A Dive Into Hive’s Resource Credit Ocean

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A Follow, an Unfollow, and a Lesson About Hive Power

Today I came across a really interesting use case for Hive Power, and I want to share it with you.

Many of you already know about my algorithms and projects, and I've talked about Resource Credits a lot in my older posts: how heavy games like Splinterlands, and so many other projects, need huge amounts of RC to run. Even my own army of trading bots is always short on Resource Credits. No matter how much RC I have, it always feels like too little.

But today, the reminder of RC's value didn't come from a game or a bot. It came from a simple follow and unfollow.

Before I get to that, let me explain the basics for newer Hivers, because without them this story won't make sense.

Hive 101: HIVE, Hive Power and Resource Credits

HIVE is the liquid token. You can send it, trade it and sell it.

Hive Power (HP) is HIVE that you've "powered up", which means staked. Once it's Hive Power, it gives you voting influence on posts, curation rewards, and governance power to vote for witnesses. If you want it back as liquid HIVE, you have to "power down", which pays it back in 13 weekly installments. That's what keeps HP holders committed for the long term.

Resource Credits (RC) are the part most people ignore, but this is where the magic happens.

On most blockchains, every transaction costs a fee. On Hive, there are no transaction fees. Instead, every action you take uses up some of your Resource Credits:

• posting
• commenting
• voting
• transferring
• following
• playing a game move

Your RC comes from your Hive Power. The more HP you hold, the more RC you have. And RC regenerates on its own, refilling completely over about 5 days. You never "spend" your HP. You just use the capacity it gives you, and that capacity refills.

In simple words: Hive Power is like owning a piece of the network's bandwidth. The more you own, the more you can do on Hive, for free, forever.

Why RC matters for projects
Under the hood, most apps on Hive talk to the blockchain through an operation called custom_json, a small piece of data an app writes onto the chain. Splinterlands battles, Hive-Engine token trades, game moves and even follows are all custom_json operations. Every one of them costs RC. An app making thousands of these a day needs a lot of Hive Power behind it, either its own or delegated from others. Since 2022, RC can also be delegated on its own, separate from HP, which made renting and sharing RC much easier for projects.

Who Actually Needs All This RC?

The list is longer than most people think.

Games like Splinterlands: every battle, card transfer and market action is a transaction. Multiply that by thousands of players, and the RC demand is massive.

Trading bots: my own bots place and cancel orders on Hive's internal market and on Hive-Engine all day. Every order is a transaction, and every transaction eats RC. That's why my bot army always looks hungry.

Account creation: projects can use RC to claim "account creation tokens" and onboard new users without paying a HIVE fee. Many Hive apps onboard people this way, and it's all powered by HP.

Data storage: some of my Hive friends store encrypted AI training data on Hive. Think about it. Hive gives them a cheap, reliable, decentralized database where the data is permanent, replicated across the network, and costs no fees, only RC. A single custom_json can carry up to around 8 KB of data. For small structured data that needs to live forever, that's a great deal.

We often joke in Discord, "Why would anyone even buy Hive Power?" But the reality is that RC has so many use cases that people will keep buying HIVE and powering it up.

I keep telling my Hive friends that blogging and the social side are only a small part of Hive. That's just the tip of the iceberg everyone can see. The Hive ocean is much, much deeper.

The Follow That Became an Ad

So today, an account followed me, and then a little while later, it unfollowed me.

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_{The follow/unfollow activity and the transactions around it}

Normally I ignore this kind of thing, especially when it's tied to casino websites. But my Hive friend cwow2 also uses this site, so out of curiosity I tried it too. I removed the referral link first, though.

For the sake of the experiment and the experience, I put in 1 HIVE. And then what happened? My 1 HIVE was gone. Lol.

Most of my friends say they're in profit there, but personally, I stay a thousand steps away from casinos anyway. This was just a 1 HIVE experiment for curiosity and for this post, not a recommendation.

Why This Little Trick Works

What I really want to share isn't the casino. It's the trick.

You've probably already seen phishing comments on Hive: those comments with fake links trying to steal your keys. The follow/unfollow trick isn't very different in spirit, but it's smarter in one way. A follow shows up in your notifications, and that alone grabs your attention. You see a new follower, you get curious, you click on their profile, and now you've seen their ad. When they unfollow later, they've already gotten what they wanted: your eyeballs.

And it works. In the transactions I randomly checked, I could see people interacting back. Even a well-known AI witness account was replying, and others were joining through referrals, all visible in the transaction history.

Now here's the part that excites me as a Hive Power holder. A follow is a custom_json operation, and every single one costs RC. To follow and unfollow thousands of accounts as a marketing campaign, that account needs serious Resource Credits, which means it needs Hive Power, either owned or delegated.

Even spam and marketing on Hive create real demand for Hive Power.

Stay safe
Never enter your private keys on any website you reach from a random follow, comment or DM. Use a trusted signing tool like Hive Keychain, and remember that your owner and active keys should almost never be needed. If a "free reward" site asks for them, it's a scam.

A New Angle on Hive Power, Every Time

What I'm trying to say is that every time I think I understand the use cases of Hive Power and RC, something new pops up and shows me RC's value from a fresh angle. Games, bots, account creation, encrypted data storage, and now even follow-based marketing.

Price goes up and down, but usage is what gives a network its real value. And on Hive, almost every kind of usage comes back to one thing: Hive Power.

Hive gives you a network effect. Whether you use that network effect to write blogs, run bots, build apps, or find gigs and clients is up to you.

Over to You

Does this post make you more bullish on Hive Power? Did it help you see HP's value from a new angle?

Are you still confident in Hive during these price declines? And what is it that keeps you on Hive?

I found this follow/unfollow trick so unique that I had to write about it, so that you also stay motivated about Hive Power, even during the down days. Tell me in the comments. I'd love to hear your angle too.