It is tax related. There are just some issues with me holding HIVE or HBD that cause too much trouble, especially the functionality that automatically increases my HIVE account just by having HIVE powered up. Depending on who you ask, that needs to be taxed, and that's a bit complicated. Just not worth the trouble just to hold HIVE, would love to keep it powered up, but just too risky for me, as I probably will end up making mistakes that can get me in trouble in some way.

Participations at the contest have fallen off for some time now, there is not much going on. While that is the case, the server itself will not be terminated, it runs separate from HIVE and is not decentralized at all, so it doesn't depend on HIVE.

For prizes of contests, these will still be available in HIVE or other options, at least if there are participants to close a running contest and have some competition.