The Steem blockchain is being hard forked creating a new blockchain and content network called Hive which will be like Steem but have new policies in place for decentralization. Hive will be fast, scalable, powerful, and the blockchain for Web 3.0.

The platform will be available today at https://hive.io/.

The hard fork is happening March 20th, so this is all coming up very quickly. One of the big questions many have is which witnesses and dapps will move to Hive and which will stay on Steem. This is the official announcement: https://steemit.com/hive-167922/@taskmaster4450/hive-to-go-live-friday-sometimes-a-step-back-is-a-step-forward

It may be worth noting that Steem is also in a pump right now given I assume it will likely crash after Friday.

Also, this is my original explanation for what happened with the witnesses and Justin Sun: https://youtu.be/mjxhqMpyVK0

For the most part, the platform will operate very similarly, and the major differences will be realized based on which platforms move where. Ionomy and Blocktrades have announced trading pairs for HIVE.

Crypto-wise you should get an automatic airdrop that will create a carbon copy of your Steem account at a 1:1 ratio for all three currencies. Everyone except the 70 million ninja-mined Steem accounts and all related accounts to Steemit will receive the airdrop. The idea being that the ninja-mined stake was a huge controversy and part of the motivation to hard fork so they will effectively eliminate it from Hive. This could, in fact, make Hive more valuable but that also begs the question as to what the value of Hive tokens will even be. They do also state that anyone who publicly supported and contributed to the centralization of Steem will also be excluded but I have no idea what that actually means and I hope it’s not them being petty and somewhat centralized in that decision because that would be hypocritical and ironic.

My hope is that Hive does really well and because I believe Steem will plummet after Friday, I really hope Hive has a similar value to the current valuation of Steem or higher. Another big question around value is whether or not exchanges will list Hive and or delist Steem.

Needless to say, I am sure we are all anxious and excited to see how this plays out and I can’t wait to start posting to the Hive blockchain.

Post from Blocktrades: https://steemit.com/steem/@blocktrades/why-i-won-t-be-compromising-with-justin-sun

Steemit Inc’s delegations have also been removed from several big Steem projects signaling that there will likely be a sell-off and no more support: https://steemit.com/steemitboard/@steemitboard/steemitboard-shutdown-by-justin-sun

What other applications and dapps have you seen voice support for Hive? What do you think this means for Steem? Are you bullish on Hive? Do you think exchanges will list work with Hive or against it? Let me know what you think about this in the comments below and don’t forget to subscribe!