While many are 'away' at HiveFest, this might not be the best time to post this (or anything for that matter), but I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and as I've mentioned in the past, once something gets stuck in my head, I need to get it out before I can reasonably move on.
What have I been thinking about?
The price of HIVE.
Now, look. I buy into the idea that there is more to HIVE than price. In fact, I think its true value lies in its ultimate utility. And I think much has been done to make it faster, more scalable, more secure, and reliable, and more work will be done as far as all of that goes. As will be more attention put to making things easier for developers to integrate their apps, and at some point, make it more user intuitive when it comes to onboarding and the overall user experience.
All good, needful things.
Also, I would rather that price in dollars, or satoshis, or whatever else there is to measure value by, wasn't a thing. Speaking only for myself, when I see the amount of HIVE I have staked versus the dollar amount I can't help but sigh. It doesn't matter how much I have staked, that dollar amount doesn't seem to budge. I grow stake, the amount either stays the same or goes down.
In other words, it's disheartening.
So, while the value of HIVE isn't just in its dollar amount, I can't totally discount it, either.
Not when so many other cryptocurrencies, many of them less capable than HIVE, are valued above HIVE.
Yeah, that could be for a number of reasons, and not all of them are desirable. Without knowing the details of every cryptocurrency, it's hard to know. And just because the value is higher now, doesn't mean all of those projects will still be around in the future. Sustainability is as important as utility.
As a strict investment, though, for me, it's still a losing proposition.
Even with the stake I've been able to build between buying STEEM/HIVE, earning through posting, commenting and curating, earnings on my stake, and converting my STEEM stake to HIVE, my stake is not valued at what I have invested. At the current price, I would need roughly 2.33 times more stake, or the price of HIVE to go up by that much, in order to just break even.
So, a little over 50,000 HP, (roughly Orca-sized) or the price of HIVE a little above $0.30 USD.
But who wants to just break even on an investment? I don't, just slightly less than I want to stay behind. So, I can continue to build stake through blogging or other opportunities HIVE currently provides, and I can do some more investing.
Realistically, that means at least another three years of sweat equity (give or take, since I don't know if that's a conservative estimate or still a longshot), or justifying spending money I don't really have at the moment. In reality, unless HIVE drops to a nickel or less, I'm not likely to buy a whole lot.
(And for the record, I'm kinda done with the low prices. I just don't see the benefit anymore, no matter how theoretically enticing the price might become to some big time investors. As is, relatively speaking, $0.13 USD is super cheap, thank you very much.)
Well, obviously, a lot can happen in three years. Just in the time I've been here, the price of STEEM/HIVE has hit an all time high north of $8.50, and fallen to under $0.09. The truth is, though, the price overall has been a lot closer to nine cents than nine dollars that entire time.
We're supposedly back in a crypto bull market. Bitcoin has moved up significantly, and has been setting new all time highs. And in the past, that has been good for alt tokens, too. Eventually. So, we'll see. We're nearing the end of 2020, and a lot of hope and promise is being poured into 2021.
Sorry, I can't be as optimistic as some. However, nor can I be so pessimistic as others. Generally, reality and truth lie somewhere in between.
And really, as far as HIVE price goes, I don't need a moonshot. I just want a new sustainable floor, say around 75 cents.
Is that too much to ask?
I hope not. Not when other tokens are currently at least 10 times greater in dollar value than HIVE. Just taking a look at the top 25 on Coinbase by price (excluding yearn.finance and Wrapped Bitcoin):
Bancor Network Token sits at $1.36.
Celo, $1.63.
Tezos at $2.37.
EOS, HIVE's cousin, at $3.09.
The OMG Network (what the heck is that), comes in at $3.28.
Uniswap, $3.99
Cosmos, $5.35. Synthetic Network Token, $6.23. Ethereum Classic, a knock off (or the original, if you prefer) still rates $6.46 per token. Band Protocol? $6.71.
I haven't heard of a lot of these, not that my knowledge of them matters. For one reason or another, they're still way above HIVE in price, and all are above in market cap.
UMA—$8.05. Chainlink—$13.71. Balancer—$14.37. Augur—$19.54. Numeraire—$27.01. Filecoin—$28.18. Zcash—$74.20. Aave—$91.51.
Dash, I've heard of. $109.31. Litecoin, obviously. $121.78. Don't know Compound, $158.07. Maker, yes. $575.65. Then, Ethereum at $664.43 and at the top of the list, Bitcoin. $23,966.44.
Now that I've posted the list, I ask you, how about 75-cent HIVE? Of course, I'd love more, but let's get a little light at the end of the long dark tunnel first. Right now, after months of HIVE being at $0.25 and below, and STEEM around that since this time two years ago, it does seem like a big ask, even if it really shouldn't be.
There would still be a lot of work to do. I can't retire on 75-cent HIVE. Truth be told, just to maintain our current upper lower class lifestyle (or lower middle class, take your pick—either way, we're talking about $40,000 net, a year), we'll need at least $1.6 million USD over the next 40 years, which doesn't really account for inflation or taxes. That's more like $2.0 to $2.25 million.
That means, realistically, I'm looking at at least Orca-sized stake and $45 HIVE, or various combinations thereof. In other words, still Orca-range stake and somewhere between Filecoin and ZCash pricing.
Personally, I don't think that's a big ask, either, but it sure seems to be for everyone else. We're still in a world based on scarcity, so Bitcoin is king.
Dumb, but true.
Some tendencies die hard.
I'd settle for being able to make a living wage in HIVE and using exclusively HIVE to pay all my bills, too, by the way. I think that's way possible, too, absolutely necessary given the state of the world and where it's headed, but we're nowhere near that either, and it seems less likely to happen to me before $45 HIVE.
One way another, though, I'm past ready for some upward, sustainable movement in HIVE price.
Image sources—Crypto Logos and Pixabay