Leofinance and Hive: Publish, Read, Engage and Earn HIVE and LEO tokens - Step By Step Guide

I discovered the Hive blockchain in March 2019.
Before discovering Hive, I didn't have a blog and was following and commenting on friends and family on Facebook.
Initially I thought Hive was a simple blogging platform that allowed its users to earn some money by writing posts and commenting on other authors' posts, in short I thought Hive was a version of Facebook with rewards.

Then, reading articles and tutorials, I discovered that my initial conviction was completely wrong, I discovered the meaning of blockchain and the meaning of decentralization and today I know what Hive is and above all I know its great value and its great potential.

_{Background image is CC0 image - edit by @libertycrypto27 - Font used is Open Source}

The Hive blackchain is more Unique than Rare!

What makes the Hive blockchain more unique than rare are its peculiarities:

• Hive is a Delegate Proof of Stake (DPOS) blockchain on which a large ecosystem of sites, projects and communities "lives".
• Hive is completely decentralized
• Hive is very fast: 3 second block speeds.
• Hive has no transaction costs
• Hive has many utilities and features
• Hive has a great and beautiful community

Leofinance and Hive

On the Hive blockchain there are many communities formed by users sharing projects and content of common interest.

One of the most important and active communities on the Hive blockchain is the Leofinance community which is also one of my favorite communities.

Leofinance is a community created by the @khaleelkazi account (admin).
Leofinance is a social media web 3.0 platform built and developed on the Hive blockchain focused on content inherent to the crypto world and the world of finance.
In the following image you can see the list of all allowed topics.

_{Screenshot from https://leopedia.io/faq/#what-kind-of-content-can-i-post-on-leofinance}

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The leofinance community is also one of the largest communities on Hive with 9498 subscribers and with 1669 active users.

Leofinance has its own blogging/front end platform (https://leofinance.io/) that allows its members to:

• publish and read content within the community
• interact with other users of the community through comments and upvotes
• interface with the Hive blockchain in a "user friendly" way

The Leofinance community has its own native token with which it rewards users for posting and interaction activities: the LEO token.

The LEO token is a second-level token on the Hive blockchain that can be sold, bought, transferred, delegated and staked from the wallet section of the following Dex:

• LeoDex (https://leodex.io/)
• HiveEngine (https://hive-engine.com/)
• Tribaldex (https://tribaldex.com/)

LeoDex is the Dex created by the Leofinance community and has very low fees for withdrawals and deposits: 0.25%.

Today December 1, 2021 the value of 1 LEO token is $0.302.

How to earn LEO tokens

(step by step guide)

There are several ways to earn LEO tokens:

• post content within the Leofinance community.
• vote posts with leofinance and/or leo tags published on the Hive blockchain (+LEO staked = +LEO earned from curation activity)
• delegate Hive Power (HP) to the @leo.voter account

If you have staked LEO tokens but don't have time to use your LEO Power you can delegate your LEO Power tokens to the following accounts and you will receive passive income in LEO tokens:

• @hodlcommunity (minimum delegation 100 LEO Power)
• @meowcurator
• india-leo

The main way to earn LEO tokens without investing money but investing time is by publishing content.

In the following part I will show you the steps you need to perform to publish a post within the Leofinance community and if you don't have a Hive account I will show you the steps you need to perform to create a Hive account from https://leofinance.io/.

Login

If you are already a Hive user you have to do the Sign In operation from the Home Page of https://leofinance.io/ as indicated by the arrow in the following image.

On the next screen:

• you must enter the name of your Hive accont
• choose whether to use Hive Keychain (https://hive-keychain.com/) or Hivesigner to perform the Login operation.

How to create a Hive account from Leofinance

If you don't have a Hive account you have to create one first.
But don't worry because Leofinance took care of that and made the process of creating a new Hive account very easy.

You have to click on Get Started from the Home Page of https://leofinance.io/ as indicated by the arrow in the following image.

On the next screen you have three options to choose from:

• Create a Hive Account
• Sign up with MetaMask
• Sign up with Twitter

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If you click on the first option (Create a Hive Account) a screen will open up explaining the process of creating your Hive account.
After you have read the information you need to click on Continue as indicated by arrow number 2 in the following image.

On the next screen:

• 1. You need to choose your Hive account name.
  If your chosen name is available you will see a green check mark in the New Account field
• 2. You have to choose the verification method**.
  The verification method is used to avoid the creation of multiple accounts by robots and spammers.
  You can choose as verification method:
  • your phone number
  • your Twitter account
• 3. You have to click on Download Keys as indicated by arrow number 3 in the next image.

When you click on Download Keys you will be able to save your passwords in .txt format on your computer (as indicated by the arrows in the following image).

You will not receive a single password as is usually the case with the registration process on centralized platforms but you will receive 5 different passwords and each one has a different use:

• Posting Key: is used for social activities.
  It is the key you will use most frequently and is used to post, comment and vote. You don't have to use other keys for blogging activities.
• Active Key: has additional permissions to the posting key and is needed to complete monetary transactions such as transferring and exchanging tokens (HIVE, HBD, LEO).
• Owner Key: is the key that allows you to change all other passwords.
• Memo Key: it is the key that allows you to encrypt and decrypt the messages sent to and from your account.
• Master Password: starting from the Master Password it is possible to obtain all the other passwords.
  The Master Password is the most important key of all because you'll need it in case you need to recover your account in the unfortunate event of a password theft.
  

IMPORTANT NOTE

Keep your passwords safe!

On Hive there is no password recovery function and you will never find the words "Forgot your password?".

For this reason make a backup copy of your passwords and guard them with the utmost care:

• I recommend storing the .txt file that contains your passwords on a different device than the one you use them on.
• Write down your passwords also on a paper support and keep the paper support in a safe place.
  In case the digital storage device you chose to store your keys stops working, you can recover your passwords.
  

After you have stored and secured your passwords the button marked Register will be active and you can click on it.

Follow the directions of the numbered arrows in the following image to complete the verification process and create your Hive account:

• enter your phone number
• click on Request SMS
• resolve the Captcha
• enter the verification code you received on your phone
• click on Continue

After a few seconds you will receive a welcome message from Leofinance and you can login for the first time.

To show the process of creating a Hive account from https://leofinance.io/ I created the account @pensieristupendi which has the same name as my wife's small business because I would like her to start sharing her creations and projects here on Hive as well.
So far I haven't been able to convince her because she doesn't have much time but I hope to do it in the future.

Those who have a Metamask wallet or a Twitter account can choose the other two options to create a Hive account.
I'm not going to show all the steps to follow for these two options because I don't want to take away useful resources for onboarding new users on Hive but I can assure you that the process of creating a Hive account is for both the two options very easy to do.

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How to publish the first post on Leofinance

To publish a post from https://leofinance.io/ you need to access the editor by clicking on the pen/pencil symbol located in the top right corner of the Home Page as indicated by the arrow in the next image.

The Leofinance editor screen (https://leofinance.io/publish) will open.

At the top left is the field where you can enter the title of your article

Below the title field are the editor tools.

In the middle part of the editor there are two sections.
In the left section is the area where you can write and edit your article and you can insert and view formatting elements.
In the right section you can see the preview of your article.

To make your article more attractive and more enjoyable to read, I recommend that you learn how to use the Markdown language.
Markdown is a markup language that allows you to format text quickly and easily.
In the Leofinance editor there is a link to a simple Markdown Guide which you can access by clicking on the symbol of the question mark as indicated by the arrow in the following image.

When your article is complete you have to insert the tags and to do this follow the arrows in the following image.
Please only use tags that are relevant to the topic of your article ;)

Then you must click on the Publish button as indicated by the arrow in the following image

A screen will open where you can choose between different options.

In the Rewards section you can decide how the reward for the post should be distributed.

All posts published on the Hive blockchain receive a reward 7 days after publication and the author of the post can choose between several options.

If you are a new user and you still don't quite understand the difference between HBD, HP and HIVE I'll briefly explain what it is.

Hive has no owner but has many Stakeholders = Hive Power owners (HIVE staked)
The more Hive Power a Hive user has, the more decision making power they have within the blockchain and the more weight their vote carries.

The Hive Power token is one of three currency tokens on the Hive blockchain:

• HIVE
• Hive Power (HP)
• Hive Backed Dollars (HBD)

The difference between HIVE, HP and HBD is explained very well in the FAQ of https://hive.blog (following image)

_{Screenshot from the site: https://hive.blog/faq.html#What_is_the_difference_between_Hive_and_Hive_blog}

In the Beneficiaries section you can choose whether to give all or part of the reward for your post to another account.

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In the Auto Reblog section you can choose if your post should only be visible in the Posts section of your blog on Hive (choice=no) or if it should be visible in both the Blog and Posts sections of your blog on Hive (choice=yes).

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In the Auto Post To Twitter section you can choose whether to automatically post your post to Twitter or not.

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Finally, you can choose whether to publish your post at a later time, at a time defined by you: Schedule For Later.
Or you can choose to publish it immediately: Publish Now.

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Once you have published your post you must wait for it to be read, possibly commented on and voted on by other Leofinance users and other Hive users.
If your post is considered useful and liked by other users you can earn two different tokens: HIVE and LEO.

One post, two tokens as a reward!

Within the Leofinance community you will find:

• posts published directly by the Leofinance editor (https://leofinance.io/publish)
  

• posts that have one or both of the following tags: leofinance and leo.
  

Note: If you post from an editor different than Leofinance your LEO token reward will be reduced by 20%.

When you post from the Leofinance editor and use the leofinance tag your post will be visible:

• within the Leofinance community (https://leofinance.io/)
• also on https://hive.blog/, https://peakd.com/, https://ecency.com/...

For example my following post: HIVE: More Unique Than Rare! + My Road to 30000 Hive Power which I published directly from the https://leofinance.io/ editor is visible at:

• https://leofinance.io/@libertycrypto27
  

• https://hive.blog/@libertycrypto27
  

• https://peakd.com/@libertycrypto27
  

The difference is that on https://hive.blog/ or https://peakd.com/ the value of the post reward is displayed in $ (more precisely in $HTU) while on https://leofinance.io/ the value of the post reward is displayed in LEO tokens.

The weight of each vote on Leofinance is proportional to the amount of staked LEO tokens (= LEO Power) the voter has.
The weight of each vote on Hive.Blog or PeakD is proportional to the amount of staked HIVE tokens (= Hive Power) the voter owns.

The rewards I received on my post are the result of 50% of the sum of the votes my post received.
The split of the reward between author and editor is in fact 50%/50%.

What does this mean?

If a user has for example 1000 staked LEO tokens = 1000 LEO Power they will get a vote worth about 0.1 LEO.
Each time he votes for a post at 100% (with 100% LEO Voting Power) he will earn 0.05 LEO tokens (curator reward) and the author of the post he voted for will receive 0.05 LEO tokens, exactly half (50%/50%).
If a user has for example 1000 staked HIVE tokens = 1000 Hive Power they will get a vote, based on the current value of HIVE (2.53$) worth 0.1245$.

_{Screenshot from the site: https://hive-now.com/upvotecalc.html}

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Every time you vote for a post at 100% (with the Hive Voting Power at 100%) you will earn 0.062$ (curator reward) and the author of the post you voted for will receive 00.062$, exactly half (50%/50%).

Advice for new users

I like to write guides and I like to help new users take their first steps on Hive because two and a half years ago I was a new user too and when I asked for help or advice I always received answers and availability from more experienced users.
Those who know me and have interacted with me know that my door on Discord is always open and in two and a half years I have often received questions from new members such as:

Why do my posts get few rewards?.
*Why don't any curators vote on my posts?
Why does that author with a post with few pictures and few words get more rewards than me who takes hours to write a post?

The answer to these questions is almost always one: little interaction!

Whether it's Hive, Leofinance or any other Hive community publishing interesting and useful content is not enough if you don't also read the content posted by other authors and if your interaction activity is minimal.

commenting = interacting = making connections.

Often new users look at a post published on Hive considering only two aspects:

• Rewards
• Content

My invitation to new users who have the ambition to grow on Hive and who have medium-long term growth objectives is to look also and above all at the interaction activity that an author produces, which is as important as the ability to write interesting content.

It's always easy to find an excuse for something we can't do or don't put our best effort into!

To show the importance of interaction I want to give a practical example.

If you have ever looked at the Trending Page of Leofinance (https://leofinance.io/trending) you will certainly have noticed a constant presence.
If you browse through the Trending Page right now you will see that in the first thirty posts there is an author who appears four times and writes under two accounts: @taskmaster4450le and @taskmaster4450.

Taskmaster4450 is a veteran of Hive because he has been a member since 2017 and is an author who always writes interesting and quality posts.
He is among the authors who earn the most amount of HIVE tokens and LEO tokens per month and only considering the activity of publishing content.

What new users don't see when they look at and read a taskmaster post is the interaction activity this user produces on a daily basis which is impressive.

I went to https://hivebuzz.me/ to see the activity of @taskmaster4450le :

• 1500 posts
• 36000 comments

The account was created on June 2019
In 29 months taskmaster4450le has written 36000 comments and published 1500 posts.
The posts/comments ratio is 1/24.
This means that taskmaster4450le interacted with other users on Hive and Leofinance an average of 1241.37 times per month and has an average of 41.37 comments per day.

It's not a constant but most successful authors on Hive have intense interaction activity and the posts/comments ratio is always in favour of comments!

The path to growth and success on Hive is clear and obvious:

• publish useful and quality content
• comment, comment and comment

This is the road that with all my limitations I will try to follow because I strongly believe in the project of Hive and I see so much potential in it.

Conclusion

Hive is the perfect cradle for the development of projects and communities.
Splinterlands and Leofinance are two concrete and clear examples of the statement I just wrote.

The Leofinance community development team has not only created and developed a community on Hive but has also created valuable projects, tools and apps such as:

• https://cubdefi.com/
• https://leodex.io/
• https://leopedia.io/
• https://hivestats.io/
• https://leofi.io/

My experience within the Leofinance community has always been extremely positive, from reading the articles published within the community I've learned a lot of notions that I didn't know and the world of finance and blockchains that until a few years ago was an unknown world for me today is an important part of my life and I owe this in large part to Hive and its beautiful community.

I hope you enjoyed my post and I hope my guides will be useful to new members who may have some initial difficulties in their journey on Hive.

Thank you for the time you dedicated to me

HIVE ON and LEO ON!

Resources:
https://leofinance.io/
https://hive-engine.com/
https://leopedia.io/faq/#what-kind-of-content-can-i-post-on-leofinance
https://leodex.io/
https://peakd.com/
https://hive.blog/
https://hivebuzz.me/
https://hive-now.com/upvotecalc.html

The images that contain tables, calculations and formulas are of my property
The font I used in my images and in the images I edited is Open Source

A selection of my previous posts on Hive and Leofinance

	Promote Hive and earn POSH tokens: Step by step guide
	HIVE: More Unique Than Rare! + My Road to 30000 Hive Power
	HBD in Savings VS Hive Power + My Power UP
	LEOFINANCE: Short Introduction For Beginners + My Leofinance Goals
	Splintertalk and My Road to 1 Million SPT
	HIVE: a Great Potential and a Great and Beautiful Community!
	The hard hit suffered by Mad-Runner: $50k stolen by @hivewallet94 - Keep your passwords safe!

_{Gif created by @doze}

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I use other blogging platforms to promote Hive and Leofinance
Follow me also on:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/libertycrypto27
Publish0x: https://www.publish0x.com/libertycrypto27?a=MYervALeOB
ReadCash: https://read.cash/r/libertycrypto27

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