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Wealth creation and supporting Hive / Great LIttle Dragon Community
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A late response
Let me clue you in to a little habit I have. When I get an upvote from someone worth more then $0.05 I typically check out that person's profile. Much of the time I go to BOT accounts that follow a curation trail. Sometimes I go to a curator account which can tell me about interesting endeavors on HIVE. If possible I look for ways to support those who supported me.
Recently I received a response from @acidyo and in my mind I know him as the Holozine guy. Typically I try hard not to call out whales in the community. Sure if they upvote you it can increase the overall value of your posts but then anger them and they can squish you. I'm only mentioning him this time because he wrote an article asking about when do you take your profit on HIVE. You can find the article
. I was going to respond to that post but...I knew my reply was going to be much much too long.I'm also going to tag @dlmmqb. Now @dlmmqb is a guy who knows the inner workings better than I have any desire to. He knows how the currents of HIVE and HP flow and he bailed me out one time when I inadvertently ran afoul of the @hivewatchers. However, he also said my thoughts on the economics of HIVE were flawed and I didn't think like a Hivian. He's probably right, but I have always wanted to state my viewpoints as a rebuttal.
So in response to those two I'm going to write a long article. I'll start with a story then I'll give a reply. I hope you find it entertaining and it will also serve as much of the basis for the Great Little Dragon community going forward.
A new Immigrant
Let me tell you the story of a Filipino immigrant to Canada. Mr. Juan Guy. Now he had money in the Philippines but found this new country he wanted to live in. He had money in his home country but wanted to make a new life in a less crowded place where things were more orderly. Japan was more orderly, the USA more prosperous, Europe had more culture and better economy, but Canada had easier immigration laws ... and they spoke English.
Now when he came to Canada he brought his money with him. It allowed him to get settled and start his life in Canada. The way people did things here was strange. There were many odd customs he had to adapt to. However, he was a keen observer and a writer by trade so he watched everything around him and learned. He knew he wanted to make money, he knew he wanted to be rich, and he kept his job writing in the Philippines but also wrote in Canada so he effectively had two incomes. Looking around he knew that there was more opportunity to make money in Canada so he spend every dollar he made in Canada to invest and every dollar he made in the Philippines to keep him afloat until his Canadian investments made him rich.
Now while he was in Canada he looked at how the money flowed. Of course the money he saw all moved in the local circles. He paid the grocery store clerk, the grocery store paid the clerk and the wholesalers, the wholesalers paid the farmers, and he was part timing as a field worker, the farmers paid him. Inside the country money moved in a very circular fashion. He looked a little closer and he also found out that there were different circles which offered different "Money" while he was in Canada. Some people were loyal to Loblaw's food stores (Superstore, No Frills, Shoppers Drug Mart) and they were given Loblaw's points in that circle. Some people used Canco for gas and got Canco points. Still others like Canadian Tire actually printed their very own currency which was only valuable at their stores but still...
(Image source: Kijiji listing)
But when he thought about it all of those points or currencies were based on the Canadian dollar. If it went up the other currencies went up...and vice versa.
That was an important point because the Canadian Dollar fluctuated a lot. Canada was very close to the United States and sometimes the dollar was worth more than the US dollar. Usually it was less and the value seemed to change daily. That was important to him because he had to send money back to the Philippines regularly to support family back home and he never knew what the exchange rate was going to be!
As he made money in Canada he looked at all the ways he could invest. He got a high interest savings account, GIC's with the bank, Bonds, Preferred Shares, Dividend Shares, Growth Shares and more little by little he grew wealthier and wealthier. However while his wealth grew his lifestyle didn't change. Mostly because he made a limited income from his work. Sure he was becoming rich on paper but he learned that it was day to day income that made people feel rich. Having $1 million in the bank made him rich, but having excess money in his wallet to spend made him feel rich. He repositioned his portfolio to one that generated income. The income was small at first but as he added more money from his earnings his investment income grew and grew. At first he kept sending it home to the Philippines to help family there. However one day he stopped to think about that.
While watching the news headlines he noticed that when oil prices went up the Canadian dollar went up. When wheat or lumber prices went up the Canadian dollar went up. In general whenever Canadian exports did well, the Canadian dollar went well. Of course if major international companies decided to put in big plants to hire many people? Well, the Canadian dollar did very well indeed! Then it dawned on him. It was money coming in from the USA for oil that made the Canadian dollar rise. Or international purchases of food products/lumber/minerals etc that brought in Euro's, Yen, or whatever foreign currency it might be that helped the Canadian dollar rise. If Japanese companies made billion dollar factories? The dollar rose even higher.
BUT
That simple thought changed how Juan Guy did his investments. He still worked to make money in Canadian dollars. He still bought shares in his local companies and still supported local stores. However, he made sure to invest in things which brought money into the country...from Oil refineries to lumber companies and everything in between. It made him feel good knowing that he was becoming wealthy by investing but also protecting the value of those investments by making sure that the underlying currency was always strong.
Then he had one final thought one day as he saw another new immigrant come to Canada. He saw the new person who was kind of clueless in the ways of Canada. He knew that the newcomer would likely struggle to make income. Likely spend all their pay on stuff in the short term and ignore long term investments. So, he wanted to make sure to train newcomers to make more Canadian dollars, show them how to invest those dollars both inside Canada and out, so that in the end Canada would be a more vibrant place to live both for himself and for those who came in after.
What does that have to do with Hive?
Now so far I haven't really mentioned anything about HIVE. However, what if Juan Guy didn't come to Canada? What if he instead went to a new virtual country called HIVE? Hive has its own currency, it has its own quirks and rules, it has its own way to make money and it is full of opportunity. Indeed anyone can join the community and anyone can work here. Also just like Juan who has connection to a foreign country so does every Hivian. We all live somewhere different in the world.
But Hive is a community where everyone is an immigrant and everyone has family back home. If everyone decides they will work in HIVE and just keep sending money home and the currency will falter over time.
Now I like the idea of a Dragon Kingdom (Great Little Dragons). In the kingdom there is only so much GLD (gold). If every dragon works for their gold and sends it off to a foreign land then the kingdom will have no currency left in short order. Money only works when it goes in a circular motion within the kingdom, community, country or whatever you wish to call in.
But Hive is still a new "nation". People are so used to using their regular Dollars, Euro, Pesos, Naira or whatever that they often don't think of ways to use the HIVE of their new citizenship. That's why there are initiatives like @thedistriator which are trying to facilitate this circular movement and stores like @happycustomer are trying to promote.
In HIVE there are lots of "businesses" which have their own currency. LEO would be one that is well known but there are many many others as well. Something to remember thought is that these side currencies are all based on HIVE, if HIVE falters then the associated currency also falters. Yes, I know that some are "multinationals" which will happily survive outside HIVE but I still think it works as a blanket statement
I applaud the work of all those hard working Hivians who are working tirelessly to create a circular economy within HIVE so that Hivians can spend their money with "local shops".
It doesn't change the fact that it is external money that increases Hive's underlying value. The more gold coins (hard currency) that leaves the country (hive) the less value it has. The more people who take money out of HIVE to buy their own local currency the weaker Hive gets. To truly build the value of HIVE we need (a) more industry inside the country (here's looking at you Splinterlands and Holozine). (b) more money coming in from immigrants (lets increase the userbase) or (c) income coming in from foreign investments.
Which finally brings me to :
When will I sell/spend my Hive
Now that is a bit of a tough question because I have many different accounts on HIVE with many different purposes. However, loosely I can categorize the accounts as follows.
- Worker / Citizen account
- Curator / Community account
- Investment accounts
- Demonstration accounts.
- Business accounts
Demonstration accounts
Some accounts are setup for one reason only. To show people what kind of returns they can get with different investments. Accounts like @ocdb.gld does only one thing. It delegates its HP to @ocdb to get passive income. I start with 100 HP and show how much income comes in daily. In that was it was really easy to demonstrate what kind of returns are available. There are other accounts like @surge.gld which started with 100 HIVE and invested in SURGE tokens to show what kind of return they get. Another yet to be created account will invest 100 HIVE into a liquidity pool such as swap.hive:ZING to show again LP rewards.
Demonstration accounts will regularly sell their HIVE to get GLD tokens to support the Good Little Dragons community.
Curator / Community accounts.
Accounts like @hiveabbyftp is setup as a curator for the community. I have no intention of selling any of the HIVE there, ever, without good reason. The whole point is to be able to provide benefit to any posters in the community so why would I want to diminish that ability? @gldragon account is the spokesperson for the account. Again, the HP there is to support the community and I have no intention to sell any of it. Ever.
Now the @hive-192111 account is a community account but it will have a bit of a special role. It will be issuing the GLD token for the community. The money that it makes will be invested both on and off chain. On chain to provide rewards for community members and token holders but also off chain so that there can be regular "foreign" income into HIVE. In that way even if HIVE falters there will be real world (fiat) monies to support community members.
Investment accounts
The @newstyle.gld account is specifically created to make a return. It was money that would have been put into a Canadian investment making between 3-7% return. However, it will be investing in HIVE based projects paying a much higher return (hopefully 12-18%). In this case I'll be taking out 5% to replace the income I would have gotten in Canada and leaving in the rest to hopefully make more money over time. The @tergan account is also an investment account. It has a dual purpose: Hold enough HBD to support the GLD token and again make a return on its other investments. Again the goal is to pay back 5% in Canadian and leave the rest to support the community.
Business accounts
"Dragon accounts" like @gromphus.gld are designed to support a business model. If all goes according to plan they will have an app associated with them which hopefully brings in a little money from ads. The AD income will all come into HIVE and the dragons will fight each other so we can gamify them on chain. So...income in. Then invest on HIVE, then return the interest to the programmer (me), the supporters (community) and external investments (long term HIVE support).
But the most interesting account will be my personal account, at least my my estimation.
@terganftp account progression
If you look back on my first post it was about making money on Splinterlands without paying any money. After a few short one day stint trying to win matches with only starter cards I quickly decided it was impossible and the account went dormant.
Fast forward a year and I removed all the value from the account and restarted as a "How To" guide for anyone who just started with HIVE and had nothing but a username and a dream to make some cash. It was a very difficult first few months. Learning the hard way that I couldn't make a few comments and still have enough Resource Credits to make my daily post was a hard lesson. Having no followers and making posts which got only the obligatory upvote from the Actifit curator for a minimum amount which was probably about 2 cents was rough. Not having enough AFIT tokens to get the daily side token distribution was sad. Stopping into the gift giver faucet a few times a day to get a drip of 0.002 Hive so I could stake it for enough RC to actually make a regular post. Starting from ZERO sucked!. Watching Actifit ADs for one AFIT token was worse.
But my goal then was clear. Show new users how to start from nothing and make something. Click
if you want to see that original post from two and a half years ago. Since then I have worked hard writing and investing to take my account from ZERO to about $1500 HBD in value. Some of it I have spent helping the the Earn Spend Give community. Some of it I spent to but AFITX tokens to support Actifit (where I make much of my money). But the fact remains, I have turned hard work into value on HIVE. Follow from my first post and anyone will see how I got where I am and it wasn't by being awesome, interesting, or sociable. It was from regular posts and a bit of luck catching the eye of @OCDB, @lazy-panda, @pandex, @actifit and others.But once you have built up a stash of HIVE (and HP) then what? If you don't stake your HP you aren't seen as serious and won't get upvotes. If you lock everything in as HP you can't cash out if HIVE skyrockets. Such a conundrum! However, it shouldn't be. I have no intention on ever selling the HIVE that I earned with hard work unless its to support a different project on HIVE. However, now my focus is going to change. @terganftp was all about posting to make a stash of wealth. Moving forward I'm going to be moving all my HBD that I get from posts and all the HIVE I get from Delegation to the @terganmarket account.
@terganmarket is going to be all about how to spend and invest your hard earned HIVE. I'm going to keep on working with posts of course. I still want to show people like @cagayancowboy, @mamalen and @sej how they can create value. I still want to participate in content creation on Hive. However, income is where things get interesting.
Buying products like $EDSI, $EDSM, $EDSMM, and $SURGE give predictable (and considerable) income! Indeed $2000 HBD invested in EDSI or SURGE could give about $30HBD per month in income which is distributed weekly. Now that is pretty small by Canadian standards but when looking at what the minimum wage was in Nigeria last year? $30/month could be the difference between starving and surviving. Getting close to the minimum wage there a year or two ago. But the @terganmarket account is more than just "Let's get regular income and spend it!". Nope. The account is more about....
- How would I spend this income for the greatest effect?
- How do I grow this income?
- How do I diversify this income?
- How do I help others with this income?
- How do I help HIVE with this income?
- ... and how do I show others to follow in the same path.
Absolutely I will be spending a fair amount of the HIVE I get in this account. I'll be looking at how to get the absolute best value for every penny that comes in. I'll also be looking for ways to give a portion away to help in a charitable way on HIVE. Exactly how that will work, no idea, but giving back to others less fortunate is always important. Most interestingly....
.... I'll be looking to invest a portion of the regular income to investments off chain. Then use the dividends, interest or gains off chain to funnel back on chain.
If you look at the @cro.gld account you will see just that. Off world investments making regular contributions to HIVE. To me, that is important.
Well, look at someone making money to support themselves in Nigeria, Venezuela, Philippines or any other place where their options are limited. That money is important. However, if HIVE weakens their options weaken. However, if they take a portion of their Hive income and invest in their country? They get money from Hive AND they get money outside of Hive. They are in a stronger position. Think of what happens if everyone on HIVE invests off chain and then reinvests back to the chain? What if HIVE had money coming in from every user and every country? What a great feedback loop! That's something that I want to encourage and model to every person who comes on chain.
Step One: Make friends. Work Hard. Create value for yourself.
Step Two: Invest wisely to create income for yourself.
Step Three: Spend that income wisely for spending, giving and investing.
Step Four: Use those investments to put cash right back into Hive for yourself and everyone else.
Ideally each new hatchling (Hive user) grows a hoard of value which turns into a stream of income which sustains both themselves and the community. In essence a hatchling becomes a Dragon.
Sure bringing in investors to hive is important. Sure getting business investments and utilizing the blockchain to bring about financial change is awesome. But to me? At its core? Getting new users, giving them the tools to build themselves up, giving them the knowledge to invest wisely, and making them financially stable so they can support themselves and the chain? That's my ultimate goal.
Plus there is an additional side benefit.
Right now my total HIVE investment over all accounts if probably about 15,000 HIVE. Each and every week my external investments will be adding additional HIVE to that amount. My writings will bring in even more HIVE to that amount. All good. Now assume that investing that HIVE gives me a 12% return (delegation, curation or holding coins such as EDSI) and assume that the investment income is liquid. That means 1,800 HIVE in interest a year or about 35 HIVE a week. About $7 HBD to spend or invest every week. Buy a couple items, give a little away and invest a little off chain. My off chain investments? They come in and buy HIVE at a low price of $0.20. Little by little my stash grows.
BUT
What if HIVE skyrockets? What if Hive hit $2? I'm still bringing in the exact same 35 HIVE a week but now when I sell it my income goes from $7 HBD/week to $70 HBD/week. Some to spend, some to give and some to invest. But I'm absolutely getting beefy value for all those weeks! I'm not spending any of my locked HP, selling my valuable EDSI or cancelling my delegations to @pakx ... but I am getting great income!
BUT
What if HIVE slides? Well, all my HP I got from hard work and I'm holding onto it. All the income came from my hard work. Some of that income bought off chain assets that give me real world value AND provide income to keep on supporting the chain. In that way there is always fiat coming in and the dream never dies. Then again, if it ever did, well, I've got real world investments as a memory of my time spent writing.
HBD
As you may (or may not) know when posting an article you have the option of 100% HP or 50%HP and 50% HBD. I suppose you could use the @reward.app to get liquid hive, burn the rewards or decline them but those are more fringe cases. For completeness I'll look at each. Would I burn the rewards? No. Burning the rewards is a way to decrease inflation in the HIVE issuance but if I do the work I want the rewards. I'd rather cash out the reward, invest in something real world and then put the money back into HIVE. Burning it seems very wasteful. Declining it? I don't do it often but I have done it. One post I made I didn't believe I deserved payment for so I declined payment. Usually though I put effort into my posts so I want the reward. Reward as 100% HP? No way. I value cash flow and having all my rewards going into something illiquid making 3-12% makes no sense when there is an option to get something more liquid that gives me 15%!
Here is where I'll directly answer @acidyo "When and where do I take out HIVE" and "If I take it out would I consider HBD, ETH, BTC or even LEO". I get all my author rewards at 50% HP and 50% HBD. The 50% HP I no longer even think of taking out. I will delegate the HP to a curator and get liquid HIVE (or other sidechain tokens). That's my income and that's what I'll consider converting. The HBD that I get? That's the interesting part. I could just stake and get a juicy 15% paid out monthly BUT what if HIVE goes up? Then I lose. How about a few "sneaky" options?
First: I only am holding HBD staked to cover the GLD tokens that I've issued. Hmm... although I would also hold additional staked HBD if I had fixed real life bills I wanted to cover.
Second: If I want to get regular HBD interest I'll convert my HBD --> Surge. I just hold the tokens and I get my 18% interest paid weekly in HBD. Problem solved.
Third: If I want to have the downside protection but still get more HIVE? Easy. I take my weekly HBD payment, convert it to HIVE and then use it on Hive-Engine to purchase a HP lease. I get 18% from SURGE and pay 10% for the lease. I make sure I follow a curation trail for the Great Little Dragons (plus my favorite authors/holders of the GLD token) and that HP lease pays itself back plus more as HP. Horray! I keep my stable value, I get better HP rewards than if I just got all my posting rewards as HP, AND I get to give more upvotes to people in the community.
Fourth: If I am really bullish on HIVE and want more? I'd sell those HBD tokens for EDSI. 18% return paid weekly in liquid HIVE. I really love liquid HIVE more than HP as I get to choose what happens with it.
In short: I'm not selling my HIVE/HP. Not now and not if it spikes to silly levels. I absolutely will keep getting HBD from my posts and I will be looking for every way to get the best return on it. Just like I want the best return on my HP.
So now you know
I make no guarantees that HIVE will grow long term. I think it has huge potential but it also has a huge hurdle to get into widespread adoption. I don't know if even a single person will follow in my footsteps. I know that some will think I'm crazy (like @dlmmqb) but that's one of the nicest parts of HIVE. It's censorship resistant and people are very respectful in their comments...so even if I'm a little crazy I can still fit in.
Now you know how I'm intending to build my wealth on hive, build my income on hive, and build offchain investments to support hive. The Great Little Dragons community will be showing how it all fits together for anyone who wants to join me.
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