Hello Hive Family!

I'm going to steal a little inspiration from my friend @anomadsoul and do a "thoughts from somewhere interesting - free write" style post. So today, you guys are getting "thoughts from the pool".

A few days ago I flew to Florida to visit some family and so I've been having a lot of fun enjoying the Hive pump from here. I was actually flying the day that it jumped up and so I'm not going to lie - it kind of pained me to not be able to check the price for about 6 hours while I was in the air! Other than that, I've definitely been enjoying refreshing my blockfolio and keeping an eye on the price. I'm sure that' something many of you can relate to.

As I said in a Hive post yesterday, this whole run has made me reminisce of the fun 2017/early 2018 days. It's like Hive just had it's own alt season.

An Honest Look at Why we are Pumping

First off... I just want to say that these are just my thoughts based on what I'm seeing - but I'm sure there are all sorts of factors I won't think to include or may not know about. So here I am sharing my thoughts... and I hope you'll do the same in the comment section below and contribute to the conversation!

I think amidst all the hoo-rah and bullish excitement, it's important to ask why we are seeing such crazy price action. Of course, no one cay say with absolute certainty - but here are my thoughts!

I've seen a lot of comments on twitter saying things like it's because we have such a strong community and don't censor content like Steem does, and that we have a lot happening in terms of development.

I 100% agree that those factors are the kinds of things that contribute to long term growth and longevity of a project. The kinds of things that attract investors and cause community members and developers to dig their heels in even deeper and work harder to build this thing into something amazing. But those aren't the type of factors that generally cause a coin to double, triple or even quadrible in price within a 48-hour period.

How New Exchange Listings Factor In

Getting listed in multiple new exchanges such as Huobi and even now Binance (This is HUGE for us) are stronger indicators on a price pump, in my opinion. More options in the market = easier entry point for investors. You may or may not be surprised by this - but I honestly think there are many crypto investors who have their favorite exchanges, and if a coin isn't listed on it - they simply won't buy it. You'd think "if they want a coin enough, they'll just go to use whatever exchange it is available on" ... but that's not necessarily true.

Getting setup with a new exchange can be a massive headache. Many require KYC and have withdraw limits on particular coins and so going through the whole process of getting KYC'd, approved, linking up their bank account, etc doesn't leave them very nimble to act on the market. However, if they see price action on a coin that they want to jump in on AND it's listed on an exchange that they already have an account with - the likelihood that they'll pull the trigger and actually do something about it is much higher.

But can we really attribute this kind of massive growth to just getting listed on some exchanges? Although a stronger contender than simply being an awesome community - I still don't think it's likely that is the whole story.

How does the Huobi Promotion Play in?

For those who haven't seen the Huobi Promotion - they are currently incentivizing users to buy Hive through Huobi and they are giving away 100,000 total Hive to the top 100 people who have deposited Hive and kept it on the exchange during the promotion period - which ends tomorrow, April 28th.

I think this promotion is awesome for the Hive community (which I'll dig into a little later in this blog), but I do think we should be realistic with ourselves that once the promotion ends - we may see a big price dip.

What Happens Now?

Honestly, I'm super excited about the future of Hive and what this pump has done for our community - but I do think people should mentally prepare for a price correction. Again, I'm no market analyst (so always do your own research!), but this kind of explosive growth is almost certain to come back down.

That's not a bad thing though! Why? Because It's my hope that this price pump will net us an overall gain in the market. I keep saying this - but if we could land at a price point in the $.30 - $.40 range - that would be a massive victory because it would be about double our price point just a week ago.

Of course, I secretly hope that we keep going to the moon and settle at a new price point in the $.75 range - but I also want to be realistic and set my expectations accordingly.

A Price Correction is NOT a Failure

The main reason I want to bring this up is that I'd hate to see Hivian's get discouraged if the price corrects to something lower than it is right now. If that happens - it is normal market activity and is in no way a failure of the Hive community! If anything, the fact that we were able to have a huge run like this only speaks volumes to everything that we are building. So, please don't get discouraged, please don't stop posting, please continue building if we see a big drop in price. Again, to my point above - if this pump causes us to land on a higher overall price point than we were before - then we should all be doing a happy dance!

THe Many AMAZING Things that Have Come from this Run... that Aren't Just About the Price

I know amidst all the excitement, it's not fun to hear someone say "temper your expectations" so I thought I'd put my sunshine hat back on and talk about all of the incredible gains that have come from this run - that aren't just about the price!

• Binance finally listed Hive. This is HUGE. They honestly should have done this weeks ago... but the fact that they finally did is a massive, massive opportunity for our community get in front of more people and make it easier for people to purchase Hive.

• CZ tweeted about Hive. This goes along with the first point about the binance listing - but with his incredible reach and influence in the crypto community - having him tweet about being excited to list Hive is great exposure.

• Incredible attention from Bittrex. I made a Hive Blog yesterday talking about this - but we were basically plastered ALL OVER the front page of Bittrex. You couldn't miss us and considering that they are one of the largest and most trusted exchanges in the industry - this is a huge win.

• A Cointelegraph Article about the price jump. It may have taken a little time for the media to catch on to what's happening - but I was super excited to see that Cointelegraph did a piece about this. As the largest and most respected crypto media outlet - this kind of exposure is fantastic.

• People coming back to Hive. I've had so many random DM's and comments from people that I haven't seen active in the community for a long time. This price bump has caught their attention and they are coming back to blog, and interact with the community. THIS... THIS is huge. Media attention is great, but real and active users is one of the biggest factors needed for long term growth.

• People in the crypto community realizing they own Hive - and getting excited about it. I've seen quite a few people make comments about how they used to post on Steem years ago but hadn't thought about it in a long time. When they started seeing all the excitement about Hive the last few days - they realized that they actually OWNED some because of the airdrop. This caused them to log in and check it all out - which back to the point I just made about users - is super important. Getting them onto the platform and poking around may encourage them to stay.

Final Thoughts

Cheers to anyone who is still with me and has read this entire thing!! I actually can't remember the last time I sat down and spent a few hours writing, but I really wanted to share my thoughts and I hope that some of you found it helpful!

To sum things up.... I'm absolutely pumped about Hive, I think this big run has created MASSIVE long term benefits for our community, and I also think people should mentally prepare for a price correction soon.

I'd really love to hear your thoughts below! Did I miss anything that you think is important? Do you disagree with any of my thoughts/opinions? I hope that this can be an organic conversation between us all where we can all share and contribute.

Love you guys and cheers to many bright days ahead! 🚀

XO, Lea

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