What's Up With the Hive DHF?
What is the Decentralized Hive Fund?
One of the unique aspects of Hive is its Decentralized Hive Fund (DHF). This is a community fund that anyone can submit a proposal to, have it vote on by the community, and receive funding for Hive development projects, or projects that benefit the Hive community. Hive users can find these proposals in three different locations:
On the Ecency Proposals page (@ecency)
And at Peakd (@peakd)
At the top of the Proposals page on Peakd, we can see that current funding of submitted and approved proposals is 28,663 HBD daily while the daily budget has been set at 217,269.847 HBD. According to Ecency, these numbers are 30,206.996 HBD and 217,269.860 HBD, respectively. Why there's a discrepancy between these numbers is anybody's guess.
According to the Hive whitepaper, proposals are voted on by the community and each vote is proportionally equivalent to the voter's Hive Power. Total support for a proposal is based on the total stake among all supporters. Downvotes are not allowed.
From the whitepaper:
Proposal funding is released when the total value of that supporting stake surpasses the stake behind a benchmark proposal.
Once support is achieved, funding is commenced on an hourly schedule for a period of time established by each proposal.
Here are a few of my own observations about the DHF, which I find interesting:
There are currently 16 proposals being funded (according to Peakd)
Another seven proposals are up for vote but not currently funded (according to Peakd)
Of the 28,663 daily HBD currently funded, 24,000 of that goes toward maintaining HBD stabilization
There is still 188,606.847 HBD in the daily budget that is unfunded
There is no accountability to ensure that recipients of funding are using the distributed funds according to the plans laid out in their proposals
Of the current proposals now funding, one submitter (@arcange) is receiving funds for two separate proposals
Hive users that wish to submit a proposal must pay a one-time fee of 10 HBD plus 1 HBD per day beyond the first 60 days of funding.
@unklebonehead and I discuss the Decentralized Hive Fund on the most recent episode of the Defluenced podcast. You can listen to it right here.
Interesting. Loved to learn more about this. Still, why is this a unique aspect of Hive? Many blockchains or protocols I've seen have something similar. Tezos, I think Ethereum has a proposal and voting mechanism, I know for sure the Farcaster protocol has one. I think it's great, and maybe the way voting rights are distributed is unique, but one of the keys to decentralisation is the decentralisation of decision-making. And many have that in some form of DAO or foundation. Anyway, always learning about Hive from you. Thanks for that.
Hive is unique from many other Web3 social media applications in that it is decentralized, censorship-resistant, and it offers monetization opportunities for creators and curators. Very few Web3 social media applications have that combination of features.