Following the recent infrastructure proposal, several thoughtful questions came up in the comments and in community discussions. This post consolidates the responses and addresses the framing gaps that were rightly pointed out - particularly around revenue, sustainability, and what's actually concrete in the proposal.
On the proposal feeling "vague"
A few people noted the original proposal led with high-level themes (improve onboarding, optimize infrastructure, continue product development) rather than concrete deliverables. Fair criticism.
The concrete work being funded for this period:
Infrastructure: Full Hive RPC node, dedicated image hoster (serving even years-old images that are missing on other instances), Hivesearcher indexing, Hivesigner, Hivexplorer, Hivekeeper, and the eSync pipeline powering edit history and immutability, ePoints, eOnboard and few other servers/services powering them.
Mobile app: Continued development, performance improvements, new features. Recent release include 3.5.5.
Vision-Next: Self-hosted infrastructure for community-run frontends with custom domains (configurable-app branch). Recent release include 4.3.8.
eSync: Migration toward a HAF-based unified approach.
MetaMask/EVM marketing and outreach: The technical integration is already shipped - direct MetaMask login via Hive Snap, multi-chain wallet (BTC, ETH, BNB, SOL), and EVM onboarding flow are live. Focus now is on reaching the MetaMask and broader EVM user community to drive adoption.
hive-x402: Deeper integration of the AI agent payment facilitator (HBD as settlement layer, zero fees, 3-second finality).
All open source at https://github.com/ecency. Monthly delivery posts on the Ecency blog track what actually ships.
On the ask amount (333 vs 300 HBD/day)
The previous reduction from 396 to 300 HBD/day was announced here - we cut team and expenses to bare minimum. Shortly after, Hetzner increased prices roughly 11.6% and load continued growing. We brought back our full Hive node to handle that load while also contributing to Hive node decentralization. The 333 HBD/day reflects those realities.
For a detailed cost breakdown, see https://trust.ecency.com.
On codebase activity (corrected, with proper credit)
A community member raised concerns that recent activity is mostly maintenance and translation noise. After running the numbers more carefully, this is the honest split.
A note on translation work: Crowdin commits aren't all "automated" in the dismissive sense. Crowdin auto-commits when our team adds new strings to the codebase due to new features, and it also syncs translations contributed by human translators from the Hive community (https://ecency.com/contributors). That's real contributor work - making Hive accessible in many languages is part of Ecency's value. But it's translation work, not code work, and the two should be reported separately.
The proper split, over the last 12 months:
Vision-Next:
Real-code commits (locale-only stripped): 3,858 total
Human authors: 3,748
Bot commits (dependabot etc.): 110
Separate locale-only commits (mostly translator contributions): 2,144
Ecency Mobile:
Real-code commits (locale-only stripped): 1,165 total
Human authors: 1,137
Bot commits: 28
Separate locale-only commits: 3,672
Across the two flagship repos, that's 4,885+ human code commits in 12 months, plus thousands of locale contributions from translators across many languages.
The earlier "1,012 commits in March" framing I shared in comments was misleading because it didn't separate locale-only commits from code commits - thanks to 
Beyond Vision-Next and Mobile, ongoing work continues across the mobile SDK, hive-x402 package, eSync, ePoints, eOnboard, Hivesigner, Hivesearcher, Image hoster, and Hivekeeper. All open source. There are few private repos as well related to some sensitive services like Points, Onboard, authorized APIs.
For us number of commits are not much important, what's important is to build and deliver value that helps users and community to do everything Hive and stay engaged.
On revenue and sustainability
The biggest framing gap in the original proposal: revenue and sustainability weren't explicitly addressed. They should have been. This is the honest picture of where things stand.
What's being explored:
hive-x402: Live facilitator at https://x402.ecency.com, @hiveio/x402 npm package published, CAIP-2/CAIP-10 profiles merged upstream. Revenue thesis: Ecency operates the facilitator and takes a margin on volume from AI agent micropayments. This is not proven yet - it's a path being built and explored, not a guaranteed revenue stream.
Ecency Points / AI Credits: Points system was introduced to improve engagement and (modestly) revenue via gamification. Honest assessment: not substantial enough to cover infrastructure cost in any meaningful way today. AI Credits builds on the same foundation - users earn credits through engagement and spend on AI tools. Deeply integrated into the platform, harder to fork.
Vision-Next self-hosted: B2B/SaaS path for communities and projects running their own Hive-powered frontends. In active development, not yet a commercial offering.
Two real constraints we work around:
Hive users mostly come with earning expectations, not spending tendency. Subscriptions or paywalls layered on a rewards-trained userbase tend to push users to free forks.
Anything monetized at the frontend layer can be forked open-source within days. So revenue paths have to be infrastructure-level, deeply integrated, or services-based.
These are constraints, not excuses. They explain why the revenue paths look the way they do.
Worth noting: hive-x402 wasn't promised in any previous proposal. We built it because we're actively thinking about revenue models and where agentic payments are going. That's the pattern - under-promise, over-deliver, and a meaningful chunk of what we ship doesn't appear in proposal bullets until after it exists. The effort is there; the framing in proposal documents has been lacking, and that's the gap this post is addressing. We are always transparent about expenses, deliveries, codebase.
On the focused-tool comparison
Direct comparisons between Ecency and focused tools (wallets, extensions) don't quite hold because the cost structure is different. A focused tool maintains one or two products. Ecency maintains a mobile app, web platform, new browser extension (Hivekeeper), plus full Hive RPC node, dedicated image hoster, Hivesearcher, Hivesigner, Hivexplorer, eSync, ePoints pipeline - services some other apps and users depend on. Different problem space, different surface area. The principle of pivoting toward sustainability still applies; the route just has to fit the scope.
What's next
Revenue paths above continue to be developed and integrated. As specific milestones become measurable (hive-x402 volume, first AI Credits paid users, first Vision-Next licensee), they'll be reported transparently as we explore their use cases and implementations.
Monthly delivery posts continue on the Ecency blog.
Code is open at https://github.com/ecency for anyone wanting to audit directly.
Cost breakdown is at https://trust.ecency.com.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to everyone who engaged with the original proposal - 
Proposal vote: Hivesigner, PeakD, or Ecency wallet links in the original proposal post.