Hive Hard Fork is Successful, STEEM Crashes Back to Earth
Following weeks of conflict between the Steem (STEEM) community and Justin Sun, the community-led Hive hard fork was successful.
On March 20, Hive hard forked the Steem network, airdropping HIVE tokens to STEEM holders 1:1, excluding the founder’s reward.
The founder’s reward comprises 20% of the total STEEM supply. The tokens were acquired by Tron’s founder, Justin Sun, when he purchased Steemit Inc — the largest front-end interface for the decentralized blogging platform — on Feb. 14.
A quick search through Twitter shows that many content creators are already posting on Hive.
Steempeak rebrands to Peakd
Many of the Hive posts are accessed through Peakd — the Hive-based portal for Steempeak. Steempeak comprises the second-largest front-end interface for Steem behind Sun’s Steemit.
Earlier today, Steempeak co-founder, Scott Jarvie, revealed the upcoming launch of a Hive-based platform to Cointelegraph. Jarvie stated:
“We plan to keep steempeak.com alive for some time depending on if there are 3rd party systems that we need and users. However, we expect Hive to be the main chain going forward.”
Overwhelming community support for Hive
Jarvie also noted near-unanimous support for Hive among hundreds of Steem community members who responded to a March 18 Steempeak poll.
“I have read through every post and am hard-pressed to find anyone who doesn't want to move to Hive," he stated, adding: “We asked them to be honest and we would make sure they wouldn't get attacked on comments if they were firm in their resolution to stay on Steem.”
Hive Fork Sparks Price Rollercoaster for STEEM
STEEM has experienced extreme volatility over recent weeks, with Sun’s takeover of the Steem network appearing to drive prices down 60% between Feb. 14 and March 18.
STEEM four-hour price chart. Source: TradingView
Hive announced that it would fork the network on March 18, triggering a price spike of over 200% in 18 hours. However, prices have since crashed more than 50% since yesterday’s local high — indicating that most of STEEM’s buying pressure came from investors seeking to acquire HIVE.