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This is the #106th edition of the "Week through Adrian's Lenses" weekly Hive and crypto news roundup.
Let's see what we have for this week. We cover:
Hive
- Hive Core
- BuzzParty
- HBD Sucre
- Distriator
- Barquisimeto
- Distriator Development
- HafSQL
- Bad Actors
- HiveSQL
- YieldForge
- Splinterlands
- WOO
- Soulkeep
- Holozing
- Ragnarok
Crypto
- El Salvador
- Litecoin
Week on Hive
15 of 34 tracked posts made it to this week's issue of the "Week on Hive" roundup.
In the Spotlight
Hive Core Developers Meeting
Looks like hard fork date remains planned for February 18th, with another one to come a few months later (but also in 2025) with a series of significant changes regarding signatures (including what 
For this HF in February, they are still considering two things, apparently minor: a fix to DHF proposal votes, and a potential adjustment to how proposal funding (inflation) is allocated. I admit I don't know what these two refer to, it's the first time I hear about them, but they seem important, without knowing additional details (they weren't discussed any deeper in the recording either).
On the performance side, I loved that 3x reduction of API response times, on average, noticed after internal testing.
There are a lot more details if you are interested, in the recording, or the AI-generated points of discussion, added as a comment by asgarth.
Among them, but unrelated to Hive core development, the plans of Actifit for 2025, which include expanding it to provide gym workout plans, AI suggestions, and more wearables integrations.
Marketing / Awareness / Branding
BuzzParty in Graz
This year's BuzzParty will be held in Graz, Austria, between 1st and 3rd May. There will be presentations, food, and side events. For Hivers, tickets to the event are covered by ValuePlan, but only 14 more tickets were still available at the time their post was published. To get one, you need to send a symbolic HBD amount to 
10,000+ Visitors from Reddit to Hive via HivePosh
That's what we learn from the latest report. I'm guessing this is 15th to 15th or something similar. 10k visitors is a good amount, but we also need to account that Hive generally started to trend higher recently.
Almost 23,000 Dollars Spent as HBD for Goods and Services in Sucre in 2024
From another chart he produced, we see the uptrend in HBD spending recently. Another way to gauge Distriator's success.
Speaking of Distriator...
300 HIVE Distriator Infographic Contest
If you feel your artistic skills recommend you, join the contest and attempt to win. Find the rules, guidelines and other information in their post.
Hive Conferences in Barquisimeto, Venezuela
This post just came out, but it refers to an event that took place mid-December, when from my understanding commercial allies (the term I saw they prefer in Venezuela) participated in a series of conferences regarding Hive at a shopping center in Barquisimeto, Venezuela. It was probably a bigger event, where Hive participated, since there was a "Hive Zone", but I admit I only skimmed through the post and read an AI-generated summary.
Governance / Development / Dapps / Education
Distriator Focuses on Multi-Chain
We can see from the to-do list for Distriator's development, there is a lot of inter-connectivity with other chains, whether we are talking about different login methods, or making payments in other coins.
Small But Breaking Changes to HafSQL
Mahdi Yari announced the breaking changes to the public HafSQL node he maintains in a short post, and a window of 7 days while the old functions still work.
Hive Gets More Attention. That Also Means Getting Targeted By Bad Actors.
A couple thousands accounts have been created trying to take advantage of Ecency's delegations to new users (or maybe purchased via points, I'm not sure) and to create a fake DHF proposal. Looks like the DHF started to become a honeypot for bad actors.
The new "bad" accounts got their delegations removed and have been blacklisted on Ecency for their points system, and obviously the fake proposal didn't pass. Here are more details.
What's important to understand is that with more attention on Hive, we attract all kind of individuals, many of them bad actors coming with the intention to break systems they target, rather than to play fair or by the rules. And they may come even before the general public does, because they see "opportunities" and don't need convenience, as a regular user might.
The good thing about them targeting various parts of Hive is that we can see where we need some tweaks before more serious attacks might happen.
Getting HiveSQL to Work with Python on Linux
Microsoft SQL (the SQL server on which HiveSQL is built) works flawless where do you think? In Windows. For Linux or MacOS, you need some extra work to get it to work. 
New Project on Hive-Engine
There is a new project on Hive-Engine called YIELDForge ran by 
Games
Splinterlands - SPS Validator Network
SPS Validator Network enters an open testing phase, for now geared toward users with some experience operating a node, setting up a VPS, and so on. They will have a more "packaged" solution to set up your own node for the full launch. Details in Splinterlands Discord.
WOO Physical Starter Deck Pre-Orders
WOO introduces a starter deck of physical cards branded Perry Saturn, which are now in a pre-order stage. See what they contain.
Soulkeep Updates
As announced in-game and in Discord, the free entry every day to the tournament has been reintroduced, while at the same time each game rules and rule values have been randomized, and the number of fiends and the damage of towers now has some RNG, but not too high. The changes were added to prevent multi-accounts from copying the best strategy every day. Other long term solutions are expected in the future.
Holozing Updates
Holozing revealed a new creature called Naara (and its evolution, Shinaara), which seems inspired by the Bambi character. As a conclusion of the Advent Calendar event, some extra rewards have been won, based on... RNG and consistency of claiming.
Ragnarok... Back
In a video about Hive, Dan kept a good part of it at the end talking about Ragnarok.
People who have been for a while on Hive should know we received an airdrop related to Ragnarok, which was proportional (actually, equal) to our HP holdings. Newer Hive users perhaps may hear about it for the first time. Ragnarok is a rather complex and competitive game, a combination of chess, poker and TCG.
Dan mentions that participants who have and will help in the development, testing of the game and operating nodes for it, receive benefits, including Dan's entire airdropped collection (based on his huge HP stake), because he wants to reward them even more and he wants to start from scratch and build his collection up.
Week in the Crypto World
Big Crypto Moves for El Salvador
Tether Group (including subsidiaries) will relocated to El Salvador, after securing the necessary licenses. That's a huge move! I'd say it's a bigger move for El Salvador than for Tether, especially after the recent arm-twisting maneuver attempted by the IMF (their usual MO). Maybe El Salvador will realize its ambitions to become a crypto hub.
The other big title from El Salvador, is more like wishful thinking, in my opinion: to have a bitcoin node in every household (in 2025).
I Wondered Why Litecoin Surged in Price Lately...
Maybe whales are speculating on a future Litecoin-based ETF, as it's been said. So, others are speculating on what whales are speculating about. 🤣 But I thought I should mention it. I don't know what to say... A new ETF didn't mean much in terms of price action for ETH, only for BTC, so far.
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