For the few months that I've been wandering around in different communities in Hive, I've noticed something happening at the beginning of each month, and everyone posting about it. The "Hive Power Up Day", or HPUD for short.
I'd been tempted to do so for quite a long time, but my small pocket wouldn't allow me to do so until now - I've had better options within Hive if I want to make an excuse 😅
What is HPUD?
I believe it is an initiative at the beginning of each month to incentivize people to stake their HIVE - turning it into what we know as Staked Hive or "Hive Power".
Did you know that you'd be given a badge if you do that in the 24 Hours time window of the first of each month?
I just surpassed 400 HP today, on my way to becoming a Minnow - tired of staying a little fish in the pond.
What Good Does It Do For Me?
Well, I'd love to beat around the bush and make this article as long as it could get by going into many details, but I figure many other posts are doing so as well, so I'd rather explain the benefits for a Hivian in the same field as I - a developer (or at least, a developer-wannabe).
Gas Fees
As you know, all blockchains have their own fees for transactions - and most of them are quite high. Hive uses the Resource Credit (RC) model. You'd get a lifetime supply of 'things' that could be used to pay gas, as long as you keep your stake in the chain, i.e. have "Hive Power".
The good thing about the RC model is that you are not paying in Hive itself, but rather the 'interest' you are getting for your stake. You can write to the blockchain as much as you want without running out of juice if you have some good stake. (Essentially use the blockchain as your game's decentralized database without any further fees)
Interest Rate
The Hive Staked to your account, in addition to the RC it generates over time, gives increases at a 2.8% rate every year. It's nothing much, but it's better than staying over there catching dust.
It goes without saying that the interest you get also increases your RC Pool.
Curation
Last, but not the least: Curation
I believe this is one of the most important things neglected by many, and used by many other bright minds behind big projects on Hive.
Hive's strength is in its community and the community is held together with curation. The more HP you have, the more your voting value increases. When your vote is worth more, you and the author of the post you have voted on will receive more rewards.
If you are a developer working on a project, you'd probably need some marketing for your project to attract customers.
This rewarding system and your high vote value (which is made possible through more HP) could be great tools you can use to attract customers, reward them, and expand your business/game.
You can incentivize an entire community/content creators to produce content related to your business/product - promoting it in a way. And that is a power you cannot find in any other blockchain!
Also note that the rewards are in HBD which is USD-pegged to some extent and if you accept that as payment in your business, the vote you are giving out to your customers is, in a way, coming back to you!