Thanks for the detailed and excellent comment on this topic!
I was aware of the situation with market making in general and also how dubious many of the practices are on centralised exchanges, but it's clear that Hive is competing in a marketplace within exchanges and needs to 'do different' somehow.
If there is a straightforward and logical solution here, it seems to be to increase the userbase of Hive and to increase demand and trading volume for the token. It would be helpful to know the kind of range of volume that you might have been told is a rough threshold for listing on some of the more busy/desirable exchanges.
It is initially sad to think that a powerfully decentralised project doesn't get enough love in the 'decentralised' marketplace because it is too decentralised and has a bit too much intention to stick to ethical ideas! However, I can also see how this could be carefully turned around in marketing messaging to help people see Hive as one of the few crypto projects sticking to the kind of principles that created Bitcoin.
It's already clear that a lack of public trust is a huge issue with crypto project promotion, so finding ways to educate the world on some deeper truths about the industry could achieve two goals in one - both building trust in Hive and also differentiating it from the competition. Clearly that would need to be done in ways that don't annoy the exchanges too, if possible!
I also wonder if there is a way to excite exchanges to use Hive as a platform to grow their own communities - it seems like a 'no brainer' on the surface, but as you pointed out - they seem to focus exclusively on trade income and not so much on human potential/needs. They could certainly gain some positive PR if they were to be seen to participate in projects that support real communities, instead of effectively operating along the same lines as the banks that crypto was intended to replace.
It would also be good to know some of the costings and general details of the market making options being suggested. All the available options for growth should ideally be considered by the community, even if we eventually agree that these particular ones aren't appropriate.
We will absolutely cover this topic as best we can when gathering data for this proposal, should it be funded. Sometimes just having greater clarity on a topic like this can inspire change to come in unexpected ways!
There's a lot that we could go back and forth on here, but overall I agree- every single exchange that we work with, we attempt to get posting here on chain. Most don't have the time or effort to put into that type of marketing overhead, as again, perceived value of community building here based on volume is a big one vs other places they could be using. I have explained at length how they can use our incentive structure to create passionate brand ambassadors with basically no expenditure, but it hasn't been enough of a draw as of yet. I have one or two we're working with to at very least make introductions on chain.
To be very honest, Binance sort of swept everyone on this by releasing Binance square- we had a few meetings trying to convince them to use Hive as the basis for that system since we literally already have it built, but unfortunately too much lay outside of their control and it did not tie back to their own tokens. We are actually working with them now to try to figure out if they will graciously allow us to connect RSS feeds from our content here to their platform there, lol, so we shall keep at it.
As for MM/Liquidity- any amount at all would have to be paid by DAO, and therefore would have to be public. This certainly does raise some issues, as almost every company and platform providing numbers will NOT allow you to share the costs (similar to most listing deals) and will put a rep under NDA. It also means that they structure their documents and pitches to us a little differently, but I've been approaching all our exchange partners recently to see if I can at least collect some broad info on expectations and what could be provided on platform, to give us an idea if we want to look to intermediary options for the future or bother to do it at all.
Ah, I hadn't heard of Binance square - I just tried to look at it but was told it's not active in my region. I'll try to bypass that somehow. It sounds like the usual story of large corporations wanting to control every aspect of their process in-house as much as possible.
I see the problem with market making, yes. It's katch 22 in that the community can't vote on a proposal to support market making without public access to the terms, which they service providers aren't willing to facilitate.
The De-Fi liquidity pool approach could be a viable alternative. It's not an area I am an expert in, but perhaps @vaultec's plans will offset the problems with centralised exchanges?
The immediate goal is to bring wrapped Bitcoin onto Hive & startup liquidity pools pairing HIVE:BTC HBD:BTC for starters. From there we can pretty easily add LTC, DOGE where a good % of the money is add. From there assuming our development is funded, we can continue to build and start looking and integrating all similar EVM chains for wrapping. Wrapped bitcoin alone will be invaluable to have and would give us a significant source of liquidity. Longer term the more pairs that are added the more options become available and cross trading between pairs at low fees
That's my vision, it certainly isn't easy, but we can moving towards it and it'll become available this year.
Thanks for explaining. So would this setup be accepted for listing on some of the more well known liquidity / DeFi / trading sites? Or is there a reason why it would have to be limited to running on your/our own custom built sites?
The classic apothegm stating the problem: ¿Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
How to increase the userbase of Hive and to increase demand and trading volume for the token if we do not have enough exchanges (CEX) available in the market to purchase Hive with fiat money or trade other crypto tokens for Hive or HBD?
C'mon bro! Has no one told you yet that crypto exchanges are just businesses? Businesses like any other? Businesses that only deal with money as their only tangible and essential product and from which they profit just as traditional banks do?
What freaking interest they might have neither in growing communities nor people nor in human potential/needs? They don't care about anything of that bro. The only thing they are interested in is making monetary profits and growing further to get even more money and profits! Again, just like traditional banks.
Hi, thanks for your comments. Businesses often engage in community outreach and also community building for various PR aligned reasons. The exchange industry is very competitive and any organisation claiming to value decentralisation needs to reflect that claimed ideal over the long term. I appreciate that few may be interested in much outside of their balance sheets, but that is unfortunate and with enough grass roots momentum they may eventually find their lack of connection to their audience is their undoing!
Oh yeah, that's true. But the main "PR aligned reason" usually is because their local or external governments in some way or another force them to cover their part of "social responsibility" with the community.
That's true also. There is too much competition in this industry, simply because it is too easy to obtain exaggerated and large monetary and financial profits from this activity without producing absolutely anything tangible and of value and living only from speculation and people's expectations. I hate to say this, but again, just as the traditional banks.
Yeah, let's continue to be naive and optimistic. And let's hope that one day some rebel with many contacts, relationships and opulence will emerge in this industry and who is truly willing to overturn this current paradigm of the financial industry.
One of the long term vision of decentralisation is to balance the playing field between individuals and larger entities, more than can otherwise be achieved. As time passes and as software improves, it becomes more and more feasible to create systems with blockchains that challenge larger organisations. It's not impossible that they may gradually find they go the way of mainstream TV shows that once dominated public perception, but which today are often outperformed by social media video profiles online.
We have perhaps got quite a journey to complete before that happens - but as times become tougher, people will gradually be forced to live smarter and to be more self reliant. While this is in some senses the opposite of what large financial corporations often want, they may need to respond to it anyway.
I am old enough to remember life before crypto - it might not seem like a huge paradigm shift has been building since then, but in many ways it is.
As already said before, let's hope that one day some heretical rebel with many contacts, relationships, opulence and popular support will emerge in this industry and who is truly willing to overturn the current paradigm that the financial industry is showing today.
Yeah, in many ways it is. But there are some of us who are already way too old, that I'm afraid we will no longer be present to celebrate the crystallization of that huge paradigm shift. };)
Well, there are many possible avenues for significant change of that kind - in fact it seems more likely to me that we will see this emerge in some of the 'poorer' parts of the world as a result of their need to survive/thrive and the limited array of other options available to them due to the biases of the existing mainstream economic systems.
I don't know exactly how long you plan on sticking around on Earth, but I will remind you that change is the only constant :)