If anything, the events of the past few years around the Steem blockchain have clearly revealed a number of failed attempts to kill Steem through the launch of copy-cat platforms. The launch of Whaleshares and Weku are quite remarkable in this regard. Both platforms, interestingly, promised to fix the errors of Steem, which were then mainly the use of bid bots and the alienation of many powerless users, but they were unsuccessful.
An attempt to analyze in great details why the aforementioned projects failed will, no doubt, result to the writing of a book. But since it is not my intention to write a book, permit me to briskly summarize the points. It would seem that Whaleshares and Weku failed not merely because they could not attract the support of a large chunk of the Steem community but both platforms were cheaply hurling its token at users. The latter reason would result to the emergence of pseudo whales who continue to dump the tokens until they become nearly as worthless as air. And then the exodus began.
But the attempt to kill Steem did not end with the story of Whaleshares and Weku, very recently events on the Steem blockcahin took a new twist that would result to the emergence of Hive, which many within the crypto community referred to as the child of necessity. If the reader does not already know the story it is all over the internet.
Nevertheless, a summary of the story goes thus: Justin Sun bought Steemit and its stake from Ned Scott and then went on to hostilely take over the Steem blockchain after the then witnesses froze the Ninja-mined stake. The rest is now history.
Hive is alive, alive for everyone. This article examines top five reasons why Hive could be the Steem-killer.
1. Decentralization
Hive is the perfect definition of what decentralization really means for a blockchain-based social media platform. Unlike Steem that is presently being controlled by Justin Sun and his cohort of puppet witnesses, Hive is fully decentralized – owned by nobody, controlled by no single entity, has no marketing team, fully community driven. Apart from Bitcoin, there is rarely any other crypto project that can boast of the status of Hive today. This potentially set up Hive as the Steem-killer blockchain.
2. The Support of the Steem Community
If there is one thing that makes Hive stands out, it is the simple fact that it has the support of the vast majority of the Steem Community. Whaleshares and Weku never had that kind of support. For many Hive users, their presence on Hive is a revolt against the tyranny of Steem. It is therefore not surprising that that only few months after its launch, Hive has overtaken Steem in the number of daily users. If the trajectory is sustained, Hive is on its way to become the Steem-killer.
3. The Migration of Steem Dapps to Hive
In its golden days, Steem flourished chiefly because it could boast of being the home of real Dapps that are used by real people, not bots or gamblers. That reputation has slipped significantly within the past few months as we continue to see many of the fanstastic Dapps migrating to Hive. Splinterlands, 3speak, Steempeak, Steem auto, etc are some of the Dapps that have migrated to Hive. We seem to now have just an empty shell left on the Steem blockchain. It will not be a surprise if the next Chinese blockchain ranking puts Hive ahead of Steem.
4. The Stealing of the Accounts of Erstwhile Steem Witnesses and Hive Apologists
Very recently, the crypto community was stunned and rudely shocked as Justin Sun alongside his army of villainous witnesses [attempted] to steal the Steem balances belonging to some erstwhile Steem witnesses and Hive apologists namely:
The amount involved was well over $5 million and the move has been condemned by many of the prominent voices within the crypto community. The aftermath of theft has found many Hive apologists completely shunning Steem, which has the potential to sink Steem the more.
5. Bad Public Image
With the recent controversy around Steem and the tyrannical actions taken by Justin Sun, the public image of Steem is badly damaged. Many people now see Steem, and rightly so, as a place where one’s account and investment could be confiscated for being critical of Justin Sun. This perception has greatly reflected in the number of new accounts created on Steem within the past few months. If the trend continues, only one outcome seems imminent, that is, Hive is on its way to overtake and overrun Steem.