Today I'm back with another post for newbies, about Hive and I'm going to focus on two things you may have never heard of. Again, what I'm going to write is simplified, don't look for academic language as my goal is to make everyone understand. Voting on what I'm going to write is very important and I hope as many are going to vote as possible.
A blockchain is a distributed database or ledger that is shared among the nodes of a computer network. As a database, a blockchain stores information electronically in digital format.
The goal of blockchain is to allow digital information to be recorded and distributed, but not edited. In this way, a blockchain is the foundation for immutable ledgers, or records of transactions that cannot be altered, deleted, or destroyed. This is why blockchains are also known as a distributed ledger technology (DLT). source
Hive.blog is one of the many websites that are powered by the Hive blockchain and HIVE cryptocurrency. All of these websites read and write content to the Hive blockchain, which stores the content in an immutable blockchain ledger, and rewards users for their contributions with digital tokens called HIVE. source
I's sure quite a few of you are going to roll your eyes and move on to the next post, thinking this is not for you, it's too complicated or you just don't care as you think there's nothing to gain from it. But you're wrong.
In the web2 world you don't have a say in anything. You're a user that has obligations but no rights, or just very limited rights. The data you upload is not yours and can be deleted any time by the website admin, your account can also be cancelled. This can't happen on Hive. The account is yours and can't be muted and you also have a say in how things are done. You can decide quite a few things, using your stake.
Witnesses
Anyone can run a witness node, if the necessary requirements are met, so the list of witnesses is quite long. However, not all witnesses have a say in things. We have 20 consensus witnesses (the first 20), elected by the community. Right now these are the ones you see on the list above. This, in plain English means they have the most votes from the community and they decide what's happening on Hive. Their ranking can change any time as votes can be added and removed as well.
I know new users usually don't have much stake, or don't have stake at all, but every little bit counts and adds up. Besides, everyone wants freedom and the right to decide, so here's yours. You have the right, but also the obligation to vote.
Who to vote for?
This is a good question and you're free to vote for whoever you want, but to really know who these witnesses are, you can check the description under their name and the link next to their name, which will lead to the frontend or dapp they are running. You can vote for 30 witnesses, regardless of the size of your stake and I'd suggest to use up all your votes.
So there's a drop down menu next to your username, and at GOVERNANCE you can fine Witnesses as well as Proposals, which comes next in my blog.
If you think you can't decide on which witness to vote, or don't want to, you can set a proxy, which, in this case means you can follow someone's witness vote.
Unfortunately I could not figure out how to set a Proxy, using PeakD, so here's how to do it on hive.blog.
https://wallet.hive.blog/~witnesses
Click the link above and scroll down to the bottom of the page, type the username in the box, click Set Proxy, approve the transaction and it's done.
If you choose to opt for a proxy, please make sure to choose someone you trust. Voting for the wrong witnesses can have serious consequences. We had some interesting situations when we forked from the legacy chain and some people lost a lot.
This is similar to how voting happens in real life. You vote the politicians (head of state, members of the parliament etc.), to represent your interests and while no one can force you to vote, the minimum you can do for your future is to go and voice your opinion.
Unfortunately we have the same users on Hive, that we have in real life and the overall behavior is also the same. Some are complaining all the time, but when you ask them if they have voted, they say NO as they think their vote doesn't matter. If you're one of them, then there's need for a mentality change asap. No witnesses, no Hive, it's that simple!
Proposals
The Decentralized Hive Fund (DHF) is an on chain decentralized autonomous system that allows users to submit proposals for funding and vote on which proposals should be funded.
Proposals are submitted by developers working on Hive.
I took a screenshot of a few, to explain you what these proposals are. As you can see, there's a link that takes you to a blog, which explains what the proposal is about in details and the financial details as well. If the proposal can get the necessary votes, it means it'll be funded from the reward pool.
The first proposal you see is a layer one proposal and it refers to core development of Hive.
Maybe the most easy proposal to explain is Keychain, which is a much needed dapp, to spare us from copy pasting our keys all the time, when we want to login and to keep us safe as well and Ecency, which is a frontend and a mobile app on on Hive.
Every user should go through the proposals and vote the ones they think worth funding. Unlike with witnesses, you can't choose a proxy to vote on proposals on your behalf. You have to do it yourself.
A New Mindset Is Needed
I keep saying this, repeating it quite often lately, but it is important. So crypto is here to set us free, to give us financial freedom. Hive is a platform where you can earn your financial freedom if you play your card right, but in order to do that, you need a new web3 mindset, which also refers to taking responsibility and participating in the governance.
Those who are here to make a quick buck, to cash out everything will never understand this, but you can be different. It's finally time to take matter into your own hands and decide for yourself. Vote for your witnesses, vote the proposals you like and think will benefit Hive. Be part of the community, help us build the coolest place on earth.
Later Edit
In the meantime the guys from PeakD were able to help me with how to set someone as Proxy, using PeakD. (Than you PeakD!)
If the account you want to set as proxy is already acting as proxy for others, then you clock the 3 dots and select Set as proxy voter, from the drop down menu.
I know about witnesses but I was part of the few that thought their vote didn’t count. Thanks for the wake up call. I’ll reblog this so a lot more newbies and oldies can see this.
I’ll go read on the witnesses and what they’re about and make sure to use all my votes now.
Ps: I saw the comment about the few you mentioned, I’ll check them out first.
Is it possible to vote one at a time? Like can I vote maybe 4 for now, and as I discover more witnesses, come back later to vote, or do I have to use all of my vote once?
You don't have to vote for 30 witnesses at once, you can do it gradually anytime you like. Better check them out to learn about their activity and decide later. This way you learn more about who is doing what.
I did. It’s interesting what I found out reading about the witnesses. Most of the dev projects I know and like are actually run by witnesses. I’ll keep voting as I vet more witnesses. Thanks again.
My pleasure and I'm glad you do! It means my post wasn't in vain and also, if you learn these things, you can pass it on to newbies you know 🙂
Sure thing🙂
As far as I can remember, I only voted for OCD's witness, I still have 29 other votes. Should the criteria I look for when voting for witnesses be the communities I use the most, or the ones I interact with? Or those who want to vote for their witness in the content? The choice becomes difficult when you don't know any of them.
Well, you should not be voting only based on the communities you are interested in as Hive is much more that just the communities.
There's SteemPeak by PeakD, which is the most used frontend. There's arcange, who's running Hivebuzz, a very cool service with badges and statistics.
There's yabapmatt and stoodkev who are running Keychain and these are just a few from the top 20.
There's also threespeak, the cool video service we have on Hive.
You should look around, see what they do and use up all your votes.
I don't know there are witnesses of the frontends, that was quite helpful, thanks.
You're welcome.
This is great work you have done by listing each account to support the vote for the witness. Weldon job!
Wait, there's a misunderstanding here. I did not list those accounts to be supported. Those are the top 20 witnesses, that we call consensus witnesses. Please do your own research (DYOR) and vote for whoever you think deserves your vote.
Oh! I am very sorry. That means there was a misunderstanding. I got your message now. Thank you for your response.
My pleasure and no worries.
Very informative. Thanks for sharing
My pleasure.
I was just thinking about this today and figured I needed to drop some votes and look at some proposals. Made some didn't use all my votes but will look again shortly. I never forgot you had all those links at the bottom of your articles so I looked and here is one on just that. Thanks Erikah this was useful and reading comments also gave me some confidence in the few votes I made so far.
Thank you for voting for witness and proposals. Many are overlooking them, especially those at the beginning, but there comes a time, when each member should participate in the governance through our votes. I'm glad you remembered my tutorials. I'm posting them under my posts to be found easier.
Have a nice day 🙂