When bad things happen, sometimes good things come from it.
It would have been better if the bad thing had never of happened in the first place, but we can't turn back time. All we can do is move forward and try to learn from our mistakes.
There seems to be a trend here.
Belemo gets his Metamask hacked and already I've seen like a dozen people be like:
Oh shit that could have EASILY happened to me.
The Hive has been poked.
Do we think that if someone gets hacked on Bitcoin or Litecoin or Dogecoin or Shiba Inu or Chainlink or Uniswap or... do we actually think that these networks are communicating with each other in any kind of meaningful way? Spoiler alert: they aren't
Sure we've got crypto Twitter, a handful of Reddits, Discord, Telegram, and insert_web2_social_media_here, but we must admit that most crypto networks are grossly disconnected from their underlying communities. Talking to other people who hold the same tokens as us on centralized social media is a tiny subset of the actual users on that crypto network.
The Swarm has been activated.
Meanwhile, here on Hive, one person gets hacked and EVERYONE can see it. It's at the tippy top of the trending tab. One of our own was gutted in the streets and anyone who clicks on the trending tab is gonna be like:
Oh shit that sucks...
I hope that doesn't happen to me...
In fact there are a lot of emotions at play including shock, denial, rage, fear, acceptance, and perhaps even indifference. Everyone will have their own separate response to things like this, but the point is that they will have a response.
Meanwhile on a network like Bitcoin... someone gets hacked... and no one will ever know about it. Meh, people get hacked all the time. Total indifference and ignorance. The fact that Hive has communication built into the core layer, and that communication has a literal monetary value is something that most people take for granted (especially Hive users themselves).
Can we see what's happening here?
As much as is sucks that Belemo got hacked, I'm quite confident that this event has triggered a domino effect within the Hive Swarm. Dozens of accounts will shore up their defenses and get that hardware wallet.
At this point there is no doubt in my mind that this hack and the way it was presented and broadcast on Hive is essentially going to save this community millions of dollars in the long run. Millions. That's not even an exaggeration. $10k lost in exchange for millions saved. Think about how crazy that is. You don't get that on other networks.
Simply put this is a more connected network than most. Exponentially more because we have communication built straight into the mainline. Even Dan in all his greatness didn't do that with EOS. Hive is still an undiscovered Diamond in the rough.
Speaking of diamonds...
How bout that dip though? The entire market crashes 10% but the 80 cent support line on Hive stays strong. Traditionally when the market dips Hive usually gets hit extra hard. I always take note when crypto crashes and Hive doesn't. It's always quite significant.
In my last post I talked about the importance of volatility trading and balancing portfolios, but honestly after witnessing Hive hold strong like that I can't really justify selling any of my coins at 80 cents. 80 cents is the new floor now. That sure did escalate quickly.
That one time I went camping
Way back in the day (over a decade ago) I was camping and had my BB-gun with me. I was testing out those pointed lead pellets that have much higher accuracy than the spherical and harder steel ones. I was a surprisingly good shot for someone who doesn't shoot "guns" very often.
In any case, I saw a bird. Don't know what kind, but it was blue. Looking at Google right now I'd guess it was a California Scrub-Jay. What better target practice than a bird, amirite?
And you know, to be honest, I did not think I would even be able to hit the thing with a BB-gun. One pellet to strike a little target 20 or 30 yards away? It was a challenge, and I expected to miss. So I pumped my gun one time (out of 20 max), and fired. The bird flew away. I wasn't even sure if I had hit it or not.
Ah, well, that was anti-climatic.
So I pumped my gun up like 10 pumps. At that level the pellet would be even more accurate and basically guaranteed to be lethal for our poor little bird friend, but I'd probably miss anyway, right? I fired at the next bird that came down from the tree. Hit it perfectly center mass. It twitched for a few seconds, and was gone; totally lifeless.
You... disgusting... ape.
Yeah so I wasn't feeling so great about that. Plus it's obviously totally illegal to kill birds at a campground. And then, the squawking started; oh the terrible squawking. All the Scrub-Jays on the tree above were not too happy about what I had done. They made sure to voice their opinion and warn everything within a mile radius about what a piece of shit I was.
Once the squawking subsided, I was ready to move on with this shitty experience and perhaps be a bit nicer to innocent animals that are just trying to live their lives within this gross concrete slab we call America. Ah, but the Scrub-Jays weren't done with me yet, because then there was another dead bird on the ground.
Two dead birds... wtf?
Yep, the first one I hit that had flown back into the tree... that one pump wasn't enough to kill it instantly. It died slow. I guess I actually did hit it then... super cool. The outright cacophony of screeching started once again. That dirty monkey down below was not to be trusted.
I have never told anyone this story.
Somehow even the people I was camping with didn't notice what I had done. It's just one of those things I've kept to myself; A random milestone marker in the back of my head that reminds me I should respect nature more and just try to be nicer in general; Another Silver Lining.
My cat is also an asshole.
What can we learn from this?
In this analogy I would be the hacker. I'm on the attack, and I'm looking for weak targets. There is nothing my targets can do to attack me. I am too strong. But my targets can defend themselves, keep themselves out of harms way, and warn each other to stem the bleeding of tragedy.
This is what I see happening here with Belemo's hack. There's nothing we can do about the hacker. He will not be brought to justice. All we can do is warn everyone so they can defend themselves and prevent it from happening to them. We are just helpless little birds flying around, trying not to get merked by the savage hackers of the metaverse.
Conclusion
Hive has these warning systems in place. Hive has the communication and the "squawking" embedded directly into layer one. Other networks don't have this, and it is a way bigger deal than 99.9% of the space realizes.
We honestly haven't even come close to seeing what happens when governments start cracking down on crypto. What's going to happen when everyone heavily involved within Bitcoin and Ethereum just get blanket banned from all social media platforms? They are literally testing this strategy right now on anyone who opposes the current authoritarian narratives. It's only a matter of time before this failing system starts blaming crypto for their own incompetence and greed. Just look at Nigeria. Just look at what the Federal Reserve says the biggest threats to the economy are (China and crypto top the list).
The ability to communicate is the NUMBER ONE asset of humanity in general. It is the only thing that elevates us above other animals of this planet. It is the only reason we know anything. It is the only reason education and technology exists. It is the only reason we can build atop the backs of our ancestors and push forward. Our layer 1 network with built-in communication is going to go a long way in the future. I guarantee it. There is no other outcome. There is no competition here.
In fact, I think it is Hive's job to bridge the gap of our uncensorable platform directly into the WEB2 APIs. Using Hive, we could allow users to log in to WEB2 communication channels even if their account is suspended on the given social-media site. For example, even if an account was banned on Twitter they'd be able to log in to an encrypted Hive backchannel using the Twitter API. There are a lot of networked connections we could be making but simply don't have the workforce yet to build out the infrastructure. We likely need to give these things time and demand to materialize.
When I see a Bitcoin Core dev begging pretty pretty please can I have my Twitter account back, it just makes me realize how early in the game we are. We do not ask Big Tech for favors. We need to cut them down at the knees and gut them. That is the entire point of this movement: to make centralized Goliaths completely antiquated and irrelevant. It all starts with uninhibited lines of communication.