Equilibrium is a state of balance between multiple forces. In the case of the Hive blockchain network, the guiding mission from day one has been to create an ecosystem that allows anyone to become a part of our decentralized network, contribute to governance, and to own their data, connections, tokens and actions.
This hardfork continues to empower people to use Hive the way they want and takes another few large steps forward in creating an ecosystem with better balanced rules and tools for building whatever we can dream up.
Reaching equilibrium is finding a state of balance and readiness. It is the essential preparation for big moves, exciting changes, and sustained growth.
A quick summary of Equilibrium:
Below is a list of the consensus changes that are being made as part of this hardfork:
Changes to curation window and curation rewards calculation
- The most important aspect of this change is that the 5 minute reverse auction is going away, so there is no punishment for voting early. This will finally put manual voters on an equal footing with automated voters when it comes to competing for curation rewards.
- In addition, anyone voting in the first 24 hours will be rewarded based solely on their Hive Power and vote weight, and the reward curve applied from 24 hours to the end of the voting window will be much softer.
New operation and API to convert HIVE to HBD
- HBD (Hive-backed Dollars) is intended to be a feeless, trustless, USD-pegged stablecoin. This new operation will stabilize the price pegging of HBD, allowing it to achieve its full potential as a frictionless medium of exchange for digital commerce.
- While HBD to HIVE conversions were always in existence, this new operation will allow conversions in the opposite direction (HIVE to HBD).
- Previously, HBD was only effectively price-pegged on the low side of USD pricing. This new conversion will create an equilibrium point where HBD will be pegged on both the low side AND the high side.
Interest only paid on HBD held in savings account
- Moving HBD into the savings account (3 day withdrawal waiting period) to earn the stakeholder interest on it just for holding!
New operation and API to enable recurring payments
- These are periodic transfers which are scheduled to happen automatically. They are intended for managing subscription payments, etc.
Witness and proposal votes by an account expire after one year if the account stops actively making governance-related votes
- This change was made to ensure that old votes from dormant accounts don’t unduly impact governance decisions for Hive. It will enable Hive to find a new balance between incumbent block producers and new competitors for those positions.
Proposal creators can change the end date of their Decentralized Hive Fund (DHF) proposals
- This allows a proposal creator to reduce their funding request (by decreasing the number of payments they receive) without having to create a new proposal.
Re-allow vote operation for already paid posts
- Voting outside the rewards window should still be something users can do, to show appreciation for the content they like and to add to their curated feed. This is a quality of life change that does not impact anything to do with allocation of rewards.
There are also new command-line options, a numerous bug fixes and performance optimizations, a new API call, and many other improvements to the code and documentation that the Hive blockchain relies on. Full details are available in the release notes.
You may also read more in our latest interview with The Capital.
As always, we can be found at https://hive.io.
