XT × Hive AMA Review: Building the Future of Truly Decentralized Social Finance

Key points:

1. Hive remains one of the few truly community-driven blockchains—without a CEO, foundation, or VC control, it is a truly decentralized example in today's Web3 world.
2. This AMA, co-hosted by XT and Hive, discussed Hive's November performance upgrade, its trustless HBD stablecoin mechanism, and various on-chain revenue streams for new users.
3. Crimsonclad, a core operations executive at Hive, shared why Hive's governance model is robust and how it plans to drive growth in 2026 through cross-chain integration and user expansion.

In the Web3 environment dominated by enterprise-led blockchains and shaped by VC influence, Hive stands out as unique—it has been entirely community-driven since its inception. Without a foundation, a CEO, or an institution controlling access, Hive has been building a self-driven on-chain ecosystem for years, from its social platform and creator tools to its own stablecoin system, operating continuously without centralized power.

In an AMA hosted by XT.COM on November 10, 2025, we had an in-depth conversation with Crimsonclad, a core community contributor to Hive, to explore how a truly decentralized network can scale in a highly competitive industry environment.

Throughout the conversation, we explored Hive's history, the performance-focused November upgrade, the HBD stablecoin design with minimal trust, and the various ways new users can earn rewards on Hive.

XT is now available for spot and futures trading of Hive , providing more flexible options for participating in Hive's thriving social and stablecoin ecosystem.

Spot trading: HIVE/USDT

Contract Trading: HIVE/USDT Perpetual

More related information: HIVE price .

— Rachel Ong ( @1r033r0 ), Host of XT.COM

— Crimsonclad ( @Crimsonclad ), Hive Core Operations

How did your Web3 journey begin? And how has your role in Hive shaped the entire ecosystem?

My name is Crimsonclad, and I am a core community contributor to the Hive blockchain. Hive has no corporate structure, which means that everyone involved in the ecosystem joins voluntarily and then finds a direction in which they can contribute.

I'm personally a huge crypto enthusiast. I entered the crypto space around 2015, initially starting with Ethereum and Bitcoin. Around the end of 2016, I heard about a new social media platform that offered the opportunity to join and earn cryptocurrency. This immediately piqued my interest. So I checked out the platform, and from there, I was hooked.

Hive was formerly Steem. Its concept was similar—you could participate in Web3 social media and have the opportunity to earn rewards.

To figure this out, I started learning how blockchains work and began studying their code. I started reviewing the open-source codebase of Hive (then Steem). And as I started looking at the code, I thought, "Okay, I'd better run a node, because that's how you decentralize the network." So I became a node operator.

After running the node, I became a consensus block producer. This meant I began to truly take on the responsibility of maintaining blockchain security. Subsequently, I started to take on more work, helping people understand why blockchain is important. To this day, I continue to work on education and outreach.

Why are Hive's governance structure and community model able to truly achieve decentralization? And how has this enabled Hive to maintain its independence and resilience in its long-term development?

Hive has no founders, no foundation, no venture capital, and no corporate control.

However, one of Hive's key origins is that it was actually created during one of the world's largest and most famous 51% attacks. At the time, the old Steem chain was still running, and a large development fund was held by a company called Steemit Inc. In short, when this company sold the development fund, the buyers used this money, along with funds from exchanges, to essentially launch an attack on the network, appointing their own people as block producers, thus almost completely removing decentralization.

Realizing we couldn't wrest control from him, we decided to start from scratch. Later, in 2020, Hive officially forked from Steem.

Therefore, the people building the Hive ecosystem all have very strong beliefs. We certainly care about assets and tokens, but we started with nothing, and we've come this far based on a shared set of beliefs: decentralization is important.

This also means we have grassroots open-source code development—everyone who participates in writing code is a community member. At the same time, we have an on-chain feedback mechanism: if we are building a feature or need to add a feature, people can directly write content on the blockchain, communicate with developers, and provide direct feedback on what is being developed.

What are the key highlights of the November upgrade? How will it improve the experience for developers and users across the entire ecosystem?

We typically upgrade our system through hard forks—meaning that after a hard fork, everyone starts using the new code, and the witnesses for running nodes are elected by all users through voting.

The upgrade, launching on November 19th, is fantastic, but it primarily focuses on performance. Hive already has many features, many of which were designed to improve the end-user experience and enable dApps to provide more services.

This upgrade optimizes performance from the very bottom up.

For node operators—especially exchanges, partners, and anyone directly using the L1 core code—this upgrade will make nodes faster and lighter, which is the biggest change. Most importantly, by next year, you might even be able to run a full Hive node on a smartphone or a Raspberry Pi 4 with only 4GB of RAM.

This is almost unprecedented in the industry because for most people, and for most chains, this level of equipment typically only qualifies as "cloud miner"—it doesn't truly help decentralized networks. Therefore, this upgrade is of great significance.

In addition, many changes are related to making node startup faster and easier, allowing everyone to access information more quickly and use this data in applications such as websites. We will also be introducing light accounts—a result of some current development work. This means that users will not necessarily have to have their own wallet address in the future; a "light account" will be created for you by the dApp or server as an intermediary layer. This will make onboarding and offboarding extremely easy for users.

So yes, the main goal of this hard fork is to make running the chain faster and easier, while also making interacting with the chain easier, which is precisely the next step in expanding the ecosystem. Hive already has a lot of great features and applications, but if it wants to continue to grow, we must make it faster, lighter, and easier to use—not only for end users, but also for the developers and service providers who support and extend the network at the underlying level.

Can you explain how HBD works, how it maintains its peg, and how it differs from other stablecoins on the market?

HBD stands for Hive Backed Dollar. This means it's a stablecoin not issued by a centralized institution, foundation, or company off-chain. It also doesn't rely on proof-of-reserve because it's not pegged to gold, fiat currency, or anything controlled outside the ecosystem. It's always equivalent to $1 of HIVE at market value. This means everything backing HBD, and the mechanism it's pegged to, is entirely controlled on-chain by the blockchain itself in a trustless manner.

HBD also has an APR parameter, which you can use to earn on-chain rewards by staking.

We also have various stabilization mechanisms, all open-source and managed by our DAO (DHF). Various algorithms continuously run within the ecosystem, responsible for buying, selling, and converting HBD. We possess a mechanism absent in other algorithmic stablecoins called the "Haircut Rule." This ensures the blockchain continuously monitors HBD issuance: it checks "Is there enough HIVE to back it up? What happens if everyone wants to redeem HBD simultaneously?" It examines the HBD-to-HIIVE ratio, the debt ratio. If the debt ratio is too high, it automatically stops issuing new HBD. This means it fundamentally prevents a "death spiral" like that of Luna in the past.

Could you please introduce the different ways to monetize within the Hive ecosystem, and how new users can safely start benefiting from it?

The simplest way is to think about what you do on the internet right now. If you've used Reddit, Facebook, or Twitter, there are corresponding applications on Hive. There are very cool front-ends that support short and long content. Even if you're not a content creator, that's okay—you just need to participate, make friends, and post comments. As long as the interaction is meaningful, content creators may reward you with some Hive points.

You can also become a content creator . This might mean writing longer travel blogs and publishing them on a platform like TravelFeed, or pinning your content to a world map. Or perhaps you want to create reviews and publish videos—I saw 3SpeakTV in this chat space; it's a really cool, video-centric platform.

You can also create on-chain polling content, and if you're active in other ecosystems, you can even bring over other games you play and share and discuss them on Web3 social media.

Next up are games and various service applications . Hive has many cool projects, and one of the fastest ways to get started with Hive is through our games. You might be familiar with Splinterlands—one of the world's largest and longest-running Web3 games, and still growing rapidly.

If you're neither a gamer nor a content creator, then as we just mentioned, HBD is the entry point into DeFi and the financial ecosystem. If you're a trader, speculator, or simply looking to earn returns, HBD is the easiest way.

Finally, if you want to choose a more challenging path, you can delve into the entire ecosystem, participate in running nodes , develop services, and even build your own reputation by submitting proposals and contributing to the ecosystem.

What are Hive's biggest goals for 2026? Are there any specific plans or opportunities that you hope developers, creators, or investors will focus on and explore?

In 2026, the core goal of our entire ecosystem is to attract more users . After all, the competition for attention is fierce these days. We have a wealth of powerful tools and a fantastic ecosystem. I recall we currently have around 2.5 million wallets.

But we obviously want to continue growing. We want to see more people using all these cool things we've built. So, 2026 will be a year that brings even more users into the ecosystem.

We not only want to attract end users, but also DApps and services , because cross-chain technology has become crucial. People are finally realizing that using multiple chains is both reasonable and necessary.

Therefore, we are actively seeking games, services, and other social media projects willing to integrate Hive. Hive is an open-source technology stack that is free to use. We aim to make other applications better because Hive can do many things that other blockchains cannot, and vice versa.

Of course, DeFi will also be one of the key areas going forward.

While Hive doesn't use smart contracts at Level 1, a deliberate design choice, this doesn't mean Hive lacks scalability. On the contrary, our ecosystem is building many very interesting Level 2 technologies, including cross-chain bridges to other ecosystems (such as EVM and SVM), interesting DeFi solutions, messaging protocols, and lightweight account systems, all of which are constantly evolving.

For me, the keyword for 2026 is a word I really like, one that sounds a bit silly but is very practical: "thinking automatically." We want users to be able to use certain services while they are actually being powered by Hive, but without even realizing it. We want to make other chains and other services better, welcome more users, and truly allow Hive to enter a growth phase. Because from a technical perspective, we've already done an excellent job.

The most important thing next is to enable more people to use what we've built, and at the same time, share these cool open-source technologies with other services, other public chains, and other developers, truly driving the entire industry to grow together.

About XT.COM

Founded in 2018, XT.COM is a leading global digital asset trading platform with over 12 million registered users, operating in more than 200 countries and regions, and boasting an ecosystem traffic exceeding 40 million. The XT.COM cryptocurrency trading platform supports over 1300 high-quality cryptocurrencies and over 1300 trading pairs, offering diverse trading services including spot trading , leveraged trading , and contract trading , and is equipped with a secure and reliable RWA (Real World Asset) trading market. We are committed to the philosophy of "Explore Crypto, Trust Trading," dedicated to providing global users with a safe, efficient, and professional one-stop digital asset trading experience.