”

“Well, not exactly. But the idea is that since your voting mana recharges daily, you basically have about 10 ‘free’ votes to use each day, because they’ll just be restocked for you. So if you don’t use these 10 ‘free votes’, you’re wasting a chance to put ‘free money’ into Hive, by voting on the content of others. So others may see you as ‘hurting’ their content by your unused ‘free’ daily voting power.”

“So they see it like being miserly with your votes, locking them up in a vault, when they could be flowing to others.”

“Yeah, remember, your votes can earn… for everyone. Just as you like to get upvotes, others do too. And since you have ‘free votes’ daily, you’re kind of ‘forced’ to use them by social pressure.”

“But nothing will happen to me if I don’t, right?”

“Well, nothing from the Hive system, but you know cancel-culture. Who’s to say people won’t start mass downvoting you, killing your reputation score, and making your posts invisible on Hive?”

“Dude! That’s dark AF. That’s like a crypto-based cancel-culture mob! I’m bouncing from this platform!”

“Wait wait wait! Chill. I was just joking around.

I mean, technically that’s possible, but you’d have to be a giant jerk for everyone to hate you like that.

Nothing major’s gonna happen if you don’t use your daily votes.”

“Swear?”

“Swear. But my point is, your life on Hive will go easy if you understand the culture.”

“Yeah, same goes for any new ‘world.’ Try moving to Colombia without knowing the culture, right?

“You said it. If someone is new to Reddit, and they aren’t aware of how anti-self-promotion Reddit is, they may just share a link like they do on any other platform and be banned from a sub on their first day on Reddit. If someone is new to IG, and they’re unaware of how conservative Instagram is about nudity, they may post an implied nude and be instantly banned on their first day.”

“Got it. So if a newbie like me is unaware of Hive’s focus on voting, I may get banned on my first day?”

“Nope! That’s the beauty of Hive… your stuff is yours. There’s no governing body who can ban you, as far as I know. But there can still be negative results from ignorance. That was my whole point.

Know the etiquette of whatever platform you’re joining, right?”

“Understood. Any other culture shock I should avoid?”

“The big players at Hive (aka ‘Whales’) are pretty sensitive to community contribution. Ifyou seem like you’re here just looking to get paid or cash out, things may go poorly for you. I was scared to even use the word ‘paid’ once in our chat.”

“Good to know, I’m here to contribute, just excited is all. I think I get all the etiquette.”

“Let’s see…

Votes are money on Hive, use them wisely.

Hive let’s you make full-power votes, empty votes, or any vote-weight inbetween.

6. Engagement (Replies, Upvotes, Etc.)

...So what's the best way to reply, upvote, and reblog, Harry?"

“OK, I think I got this.”

“Impress me.”

“I’ll read the comment. If I feel it deserves a reply, I’ll reply. I’ll upvote it too, but only with 10%, because I’m new and I don’t have much Resource Credits / Hive Power, and I don’t want to burn all my Voting Mana. Smart right?”

“Very. You’re almost right.”

“What do you mean ‘almost right?'”

“Well, since you’re new your votes aren’t worth much. And since your votes aren’t worth much, when you vote, you’re only earning a tiny percentage of a Hive token. Like $0.0001 of a cent. And if you remember, there is a ‘dust threshold’, where no one will earn anything unless a piece of content crosses the two-cent mark.”

“Aaaaahhh, I forgot about that. So even my 100% vote won’t push another’s comment past the dust threshold. So I’d burn my entire vote, lose vote mana, and earn myself *and* the commenter I’m replying to… nothing?”

"'Burning' votes is one of the most wasteful things on Hive."

“Now I get why people might be a bit touchy about it. It’s kind of like watching someone throw away a Michelin-star meal. It’s their choice, but dang, it hurts to watch.”

“That’s as good a comparison as any.”

“OK, so I’ll do what I said earlier, but since I’m new, I will not upvote my commenters.”

“Right. But you can feel free to upvote other people’s original content. Can you tell me why?”

I could see the gears turning Harry’s brain. “Hmmm. Well, because since it’s only me voting on my thread’s comments, my votes remain ‘dust votes’ there. But if I vote on original content, it’s likely many others will click upvote when they see the content too, so it’s very likely the dust threshold will be met, and my ‘dust votes’ will actually become worth something and begin paying out, just like everybody else who voted on the original content. Did I get it right?”

I clapped! “You totally did!”

“Yes! But I have no clue about re-blogging.”

"Reblogging is easy."

“Thank god.”

“It’s the same as on other platforms. Similar to retweeting on Twitter or sharing on Facebook. Once you re-blog a post it shows in your (and your followers’) feeds as if you had posted it yourself. That’s it.”

“Makes sense. But since everything ‘earns’ HIVE tokens, which can be converted into real money… do I get paid for re-blogging?”

“I don’t believe so. It’s just a fun, kind thing to do.”

“Sweet.”

“Payouts do happen though.”

“How?”

Burning votes is frowned upon.

7. Earnings

"In HIVE Tokens, Hive Power, & Hive-Backed Dollars (The 3 Currencies)"

“This drove me nuts when I first joined. I thought…

Why the f**k would you name 3 currencies all nearly identically?”

“I know, right?”

“Imagine if I made three U.S. Currencies: ‘US Tokens,’ ‘US Power,’ and ‘US-Backed Dollars’… you think any United States citizen would have any clue what was going on with their money? They’d store some in one currency, some in another. Some could be used to spend, others would be locked up. And they all have nearly the same name. It’s pure chaos.”

“Yeah, this doesn’t seem ideal.”

“It’s not. But Hive still rocks. And their 3 currencies are still easy to understand. If you want to earn on Hive, you’ll have to figure it out.”

“You’re gonna help me, right?”

“Well, no one held my hand through all this. Maybe I’m done teaching for now…”

“Bro! No way, we’re at the money part. C’mon ese!”

“Hehe, I gotchu, was just playin’.

First I’ll explain the 3 currencies on Hive.io:

HIVE Tokens (HIVE) is the primary currency on the Hive blockchain. It’s basically the same as bitcoin. (It’s the main token on the Hive.io blockchain.) You can spend, receive, transfer, and trade them. (Also sometimes called ‘Hive Tokens,’ or ‘Hive Coins.’)”

Hive Power (HP, or VESTS) is HIVE tokens that you’ve ‘locked up’ for use on Hive.io’s social platform. This is also called ‘staking’ your HIVE tokens.) Hive Power can also be earned by performing social actions on Hive.io, thus gaining rewards.”

“And I do those social actions through a dApp/skin like Hive.Blog or PeakD, right?”

“Exactly. The thing is, Hive Power isn’t a ‘real’ cryptocurrency.”

“It’s not?”

“Well, it’s not a ‘liquid’ currency.”

“What’s ‘liquid’ mean?”

“Liquid currency means easily tradeable for other stuff. Picture how easily water flows in your mind. A currency that flows like that is ‘liquid.’ Money on your debit card is very liquid, just swipe and spend, basically anywhere! Money invested in stocks though, is much more solid, less flowing, less liquid. Same goes for HIVE tokens (liquid) & Hive Power (not liquid).

U.S. Dollars are very liquid currency.
Bitcoin is less liquid, but still liquid.
Mutual funds are practically solid.”

“Ah, and because Hive Power is like influence points that only work on the Hive Platform, they’re valuable but not very liquid.”

“Perfectly said. You don’t ‘spend’ Hive Power like currency. Instead you ‘use’ them like points. You’ll likely want to convert between Hive Tokens (liquid) & Hive Power (non-liquid) at times. More Hive Power means more invested in Hive, which means more influence, which means more rewards & earning potential.”

Hive-Backed Dollars (HBD) are ‘bundles’ of HIVE tokens that are equal to 1 US Dollar.

This currency was made because crypto can have many decimal places, even portions of a cent, which is kind of awkward to deal with. So Hive created Hive-Backed Dollars to make things simpler. It’s still basically just HIVE tokens, just in an easier to measure and understand form. You can spend, receive, transfer, and trade them. (Often shortened to ‘Hive Dollars’, or abbreviated to HBD, or HD)”

“Hmm, so what you’re saying is, if I don’t care about nice little 1-dollar increments, I can just swap back and forth between HIVE Tokens and Hive Power as necessary? And that’s all done through my Hive Wallet?”

“Yeah, that’s about right.”

“So should I ever use Hive-Backed Dollars?”

“For beginners, I mostly recommended ignoring HBD. Imagine it like this.”

You earned 1000 pesos on a social platform. But you can’t do much with pesos, so you want to convert it to US Dollars. Most people would be fine converting their 1000 pesos into like $49 USD, right?”

“Sure.”

“But Hive decided this simple conversion was too confusing, so they created a ‘middle-man’ currency: Hive-Backed Dollars.”

“Why?”

“So they could display how many ‘dollars’ your post is earning. They wanted people to understand they’re earning actual money. So instead of “your post earned 10,512,319 Hive Tokens”, instead it says, “your post earned $457 Hive-Backed Dollars, which is roughly $457 USD.”

“I woulda went with 2 currencies and just did the ‘peso-to-USD’ conversion like normal people.”

“Same bro, but they went a different direction. Point is HBD are just ‘bundles’ of Hive Tokens, and each ‘bundle’ is worth about $1 USD. And each bundle counts as $1 HBD.”

“I’m mostly going to focus on Hive Tokens & Hive Power, I think.”

“Yeah, if you get HBD you’ll probably be converting it to Hive’s primary cryptocurrency, HIVE Tokens.”

“Or it can become ‘influence points,’ right?”

“Yes. You can convert HBD into Hive tokens, and then convert those tokens to Hive Power by ‘powering up.'”

“That’s a lot of conversion.”

“Yeah, so I might as well tell you how to power-up & down, and go between them all.”

"'Power-Up' & 'Power-Down?' What's that?"

“Good question. They’re just fancy words for converting.”

“Why couldn’t they call it ‘converting?'”

“You know how new cultures are, they always gotta have their own lingo.”

“Chevefe, parce.”

“Haha. Let’s say you go to your Hive wallet. You see you have 10 Hive tokens in it. You wish you had a bit more Hive Power to play with, you’re sitting at zero. You can click Power Up, enter an amount, say 1 Hive Tokens, and it will be converted into 1 Hive Power instead, leaving you with 9 HIVE tokens and 1 Hive Power.”

“Ah, so by converting HIVE tokens, my ‘real’ cryptocurrency, into Hive Power, I’m basically buying influence points that let’s me do stuff & earn more on the Hive.Blog social platform?”

“Exactly.”

“What about powering-down?”

“That’s just the reverse. Hive Power into HIVE tokens. Only thing is, it takes 13 weeks.”

“What?!”

“Yeah. Hive transfers one-thirteenth of your Hive Power into HIVE (tokens). It does this once a week for about 3 months. But be aware, although you’ll get a more ‘liquid’ currency in the form of HIVE tokens, powering-down does lower your influence (and earning power) on Hive.”

“How?”

“Well, imagine you’re a rich man at a bank. Do you have more influence on the bank and the bankers when your account is full and overflowing? Or do you have more influence when you pull all your money out and your account is empty?”

“When I’ve deposited millions, obviously.”

“Right, same goes for Hive. You’re storing your crypto ‘in their bank.’ As long as it’s in tied-up in Hive Power, you’re much more influential on the platform…

If you suddenly withdrew all HP, you’d be just a ‘commoner’ with minimal influence on Hive.”

“But it’s still in my account, right? I didn’t withdraw it, I just converted it from Hive Power into HIVE Tokens.”

“OK fine, but it’s still like moving money from your high-interest investment portfolio, into your low-interest checking account. It’s not a great sign, and it looks like you’re about to pull all your funds out of the bank.”

“Alright, so keep a good chunk of my funds in Hive Power if I want influence & earning power on the platform, got it.

“Fair enough. And what does this ‘influence’ (in the form of Hive Power) do exactly?”

Hive’s currencies have different levels of ‘liquidity’, they’re worth exploring.

"It affects delegation, RC, witnesses, proposals, rewards, & inflation."

“Oh, great, so Hive Power lets me do many more fancy new things I don’t understand.” “Hey, you know what RC is at least.” Harry’s shoulders dropped, but I barreled on.”

Delegation...

…is investing Hive Power in others.”

“Why would I do that?”

“To earn for yourself. Two ways of earning HIVE Tokens is by posting, and by upvoting, like I explained earlier, right?:

“Sure.”

“But there’s a third way, delegation. You don’t have to post, you don’t have to upvote. Instead, you loan Hive Power to people you feel are active Hivers. That way you get a share of whatever they’re doing/earning on the platform.”

“Wow, so on most socials I don’t earn for upvoting or commenting. Those platforms don’t even pay me for posting. But on Hive, I can earn doing all those things? And even better, I can do none of that, and simply earn by delegating my Hive Power to other users?”

“You nailed it. That’s the beauty of Hive. Hive lets you earn as a creator who creates, a consumer who consumes, or even as an passive investor who ‘delegates.’ As added safety, you can un-delegate at any time too.”

"I love it. But what about proposal?"

“So Hive is by the people, for the people. This means that when you join Hive, you become a partial owner of Hive. You’re a share-holder. As Hive continues to grow, it’s users (shareholders like you) get to vote on where to invest Hive’s time, money, and resources. Do we want to control spam this month? Or do we want to focus on marketing Hive to the world? Should upvotes cost more? Or less? You’ve the option to vote on all this kind of stuff (if you want.) But some people have more influence than others.”

“Ah, and our Hive Power is our influence, which decides what Hive decisions get made.”

“Spot on. And these decisions are called ‘proposals’ or ‘work proposals.’ They can be anything that adds value to the Hive ecosystem (Development, Marketing, Operations, etc.) Newbies don’t usually vote on them, but you totally can, and it’s recommended. As is voting for witnesses.”

"Witnesses?"

“Yeah, they’re like ‘custodians’ of the blockchain. Hive.io takes a lot of power, bandwidth, and resources to maintain. So it needed a group of people to run the servers and take care of all the tech details. They also act kind of like senators who ‘govern’ Hive. They’re ‘voted into power’ by the users of Hive. Witnesses run the Hive Blockchain on powerful computers which make ‘blocks’ every time anyone does anything on Hive.”

“So I could say they ‘witness’ all that takes place on Hive. Anything else?”

“Yeah, witnesses earn a lot on Hive. They receive Hive Power as rewards for producing blocks on the blockchain. Their powerful computers basically process every transaction on the Hive.io blockchain, and so, they’re rewarded for that.”

“Which means they have a lot of influence too?”

“Exactly.”

"Can I become a witness?"

Yeah, but it’s kind of like becoming the CEO of a company, it’ll take some doing. I believe @thecryptofiend made a wannabe-Witness Questionnaire 5 years ago that may still be useful for this:

				
					https://steemit.com/steemit/@thecryptofiend/witness-questionnaire-a-solution-for-voter-confusion

"Who chooses Hive's witnesses?"

“You do.”

“Me?”

“Well, Hivians do. Any user of Hive can (and probably should) vote on witnesses. You get 30 ‘witness-votes.’ You can vote here:

				
					https://wallet.hive.blog/~witnesses

“Maybe I’ll check it later, I wanna get back to earning on Hive.”

“Oh yeah, that reminds me, witnesses also publish HIVE prices, which helps figure out post payouts, rewards, etc.”

"Speaking of rewards...

…I’ve been pretty patient, mang. I’ve posted. I’ve upvoted. I’ve commented. I even clicked that re-blog button to help some peeps out. I don’t wanna be greedy but, can you *please* teach me how to get cash?”

"You get your cash from the Hive Rewards Pool."

“Say what?”

“It’s where all the cryptocurrency comes from.

Think about it. People are using Hive… so where does the money come from? Thin air? No, it comes from the Hive Rewards Pool. It’s a bunch of HIVE tokens that grows daily, adjusted for inflation. It stops growing by the year 2040. Which means Hive has a real cryptocurrency, traded on the market, that can be exchanged for other cryptocurrencies, or even withdrawn into U.S. Dollars, etc.”

“Wow. How much money is in the pool?”

“Well it changes as the Hive currency’s value changes. Last I checked, it was about half a million bucks, but who knows by now.”

“Ka-ching!”

“Sort of. Keep in mind that the amount shown next to your post is a ‘Potential Payout.’ It’s how much money your post will make.”

“What increases it?”

“Upvotes, re-blogs, etc. Great content usually gets great upvotes. Great content gets shared.”

“Shared by who?”

“Curators, mostly. But anyone, technically.”

"So 'curators' can spike the 'author' rewards?"

“Yes. And a ‘curator’ is just a fancy word for a ‘voter’, a ‘hive user’, or ‘a person doing the upvoting.’

Anyway, let’s say your post gets discovered by a curator named @johnsmithhivelover . He upvotes your post. The more voting power he has, the more his upvote will spike your rewards. Also, your post will display a higher ‘payout amount’ in the bottom corner, and more people will recognize it as valuable. Let’s say John also re-blogs your post to his audience. Reblogging doesn’t earn directly, but now even more people will see it and likely upvote it. A lot can be earned if a few big curators (or ‘whales’) upvote and share your posts. Then you get your ‘cut’ from the Hive Rewards Pool.”

“Cool, but the people doing the upvoting get paid too, right? It’s not all for me?”

“Correct. Hive gives a percentage of the payout to the author, and a percentage of the payout to all the curators. Currently it’s 50/50 split. So when a post pays out… half of the ‘reward’ goes to the author, while the curators share the other half (based on their Hive Power / reputation score.) This is why even though there’s only one Rewards Pool in Hive, we often say there is an ‘Author Rewards Pool’ and a ‘Curator Rewards Pool’. It’s a way of looking at the giant Hive Rewards Pool as a separate content-creator (author) pool and a separate consumer (curator) pool.”

“I’m getting all of this. Thank you. But you didn’t cover inflation.”

“I’d skip it.”

“What? Why?”

"Because inflation isn't too important for beginners."

“Yeah, but now I’m getting into all this. I wanna know.”

“Ok, I honestly say beginners should skip this, but if you really want to know, check out this clip I’ve tweaked from @geekgirl:

‘Consider there’s a group of 10 people who own a company called Snoogle. Snoogle gives 100 shares to all ten of it’s owners (shareholders.) Then Snoogle decides to bring in an 11th member named Jane. Snoogle gives Jane 100 more shares for free. Seems like a bad idea, because it decreases everyone’s share of the company from 10% of Snoogle, to about 9%. of Snoogle But if Jane increases the value of the company, it’s actually a brilliant decision by the initial 10 members. Even with less shares in the company, their net worth would be much higher.’

You get what she’s saying here?”

“I think so. She’s saying that:

Hive keeps ‘inflating’ itself by bringing on new users, who are shareholders.

But they believe that each new user adds value to Hive, so it ends up being worth it. So they have to keep manufacturing new Hive tokens to give to new users, which is basically inflation. But it’s ok, because users are valuable, so Hive will keep increasing in value, which means it will continue being able to make payouts, even as it grows?”

“Yeah, that’s a decent grasp of it.

And everyone who earns anything on Hive is automatically a shareholder in Hive.

(Or an investor, or a stakeholder, or a part-owner, etc.) To be honest, I’m not even sure I get it fully. It’d probably take a course in economics to get it all. All that really matters is that you can earn rewards as HIVE tokens. You can then convert your HIVE into bitcoin or something, which you can then convert to ‘real money’ like US Dollars.”

“OK, well it sounds like every new user has, and matters a lot. Even me.”

“Yes, that’s why Hive Power is so key. Because when you ‘stake’ your HIVE tokens into Hive Power, you’re basically investing it in Hive. It’s like you’re saying Hive is more valuable to you than withdrawing the money for yourself. Each Hive-User (Hiver? Hivian) affects the monetary value of Hive coins with their actions. Plus, the inflation of the Hive Rewards Pool is based on each user’s holdings. The higher the price of Hive on the market, the higher rewards for authors & curators. Hive’s value, like all currency, is decided based on supply and demand. Since newly printed HIVE tokens relies on current supply, every single Hive-holder makes growing rewards possible.”

“So this growing ‘inflation’ is where the rewards come from?”

“Yes, and Hive’s operating margins. At time of writing it’s:

65% of inflation rewards to authors/curators.
15% of inflation rewards to stakeholders.
10% of inflation rewards to block producers.
10% of inflation rewards to the Hive Fund.”

“Hah, now I get why you said to skip it.

It doesn’t really impact me getting my rewards now, here, today, does it?”

“Not really, no. But what does matter, is the 7-day maturation period.”

Harry cocked his fingers and thumb into the shape of a gun and pointed it at his temple. His mimed suicide was reasonable, considering I was throwing yet another complication into my original promise of “earn by consuming.” But teaching beats apology, so I pressed forward.

Creators earn through posting, consumers through engaging, and investors through delegation.

All Hive’s growth comes from ‘proposals’ which are voted on by Hivers.

8. Payouts (Money!)

"Payouts only click in after a 7-Day Maturation Period."

“So I joined today, and I get paid in 7 days?”

“Actually, every piece of content a Hivian posts goes through this waiting-period. The post or comment is allowed to earn for 7 days, and when that’s up, the rewards are added to your wallet.”

“So my posts don’t earn forever?”

“Mostly. They stop earning after one week.”

“Why ‘mostly’?”

“Well, voting is closed after 7 days, but PeakD has a ‘tip’ button that works forever, so a post can technically earn that way indefinitely. Regardless, if we look at your posts upcoming rewards, it should give a due date for payout, as well as what amount the post will be paying out.”

“OK, how can I see that?”

"Just look at the 'Payout Amount' in the bottom corner of your post."

Harry clicked around the screen a bit, and eventually found his post.

“What does it say?” I asked.

“It says: Payout will occur in 7 days. 1.056 Hive Rewards (50%/50%). What does all that mean?”

“You tell me?”

“Well, the 7 days thing is pretty clear. I assume that counts down, and it will be 6 days tomorrow,” I nodded at Harry’s guess, “And I’m earning a little over one… HIVE token? HP? HBD? Something, I don’t know. WTF are ‘Hive Rewards’?”

“Since Hive has 3 currencies, you can adjust what you receive, so they just write ‘Hive Rewards’ because each users ‘reward structure’ may vary.”

“So my reward structure is 50% earned as HBD, and 50% earned as Hive Power?”

“Yep!”

“Why? Why is my ‘Hive Rewards’ structure paying me half in HBD and half in HP, that seems kind of random?”

"You chose a 50/50 split Reward Structure."

“Uh, pretty sure I did NOT choose that. I don’t even know how rewards work, why would I choose that?”

“OK, it’s more that you chose it by default.

Because when you posted, you left it on the default rewards structure.

The default is 50% Hive-Backed Dollars & 50% Hive Power (at time of writing.) There was an option there somewhere to adjust it. You can choose instead to get your payout totally in Hive Power (100%), or to decline payout altogether.”

“I see. So I’m getting like $0.5 HBD, and 0.5 HP from my post.”

“Yes, but not until 7 days pass. It may still earn more, or get downvoted into earning less by then.”

“Hey! Who would downvote me?”

“Well, no one I can think of, but maybe your post sucks, or someone thinks it’s spam. Anything could happen, I don’t control the thousands of people on Hive.”

“Dang.”

“Plus it can also change from inflation, the price of Hive in the ‘real-world’ market, etc.”

“Fine, but as it stands, my first post is earning a little over a buck, split between HBD & HP, yes?”

“Kind of. Some of it actually goes to the curators who upvoted your post. They contributed their reading attention, their voting attention, and you contributed to attention to create the content. So the rewards are split. This is called the Reward Distribution and it makes sure rewards are distributed to everyone involved.”

“So I’m getting less than a buck? “

“Yeah, but chill. Give it time. Like any platform, you get your foot in the door, keep putting out content, and grow your earnings patiently. Don’t be money-hungry man.”

“Alright, I’m just excited. I’ve never earned anything for posting & consuming content before, and it kind of feels like I still haven’t.”

“Don’t worry, you will. Things change as you grow on Hive.”

"K, when 7 days pass, can I withdraw my money?"

“Yes, you can withdraw it. Here’s how:

First, remember that PeakD & Hive.Blog are just ‘front-ends’, like browsers. Your actual Hive funds are stored in your Hive wallet. Which means there’s many ways to access it.

The easiest way is to click ‘wallet’ from PeakD’s dropdown menu in the top-right corner.

(Or replace PeakD with whatever dApp you use to browse Hive) You can also select the ‘wallet’ option from your ‘Account Actions’ menu on your profile page.

Anyway, once your wallet opens up, you’ll see 5 balances: HIVE (Tokens), Hive Power, Hive-Backed Dollars (HBD), Savings, and Estimated Account Value. With me so far?”

“Yes, I’m there and I see it all. I assume I hit the ‘CLAIM REWARDS’ button first, and you already explained the first 3 to me, so I’m pretty clear on those.”

“Right, and ‘savings‘ is similar to a savings account at a bank. It’s just a place to store Hive currencies, but unlike storing it as Hive Power, it’s more liquid.”

“Cool, so it doesn’t take 13 weeks or whatever to transfer it from savings?”

“Correct. It only takes 3 days.”

“Estimated Account Value (EAV) just shows the value of your entire Hive account (at the moment) in US Dollars. It fluctuates, just like the US Dollar does.”

"What are all these options in my wallet menu here?"

“Those are the things you can do while managing your Hive Wallet. Namely:

Transfer
Power Up
Power Down
Market
Buy
Sell

Can you figure out what each one does?”

“Hmm, I’ll try. Transfer lets me move funds from one (Hive?) account to another? Just like in a bank, I think. Power-Up & Down you explained earlier, it’s just converting to & from Hive Power (which are also called ‘Vests?’) Buy lets me buy Hive I assume. Sell allows me to sell my Hive?”

“Not bad! A couple small things. 1) Clicking ‘market‘ will take you to Hive’s market for quickly converting between HIVE tokens & HBD. 2) Buying & selling does what you said, but you can’t purchase (or sell) HIVE with USD, you have to use other cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, and so on.

Once you have your bitcoin though, whatever crypto exchange you use will likely allow you to withdraw it as US Dollars or another fiat currency.”

"What's the actual withdraw process?"

OK, to actually withdraw your HIVE tokens you’ll need a few preparations:

First, you’ll need your keys for this. Your Hive Master Password (Private) or your Hive Active Key (Private).
Second, you’ll need an account on a cryptocurrency exchange that supports Hive (e.g. Binance, Bittrex.) Your exchange should also have a way to withdraw Bitcoin or Ethereum into a fiat currency, such as US Dollars. This may require a driver’s license, passport, or other identity document. It may even require to record video. (Since we’re dealing with money, all these companies like to be very secure. Plus it’s pretty standard for any financial service to comply with local laws.) There’s many exchanges, most are free, some only work in certain countries, some won’t process Hive yet… so do your research first. Binance & Bittrex are the most popular for converting Hive at time of writing.
Third, you’ll also need a ‘deposit address‘ in order to send your Hive to an exchange.

Assuming you have all these, here we go:

1. Login to your crypto wallet and go to your deposit details.

2. In another window, login to your crypto exchange.

3. Then go to Hive and access your Wallet.

4. Once there, click ‘Send,’ to bring up the transfer window, then enter the amount & deposit details, target receiver (ie: your exchange) etc.

5. Click the ‘Send’ or ‘Confirm‘ button. This will send some Hive to your exchange (e.g. Binance.) Make sure you convert it to Bitcoin (BTC) or Ethereum (ETH) on the way.

6. Once your Hive has been converted to [Bitcoin or Ethereum] in your exchange, you should be able to withdraw (‘sell’) it to a traditional bank or buyer as a fiat currency (like US Dollars, or Euro if using a European exchange.)”

“Sweet!”

“Yep, it’s basically just convert HIVE tokens to a ‘proper’ crypto (like Bitcoin) at an exchange (like Binance), then withdraw your ‘proper’ crypto into a traditional bank as a fiat currency (like US Dollars.)”

"What is fiat? How is it different from crypto?"

“Fiat currency is what most people are used to. It’s traditional ‘paper and metal’ money. It’s ‘legal tender’ backed by a central government. It’s sometimes tracked digitally and stored in ‘bank accounts’ but it’s not a truly digital currency. It’s a fiat currency. The government controls the supply, and you can pay your taxes with it.”

“So, basically USD or Euros are fiat, monopoly money isn’t.”

“Yes. And cryptocurrency is new. It’s not ‘legal tender’ and not backed by a central government or stored in a bank. It’s stored securely on the blockchain, spread across many computers owned by members of the public. It’s a truly ‘digital’ currency, that is quickly becoming mainstream. An algorithm controls the supply and you can’t pay your taxes with it… yet.

A crypto exchange lets you buy and sell crypto, as well as convert that crypto into different fiat currencies, such as U.S. Dollars. I cover this more in my Crypto & Blockchain Guide with Doodles. Besides, you can always Google how to use crypto exchanges.”

“Got it, so Bitcoin & Ethereum, for example. Thanks for being so clear with all this stuff.”

“My pleasure. Anyway, we were talking about withdrawing, and I just wanted to point out, just like a bank, you can store your payouts in your Hive Wallet and actually use them to earn ‘passive income,’ if you’re interested.”

“How?”

"Holding, stakes, vesting, and delegation...

…Remember before how I said you can power-up your HIVE tokens into Hive Power, and that gives you a lot of influence? Well, you can delegate your Hive Power to authors (content creators) and curators (consumers) who you feel are valuable. As they go about their day to day activities, earning, you get a cut of their rewards.”

“Staking is basically the same as ‘powering up.’

I have no idea why they use different words for this process. ‘Staking’ means ‘to deposit funds and ‘lock’ them as collateral into the blockchain. Doing this means it’s not readily usable by you, but it is usable by the blockchain. This helps the blockchain. It’s a form of ‘investing’ in the blockchain. It’s like putting your money into a savings account in a bank. The cash isn’t readily usable by you, but the bank can do a lot with it. ‘Staking’ funds into Hive provides a service for the long-term sustainability of Hive. It lets them maintain Hive well for all users. Similar to a ‘interest’ on funds in a savings account, staked funds often ‘gain value’ for the staker as well.”

“Vesting is just another word for ‘staking,’ which is another word for ‘powering up.’

It literally hurts part of my soul that Hive has 3 words for the exact same thing, but there you have it. If you have a lot of ‘vested’ or ‘staked’ HIVE tokens, you have a lot of influence on the platform. Can you tell me why?”

“Yes, because vested, staked, or powered-up HIVE tokens are just HIVE tokens that I’ve converted into Hive Power, and Hive Power is literally my ‘influence’ on the Hive Social Platform.”

“Perfect.”

“Holding – currently unanswered.

My gut says it’s actually a 4th word for staking/vesting/powering-up. Please help.”

“Man Hive is kind of like an entire culture, or a digital country or something.”

“Yep, it’s an online community, fully digital and crypto-based, complete with an economy and governance.”

“So cool, how can I be more involved?”

"That's a deeper question than this guide can answer."

“But point me in the right direction?”

“Sure, to learn about the Hive Economy, go here:

				
					https://hiveblog.c0ff33a.uk/faq.html#Table_of_Contents_Economics

To learn about Hive governance, go here: .”

				
					https://hive.blog/hive/@yabapmatt/hive-witness-update

“Thanks, you’re a rockstar.”

Convert your Hive Tokens into a more liquid crypto, like Bitcoin, then sell/withdraw that currency into fiat, such as U.S. Dollars.

9. Extras

"DHF stands for Decentralized Hive Fund. (Also called the 'DAO.')"

“It’s a chunk of funds that has been set aside for the growth of Hive.

It’s only tapped into when Hive users & community has majority consensus on a particular project (‘work proposal.’)

Because this fund exists, any hiver can publicly propose work they’re willing to do in exchange for pay from the Hive corporation. Once proposed, Hive users can then vote on these proposals. in order to mark them as ‘approved’ for funding or, Hive users can disapprove of the proposal by downvoting it.”

"To make earning easier, people use 'Curation Trails' or 'Vote Trails.'"

“A curation trail is more like a ‘curation pyramid’ to me.

Some Hiver at the top of the pyramid is voting, ok? And a bunch of other Hivers who want to use their voting power to increase earnings… suddenly decide to give some of their votes to the guy at the top of the pyramid. Why? Could be any reason. They’re too lazy to vote. They trust the top guy to find better content than them. They want more efficient, ‘automated’ voting. Etc.”

“It sounds like if I’m not going to vote every day, I should at least give some of my votes to someone who is, then we all earn more together, right?”

“Yep, but it’s a fine line. What if you’re an anti-vaxxer, and you trust your vote to a pro-vaxxer? It may not be an ideal situation for you. So giving away your votes requires care. That said, I’ll link you to a tool at the end of this guide that helps you setup your own trail.”

"The Story Of Hive's birth."

Simplified Version:

The Steem blockchain was launched in 2016.

They ran on Steem cryptocurrency, and the founders decided to ‘control’ 80% of all the Steem tokens.

Users of Steem were pissed, but let it be with the understanding the funds would be used to help Steem.

4 years later, the Tron Foundation acquired Steem and started mis-using the 80% reserved tokens.

Many of the witnesses and users of Steem rebelled against Tron’s takeover and misuse, so they started Hive, a truly by the people, for the people social blockchain.

				
					https://www.coinbureau.com/review/hive-blockchain/

"Is It Hivian or Hiver?"

“I have no idea. I’ve heard it both ways.”

"What is 3Speak?"

“3Speak is a dApp that’s basically a blockchain-based version of YouTube. If you want to post videos directly on the Hive blockchain, 3Speak is the main dApp to do so.”

"What is Splinterlands?"

A crypto-based digital card game. Insanely popular. It’s literally the single most active dApp on Hive.”

"I tried HiveSigner over Keychain, but why does it want my active key?"

“The best explanation I could find for why it needs your Active Key is here:

				
					https://hive.blog/threespeak/@onthewayout/re-churdtzu-qawjez

but it didn’t clear things up for me.”

What are 'communities' on Hive?

“They’re basically like ‘subreddits’, if you’re familiar with reddit.

If not… they’re groups that like-minded Hivians can join. Nature-lovers can join ‘C/Natural Medicine’, porn-lovers can join ‘C/DPorn’, and game-developers can join ‘C/Game Development.’ Join them to interact with content (and people) focused on a particular topic.

One thing to know though is that unlike subreddits, communities are basically their own ‘apps.’ They can have their own cryptocurrencies, eco-system, power-structure, and more. They’re kind of like ‘mini-hives’ for like-minded folks.

I wouldn’t focus too much on it.”

Can I 'cross-post' to different communities?

“Yes. While posting, just click the ‘cross post in…’ button, choose a target community, and give a brief note for context. I believe it takes resource credits, but am not sure.”

"What are beneficiaries?"

“When you write a post on the Hive blockchain, there’s ‘advanced’ options at the bottom of the post editor for ‘post payout.’ One of these is to add ‘beneficiaries.’

They are people who’ll receive a percentage of your post payout…

…depending on how much you set it as.

It’s like sharing earnings with friends or collaborators (beneficiaries.)”

"What are stablecoins?"

“There are some cryptocurrencies called ‘stablecoins.’

These are cryptocurrencies, with a stable price that closely matches the value of a major fiat currency.

For example ‘Tether’ is a cryptocurrency pegged to the US Dollar.

Another example is ‘EURS’, which is a cryptocurrency pegged to the Euro.

Bitcoin, on the other hand, is a volatile cryptocurrency.

It’s price fluctuates rapidly, and is not pegged to anything.

Hive has been aiming to create it’s own stablecoin, Hive-Backed Dollars (HBD), they’re making progress.

Note: Unlike some cryptocurrencies, stablecoins are mostly created by centralized organizations that ‘own’ the currency. Even DAI, a well-respected stablecoin that markets itself as ‘decentralized,’ has faced scrutiny for its centralized organization. Stablecoins must also be audited through 3rd parties, in order to make sure their fidelity to their fiat currency. Involving 3rd parties can sometimes be sketchy. Also, stablecoins don’t provide the potential for high growth, unlike unpegged ‘standard’ cryptocurrencies.”

"What does DeFi mean?"

“Decentralized Finance. A term to describe apps and projects in the ‘blockchain’ space, aimed to disrupt traditional finance. “

"Re-summarize rep, RC, vote mana, vote weight, & HP again?"

“Hive Power = Influence Points.

It goes up and down mainly because of voting and how much funds you have currently invested in hive. More HP generally means more earnings.

Reputation Score = Mostly a vanity metric.

It goes up and down based on votes only. More Rep Score doesn’t mean a lot, but sometimes vanity metrics get more clicks and lead to more earnings.

Resource Credits = Points you spend for every interaction.

These are mainly to prevent spammers from posting everywhere. They go down with every Hive interaction you do, and recharge daily. Doesn’t directly lead to earnings, but you can’t earn if you can’t post/vote/etc. so still important.

Voting Power/Mana = The amount of votes you have, & how ‘powerful’ they are.

Goes down with every vote you make. Goes up after daily recharge. There’s also a similar ‘downvote’ mana. More Voting Power (Mana) generally means more earnings.

Voting Weight = How much ‘weight’ you’re giving to a vote you make.

More weight given to a vote, means it’s worth more & earns more, but it also depletes your daily voting mana much more.”

Hive is like a culture or ecosystem, complete with popular ‘hotspots’ like 3Speak and Splinterlands.

10. TL;DR

Using Hive Is Basically This:

1. Join At Signup.Hive.io, Using HiveOnBoard.

2. Get The Hive Keychain (Wallet) Chrome Extension

3. Create & Backup Your Account & Keys

4. Import Provided Keys Into Keychain

5. Login To PeakD.com and Browse Hive!

6. Gain Resource Credits At GiftGiver.Site

7. Make First Post

8. Consume Content

9. Engage (Vote, Reply, Reblog)

10. Reap Rewards (HIVE, Hive Power, HBD)

11. Manage Funds, Get Paid

12. Create, Consume, Earn, Repeat.

"'Burning' votes is one of the most wasteful things on Hive."

“Now I get why people might be a bit touchy about it. It’s kind of like watching someone throw away a Michelin-star meal. It’s their choice, but dang, it hurts to watch.”

“That’s as good a comparison as any.”

“OK, so I’ll do what I said earlier, but since I’m new, I will not upvote my commenters.”

“Right. But you can feel free to upvote other people’s original content. Can you tell me why?”

I clapped! “You totally did!”

“Yes! But I have no clue about re-blogging.”

"Reblogging is easy."

“Thank god.”

“Makes sense. But since everything ‘earns’ HIVE tokens, which can be converted into real money… do I get paid for re-blogging?”

“I don’t believe so. It’s just a fun, kind thing to do.”

“Sweet.”

“You do get paid though.”

“How?”

In conclusion...

A quote from @nonameslefttouse sums up Hive nicely, in my opinion.

“Buy a book or magazine. That money is gone, forever. Buy a single audio track or album. That money is gone, forever. Buy a movie or subscribe to Netflix. That money is gone, forever. Consumers are ‘spending’ their attention, their time, their money on other platforms all day long. They do so without getting anything in return. It’s a total no-brainer for them to do so here on Hive, where they actually get paid for consuming.”

“Almost.”

“What? It’s obvious! Using Hive is win-win.”

“Dude… we’ve been talking for hours.

I could’ve been a doctor or a lawyer by now…

That ain’t a no-brainer. You’re basically saying ‘Hey, I’ll pay you less than a cent to consume, but to get started, you have to explode your brain learning crypto & Hive.’

For most people that ain’t a no-brainer, it’s a no-thank you.”

“I mean, I admitted it was overcomplicated…”

“Yeah, and there are less complicated, easier ways to earn money. I’m happy consuming on the ‘gram. Sure, they don’t pay me…

…but they also don’t make me earn a f*cking Instagram-Degree to join.”

“Wow. I guess being on Hive makes a person sort of overlook how off-putting the platform may be for new users.”

“Yeah man. Even if you wrote our entire chat up so I could share it with others, I’m still not sure I could get my friends to join.”

“Yikes. Well, do you wanna stop talking?”

“Nah, in for a penny, in for a pound. Let’s keep going.”

“K, almost done anyway.”

“Finally.” Harry said, but his upward-smirk told me he’d been enjoying our talk all along.

“The point is, you don’t own shares in Facebook. You don’t own shares in Twitter. Social corporations have been using you as their product for a long time.

Hive turns that upside down because everyone who joins is a shareholder.

Every user’s portfolio and net worth grows along with Hive. Every social action you take contributes to the blockchain and raises the value of the Hive network. So every action you take (potentially) adds funds to your crypto-wallet. This is revolutionary and a huge blessing.

With a diverse community of stakeholders and without controlling bad actors, individuals can experience true ownership in a decentralized blockchain & cryptocurrency.

That’s from Hive’s ‘about’ page. It’s a beautiful vision they’re aiming for. But it’s still new and rough around the edges. Which means it takes a bit of learning to navigate it. But you don’t have to learn it all at once.

You can always refer back to our conversation here for anything you don’t understand.

Sound good?”

“Yes! I’m psyched! And I appreciate all the help.”

“Great, then I’ll leave you to your Hiving, because I’ve been ignoring my account while we did all this. Time to give it some TLC.”

*waves goodbye*

Bonus A: Hive Resources

TOOLS

hiveblocks.com
hive.vote
hivestats.io
hive-now.com
hivedscan.com

EXCHANGES

tribaldex.com
hive-engine.com

FRONT-ENDS

ecency.com
peakd.com
dapplr.in (defunct)

FAQs

hive.blog/faq.html
hiveblockchain.com/investors/faq/
peakd.com/about/faq

KEYCHAINS

Hive Keychain (Chrome)
HiveSigner

NFTs

nftshowroom.com

Lists

hiveprojects.io
hivedapps.com

Bonus B: Hive Influencers

The Top 5 Witnesses At Time Of Writing:

@blocktrades
@gtg
@good-karma
@roelandp
@ausbitbank

Other names I’ve seen around:

@pharesim
@arcange
@foxon
@crimsonclad
@guiltyparties
@enginewitty
@aggroed
@yabapmatt

Bonus C: Success Is Simple

Success on Hive –like success on any platform– is fairly simple.

But, like success in a gym, it requires discipline.

Whether you’re a creator, consumer, or investor… Hive-Success is basically the process of building up influence and a personal brand that others connect with. And the process of building a brand is a simple one that’s existed since ‘caveman bartering’ days.

If you’d like to understand the business of succeeding (on Hive or anywhere) more clearly and easily than anyone else…

Check out my mega-guide: Business Is Simple.

Big thanks to all these people.

The beginners of Hive.

Especially @cynshineonline !

Guide-makers who inspired me.

@pitboy , @sidwrites , @dalz , @shortsegments , @ylich , @jbbasics , @shenanigator , @abh12345 , @steemcleaners , @filoriologo , @mami.sheh7 , @katerinaramm , @leofinance , and @thekittygirl.

I hope I didn’t forget anyone. Each of the people listed have created guides or pieces of content that answered some of my questions about Hive. I’d have had a lot of trouble making this without their already existing work.

Also, these aren’t guides, but @anaclark ‘s post about Hive Marketing led me to @lordbutterfy ‘s incredible Hive marketing project, and both sparked me toward making onboarding easier for people.

Lastly, @saintchristopher gave Cyn a personal walk-through on how to sign up, and without that I wouldn’t even be on Hive.

Hivers who answered my questions.

These are hivers who engaged with me, supported me, helped me with this guide, and answered my questions directly. Some of them delegated me Hive Power to get me started, and others have also made guides of their own, so they’ll get an ‘asterix.’

@intothewild * , @slobberchops * , @meesterboom * , @marc5 , @edicted * , @dandays , @nonameslefttouse , @joshman , and @nevies .

One Hiver went the extra mile to help me with this guide.

@nickyhavey gets a special mention here. Yes he was a guide-maker who inspired me. Yes he answered my questions and encouraged me. But more than that, he spent hours going over corrections, typos, misunderstandings, and more with me to make sure the guide was polished and correct. Huge thanks bro.

Hivers who encouraged me to make this.

@yogajill , @crosheille , @karinxxl , @seckorama , @vikisecrets , @grindle , @focus.folks , @tarazkp , @bil.prag , and @traciyork .

A kind word or encouraging remark on my other posts makes a world of difference, thank you all.

Stock photo sites that helped me with illustrations.

Any stock images I used are from DreamsTime.com and Envato.com. They’re both amazing sites and I highly recommend them.

(Note: Actually one image came from ClipArtCreationz.blogspot.com and two came from Unsplash.com :D)

And all the witnesses, users, & others who make Hive possible!

I’m new to Hive, and know very few of them, but I’m truly grateful.

P.S. This guide makes joining Hive easier & clearer, please help it reach people.

I love to see great content be elevated. It’s sad when it gets buried in the noise of the internet. This guide could be doing so much good work, as long as it gets visibility. Visibility isn’t my passion, but if it’s yours, or if you can think of even a single person this guide might benefit, please share it so it has a chance of reaching them. I, and many others, will appreciate it.

Introduce your grandma to Hive, or a teenager, or anyone who is new to blockchain. Anyone who wants a friendly explanation of Hive will find this article useful, and I greatly appreciate you keeping it in mind.

Thanks again.

Hive: A Complete Guide For Beginners

(Harry's Happy Hive Journey)

Table Of Contents

Introduction

1. Sign-Up

2. Preparations

3. Posting

4. Rewards

5. Consuming

6. Engagement

7. Earnings

8. Payouts

9. Extras

DISCLAIMER

You can join Hive in about 5 minutes...

Do you like doodles, Harry?

But what if we had an ‘account book’ that tracked all *social* transactions?”

Every like, comment, & post you make is a “digital transaction.”

“Right. But what if a social platform rewarded you for every like, comment, & share?

"Why Hive?" Harry asked.

“Because social’s got everyone by the balls.

I’m just outlining how people are feeling about social in general lately.”

"Let's talk on Hive's benefits", I said.

Freedom:

Ownership:

Cryptocurrency:

That’s why all the Hive-hype, Harry.”

"Alright, I'm psyched, how do I start?"

“Because a noob like you doesn’t just ‘start’ with Hive.”

“So Hive’s user-unfriendly?”

“Can’t I just Google it?”

…You’ll go from Hive sign-up to Hive superstar!”

1. Signing Up

"Isn't it like joining any site?

Using Hive means using:

Just like using the internet is two things:

Signup.Hive.io

Turns out Hive has like 9 different ways to sign-up. It’s cray.”

...why do I need a Hive Keychain extension?"

It’s also like getting a bank account at the same time.

Although now that you say it out loud, it sounds pretty silly for a sign-up process.

“Sheesh. Whatever… it’s just a chrome extension, I got this.”

"Now I choose a username and password?"

Import your username and password into Hive Keychain, once.

“Yeah, but there’s more. Hive.io gives you more than a username & password.”

"What else does Hive give me?"

“So it’s like my own social media ‘house.’ I have many keys on my Hive keychain, & lend keys to who I want.”

“Hmm… so it’s a security thing?”

"What are these 4 keys exactly?"

I know you’ll ask what each key does, so I’ll explain:

I don’t want to give out anything higher than the posting key, right?”

"You backup your 4 Keys & Hive.io main password!"

“Wait, you mean write all five of those crazy-long codes down?”

Because no one on earth can recover your account if you lose your keys.

“That’s what the keychain extension is for.

Your keychain will automatically enter those keys for you wherever they’re needed on Hive.”

"Note: keychain can pop up asking for 'authorization', Harry."

“Yeah, but to do that you have to:

"Woo! So now I can post?"

Just go to peakD.com & let your keychain sign you in.

2. Preparations

"So what do I do first?"

“OK, I choose create. Let’s post!”

"Wait! Let me explain 'resource credits!'"

“Chill homes, we good. What are resource credits?”

“Makes sense. Smart way to handle abusers!”

"So Hive invented resource credits?"

“I guess not. OK, so how much resource credits do I have?”

“Yes, but those places don’t pay you. Money is involved here.

"Why do I need to know about Hive Power?"

Your resource credits are proportional to your HP.

How do I get Hive Power?”

“Fine, I’ll list them real quick. To get Hive Power…

“Holy, nevermind, lol, can you just ‘gift’ me some?”

I’d rather teach you how to get your own Hive Power and/or resource credits. It’s easy.”

"Use this site to be gifted Hive Power & resource credits."

“I’ll explain. You can gift yourself resource credits instantly. Just…

“So now I have HP & RC and can I actually use this platform?”

3. Creating A Post

Harry wrote a witty intro post.

But what if we had an ‘account book’ that tracked all social transactions?”

"What the fk is the 'dust threshold?'**"