My fellow Hivers,
We are at a point in Hive's timeline where the future looks bright and grim at the same time. We've celebrated our 5th anniversary as Hive. The core devs have been cooking for years, and our blockchain is more robust and scalable than ever. But our user base isn't growing much, meaningful new apps are yet to be seen, and our price is sinking while we are building 18k ~~gold~~ boreholes somewhere in the physical world.
But I come here to give you a message. Like Bilbo Baggins, who left the Shire to face dangers he's never seen before, to come back rich with experiences and gold. Now, I do not come back with gold but with experiences nevertheless.
There are many stories to be told, and telling you I'd like, but for now, one shall suffice. Starting with a quote that many of you will know in some different form:
Ask not what Hive can do for you, ask what you can do for Hive.
A few months ago, I had what I would call a professional-life crisis. The skills I had spent years crafting to (cough) perfection were becoming obsolete. Agent AI reached a point with Claude and Cursor where it wasn't reasonable anymore for me to code myself. It didn't hit the same quality code and made mistakes more often than not, but realizing that this would be the worst agentic AI was ever going to be was an eye-opener, and it was devastating.
Let me explain: Coding came to me by chance. At the same time I learned about crypto, I taught myself everything I could to bring what I had in mind to vision. Others use color to paint or notes to create music; I was using code to create—carefully positioning each part where it should be for it to ultimately turn into a masterwork. And all of that code was my preciousss.
After years of working, writing millions of lines of code, I was confident about who I was and what I could do—like a hiker reaching a mountain, but who also just found out that on the other side of the mountain a lift got built.
And when I saw @meno putting away his guitars and building Snapie in a matter of a few months, a social media interface that would have taken me a month or two as well—something snapped. (pun intended)
After a bit of time, I decided to accept that my time as a human programmer was over and that I would open myself up to what was to come. I signed up for Claude's $100 subscription and began exploring. And suddenly, I saw a whole new set of opportunities. Being able to build apps in a matter of days and weeks rather than months. My experience and knowledge were still useful, but I wasn't doing the code by hand anymore.
Ideas, Ideas, Ideas
Like the Big Bang, ideas suddenly started to rush towards me, and rather than the code or the implementation, suddenly the quality of the ideas became the bottleneck. And I realized that my identification as a software developer wasn't important anymore. I was, am, and always will be an idea man who uses technology to bring them to life.
So, what does that have to do with the title?
Well, that's what I've been asking myself recently more and more:
"What can I do for Hive?"
There isn't just a single answer. It's a difficult question and simple at the same time. There is no right or wrong, just a matter of perspective, subjectiveness, and reflection. But by putting Hive before myself, the priorities become clear and the ideas can flow.
I'll leave the post open with these questions so that everyone who reads it can come to their own answers in relation to:
- "What can I do for Hive?"
- "How can I serve Hive?"
- "What does Hive actually need?"