The news of the week was the on again (after the off again) deal by Elon Musk with Twitter. It looks like, for the moment, it is going through. For this reason, we will presume that Twitter will be in the hands, at some point in the future, of Musk. It will only cost him and the investors supporting him $44 billion.
Many feel this is a massive overpay for a company who spent the last decade going sideways in terms of its stock price. Without digging into the financial statements, it is hard to know how the company performed. Safe to say, by looking at the way the market dealt with it, the numbers are not that impressive.
Here is where Musk needs a plan. Make no mistake, he is not entering this blindly. We also need to put to rest the altruistic, freedom of speech idea. He might value that. However, he is going to use this platform to make money. Even if Musk does not care about the money he puts up, his backers do. They want to be paid.
As mentioned in the past, Musk is part of the "PayPal Mafia". These were the tech billionaires who got involved with that company early on. For that reason, we can conclude that Musk understands payment systems. This is one of the main premises of the future of Twitter.
Billions In Transaction Fees
A few months back, Musk gave us an idea of what he is looking to do. It was widely overlooked by most since it really is not headline grabbing. Nevertheless, for those who are involved in Hive, this is something that stands out.
We know that fast and feeless is one of the important selling points of Hive. In fact, one of the main benefits to cryptocurrency is the elimination of financial intermediaries, entities that serve as gatekeepers for the world of finance. As a part of the "service" they provide, they rack up large amounts in fees.
It seems that Musk is going to take into this playbook.
There is little doubt that having a platform (application) with hundreds of millions of dedicated users provides a pristine opportunity to leverage that for greater financial gain. This is exactly what Musk is looking at doing.
Here are some numbers that are being tossed about.
His goal in 2023 is to have $45 million in revenues come from payments. This is a rather modest amount and, quite frankly, nothing to pay attention to. The challenge is that it is the starting point.
By 2028, Musk has set a goal of $1.3 billion. Now we are talking about some serious cheddar. If he can build the "Everything App", something akin to WeChat, he will have the standing to amass fees in the area he is targeting.
Of course, if we project out another few years, what do the numbers look like? Can he get that number over $2 billion per year? Either way, we could see the platform generating $10 billion in fees over the course of a decade.
Now we are talking about some serious money when it comes for the right to financially transact on Twitter.
Hive Tops This
Here is where Hive, overlooked by the entire world, is able to usurp the vision Musk has. As we know, there are no direct transaction fees on Hive. One only needs enough Resource Credits to send a transaction through. The advantage here is the fee is not lost. When one "spends" resource credits, they recharge daily.
On Twitter, @theycallmedan wrote that Hive is the everything protocol. Many of us are starting to realize that, as people like Musk and Jack Dorsey, discuss decentralized social media, they are really talking about Hive. While their goal is to build something they can control (and profit from), we are able to keep plugging along.
In the end, decentralization beats centralization (the subject of an upcoming article). The problem is we do not see this in the short-term. The benefits are further down the road. This is one of the reasons why Hive appears to be moving along slowly.
It is safe to say the merging of social media, finance, and commerce is the future. We saw some of this with the integration of marketplaces into applications such as Facebook. The reality is this is only going to accelerate as the idea become commonplace.
Here is where Hive is well positioned. Blockchain provides the distributed ledger to keep track of all transactions. By using cryptocurrency, the system provides built-in payments at the core. There is no need to integrate or construct this mechanism. It is standard to blockchain.
Thus, the challenge is to develop the social media applications. This is a concept that Dan Larimer wrote about years ago. His ideas was for social media to serve as the feeder system into the financial realm. This is becoming a rather standard vision with all that is taking place.
Actually, there is another layer to be constructed. Not only should the goal be entry into the financial realm but to create Wall Street on Hive. When you have a ledger based system, the services provided by the largest financial institutions can be constructed on top. Again, they are nothing more than glorified gatekeepers. Much of what they do can be built upon decentralized infrastructure.
Of course, this is something that Musk does not appear to be considering. As profitable as payment can be, financial services like what Wall Street offers makes those numbers look small. If Musk can target a billion in 2028, Hive can go after a trillion. When it comes to financial products via synthetic assets, we get into the realm of some very large numbers.
PayPal 2.0
Musk basically is trying to develop a more advanced version of PayPal. The issue is that a billion dollars is a lot of money. When we start to look at how much is being taken from people, to provide an automated service, we see how it is Web 2.0 all over again.
One of the premises of Web 3.0 is that the community benefits. If there are Web 2.0 characteristics, it is best to offer them with a benefit to the users. For example, Leofinance is running ads. However, the goal, by the end of the year, is to have those who stake LEO get the revenues from the ads. This is a Web 3.0 mindset.
Having the idea of generating billions in payment fees while sending that money to venture capital firms or banks is not in alignment with this. Here is where Hive now has a face of what to go after. Whatever Musk wants to create, we simply set out to top him.
After all, the basic infrastructure is in place. He has a lot of money and resources. However, does he have thousands of people willing to work towards that end?
With Hive, any success we have in this race ultimately benefits anyone who is holding or staking HIVE. Anyone looking at this should see how there is incentive both on the base and second layers. We have coins and tokens that will really benefit from us moving into the realm that Musk wants to occupy.
He wants to build the "everything app". Since we have the "everything protocol", we can build a couple dozen of these. On Hive, front ends can incorporate whatever else is on chain. At that point, it becomes a numbers game.
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If I understand correctly, your point is that Musk best option is to create a similar payment system that Wechat has via Twitter?
I see this transition to an "Everything APP" difficult for Twitter. If this system was so easily implemented and the business opportunity is there, META would have surely taken advantage of this incredible opportunity in one of their APPs(Whatsapp, Instagram, FB) which are much more widely used than Twitter.
Unsure what he has on mind with this acquisition but it is going to be interesting how this plays out in the long run.
Musk has an advantage. He was there for the creation of PayPal so he is well aware of what digital payment systems can do and how to integrate them. He does have a lot that he needs to add to Twitter to make it the everything app but he has the ability.
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I completely agree that he has the Know-how comming from the Pay-pal background. Still, I see a long road ahead to create the everything app. It would be incredibly interesting if he takes that monetization path though!
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The problem is that hive is still too hard for people to understand and contemplate what it can do. Mainstream adoption will not happen because it is hard to onboard people and even harder to retain them.
The everything app must feel and look like web2 but be web2.5-3.9 or whatever we call the number.
So is project blank now the everything app? I will toss my vote to any DHF proposal trying to build the everything app.
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Same thoughts on mass adoption. People are so used to convenience and less thinking that I can't imagine the crowds tearing into Hive. And it doesn't matter if they are bloggers or financiers. Though the latter, maybe.
Hopefully, everything will get better in terms of mass adoption, slowly enough for us to get into a substantial position, but fast enough to weed out competition.
Overall, I think Hive is on the right course. Taskmaster does put across a very compelling vision of Hive.
!PIZZA
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Not sure ProjectBlank is the everything app. In fact, it is crucial that developers on Hive start thinking in this direction. That is where Hive has an advantage. It can be everything tied to the chain and apps can tap into them.
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While it would be great if Hive can acquire more accounts to compete with other platforms, maybe that approach is wrong. Hive just has to be well known enough so that people don't look at you as if you're a Cyclops when you say "Hive."
I'm not saying to stop marketing, but maybe the goal shouldn't be to match other platforms' numbers.
Nokia is still doing well in a world dominated phones running Android of iOS. Unix (and its many flavors) is doing well in a world dominated by Windows and Macintosh OS X. At least in North America, Major League Soccer is doing well in a region dominated by the National Football League and Major League Baseball.
Hive can succeed in a similar way. Right now it gets treated like a left-handed zero. Hive isn't for everyone, but it gets treated as if it's for no one. That has to change.
Once enough people know about Hive, it can be an option to be considered and acknowledged.
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(Links in original)
How long before the Web 3.0 mindset transforms Web 2.0? If we can't avoid Web 2.0 features, we should at least make them work in our favor. LeoFinance is doing that.
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Very hard to say. But we can certainly provide a great contrast to what is taking place. That is why we need to keep building and pushing decentralized infrastructure.
It is vital we get this all lined up for when the real battle begins.
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A side effect of becoming a payment network is that users will have to KYC. This greatly reduces the spam problem.
So you think KYC is an advantage?
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I don't think he said that. He only said that KYC will reduce the spam (bot?) problem. Most people there don't even know what KYC is. Whether they know what KYC is or not, most of those people don't see it as a concern.
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Not that it is an advantage. Rather, it helps resolve the issue that he was arguing with Twitter regarding bots. If you're going to spam on the network, you'll have to ID. This gives the company an option to upsell you on a higher-limit tier. I have no illusions that the platform will be better. Simply, it will be more profitable than it has been.
As usual very interesting subjects, however this time you touched topics so deeply relevant that I think I'll start using my spare time into learning how to code and BUIDL.
!PIZZA
- EvM
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Not a bad way to approach your career. It has obviously potential.
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Wow. Very much appreciated ser. My respect and admiration goes to you.
- EvM
Can HIVE handle the same level of traffic and tweets as twitter?
We are not sure what Hive can handle. However, after the hard fork next week, we will be able to handle a lot more. Scaling is something Blocktrades focused upon. So it is likely we can handle a lot that gets thrown at us.
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Very interesting. He’s got big visions but will it actually work is the question.
Time will tell.
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I know a lot of people thought Elon was doing great work when he bought Twitter but its still centralized I think web 3.0 is the best
It is centralized, without a doubt. There is no way this will ever be Web 3.0 no matter how they try to spin it.
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agree but the problem is not a lot of people know what Is web 3.0
I'm permanently banned from Twitter. Can't happen on Hive.
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Like we always praise Satoshi, Dan Larimer gets me thing thinking at times for the fore site to build a chain like Hive. Hive is not just any other chain limited to a few minor capabilities, the DApps Hive houses sometimes amaze me.
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It makes me wonder where all of this with Elon will move with all of this. I think it's just to earn money and I do believe that Hive is better. He just wants the control but I think I saw someone say that getting Twitter would speed up his time line.
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The Platform will be so filled up with Tesla Ads :D
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Indeed, they are "talking about Hive."
Of course, the problem (from THEIR perspective) is that they can't truly control Hive, and they can't make billions from owning the infrastructure. Or trying to own the infrastructure.
So we already have what "they" purport to want, but it really isn't what they want because they can't own/control the playing field. And to conventional business, that makes it unattractive.
There is a lot of talk in the Hive community about the importance of "investors," but I often find myself questioning that, at least from a psychological perspective. Hive is far more of a user oriented experience than an owner oriented experience... and sure, we could say that "we're all owners," and all that.
So then we can consider the idea that you can create something and succeed, using Hive, rather than owning Hive — Splinterlands style, multiplied by 1,000 — but would such a scale realistically appeal to the Musks of the world, or would it merely result in a "build your own" situation?
=^..^=
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