Creating Content on the Blockchain - Getting Started
I’ve been onboarding some new friends onto Hive recently. The experience both for them and me, reminds me of how overwhelming Hive can seem at first.
I’m going to try to create a getting started guide here. I will likely need to do more than one post to avoid the post being overwhelm.
Getting Signed Up.
I usually recommend going to PeakD.com to signup. I have been told on mobile especially that Ecency works well.
You will choose a username that can be up to 16 characters in length. Keep in mind, you want to have people find you fairly easily. Choose something that is easy to tell people.
The Keys For Your Account
Once your account is setup, you’re going to be issued with a set of keys. Yes, I set a set. Make sure you save them and keep them private. The keys are: Owner, Active, Post, Memo
Your account is in two parts: Content and Wallet. They use different keys.
The Owner key you will rarely if ever use, BUT, DO NOT lose it. It will make the difference between you being able to access your account and not.
The Active key is used when signing into your wallet.
The Posting key is used for signing into the content part of the site.
The Memo key is used for encrypting and decrypting memos sent through your wallet.
I can almost hear you saying, OMG, how am I going to keep all that straight? You will, deep breath.
Hive is One Account Multiple Places to Login
There are many Dapps built on the Hive blockchain for you to use. Most of them will allow you to earn as well. There is a growing ecosystem on Hive. Lots of places for you to explore.
The account you just opened will give you access to the Dapps and connect any earnings back to your wallet.
Hive KeyChain
Before you take one more step, I strongly suggest you either download Hive Keychain for your browser or for mobile. It allows you to store your keys in the app. When you are on a Hive d’appp that needs a key authority, Keychain will supply it, after you confirm permission.
DON’T try to use KeyChain as your primary place to store your keys.
At some point you’ll also encounter a dapp that uses Hivesigner. It has the same purpose as Keychain with a different method. I’d suggest, wait until you encounter it before you worry about getting setup.
HIVE, Hive Power (HP) and Hive Backed Dollar (HBD)
Okay, you have your account setup, your keys safely stored and KeyChain setup. Let’s review what you’re earning.
The native coin of the Hive blockchain is HIVE.
As a content creator, you earn HIVE when your content is upvoted. How much you earn depends on how much Hive Power (HP) the voter has. You also earn when someone upvotes a comment you made.
Upvoting content is known as curation.
HIVE is a liquid asset, meaning you can buy and sell it as HIVE.
What grows your voting influence on the platform is having Hive Power (HP). When HIVE is staked (locked in) it is called HP.
The more HP you have, the more your upvotes are worth. Your HP also earns interest while it is staked. Currently 2.84%
When you want to withdraw HP into HIVE it takes 13 weeks. You’ll get 1/13 of your available HP every 7 days.
You can also earn Hive Backed Dollars (HBD) on your posts.
HBD is a stablecoin -- 1 HBD = 1 dollar worth of HIVE. That doesn't mean a lot right now and that's okay. Consider it future reference.
When you are going through your settings you’ll find a choice to get 100% HP or split your rewards between HP and HBD. Once you do start earning HBD, you can move it into Savings and earn 20% (currently).
I’d suggest until you have at least 500HP stick to 100% HP for your rewards.
When you place either HIVE or HBD into Savings, there is a three day wait when you want to withdraw it. If someone should get into your account and you have your HIVE and HBD in Savings, then the thief has nothing they can steal.
Resource Credits
Okay, let’s see:
- You have a Hive account
- You’ve carefully stored your keys in a safe place, preferably two safe places
- You’ve installed Hive Keychain and entered your keys into it.
- You’ve got a pretty good idea what HIVE, HP and HBD are
- Now, to start doing things on Hive you need Resource Credits (RC)
Yes, I hear it — Wait, what’s Resource Credits?
Resource Credits (RCs) is the cost of a transaction on the blockchain. Transactions are things like posting, writing comments, voting etc.
They are not really an out-of-pocket cost, they do regenerate, some every hour.
How do you get them? Great question.
You get RCs through your HP. The more HP you have, the more RCs and the more transactions you can do on Hive.
Getting HP to Get Started
Delegation
Most Hivians when they onboard someone to Hive they will delegate them some HP which gives them HP to get started.
What’s delegation? It’s like a loan of HP to get you started. Once I delegate some HP to a new Hivian the system sees them as having that amount of HP and RCs making it possible for them to do things.
When I decide that the HP could be put to better use, I remove the delegation and it returns to me about 5 days later.
Buying HIVE
If someone doesn't delegate to you, your other option is to signup to an exchange that carries HIVE. Here's instructions from Coinbase on how to buy HIVE.
Once you purchase it, you can send it to your wallet on Hive. Follow the exchanges instructions.
Time to Take A Learning Break
I know, that is a lot of information to take in. There is more to come but I’m going to pause here and give you time to get your head around the basics.
Getting familiar with these terms and basic idea of how things work, will help as you move forward.
Tomorrow, I’ll talk about getting started building a following and creating content.
Did I leave you more or less confused?
NOTE:
- Header image created by author
- This is day 23 of 30 in the #HiveBloPoMo Challenge for April.
Shadowspub is a writer from Ontario, Canada. She writes on a variety of subjects as she pursues her passion for learning. She also writes on other platforms and enjoys creating books you use like journals, notebooks, coloring books etc.
Would you like to receive writing prompts every day? You can subscribe to Prompt A Day to get started.
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Oh I am 🤯 right now. I’m going to rest my brain and re-read. I am so appreciative of your support in spaces tonight. I take this journey with wide eyes of wonder. 🏵
@shadowspub I have recently joined this platform when I started the procedure to sign up I have faced many challenges as I have no any knowledge about it at that time but when I signed up even still have some confusions but after reading your post I became able to guide other peoples and your post helped me about clearing my confusions you have given me great idea for saving my keys as you have suggested Hive keychain as it saves our keys and provides whenever we have need and also I have learned a lot for increasing my HP as above mentioned we can buy it thanks for guiding in a well manner in the form of Post
I'm glad you found the guide helpful in finding your way around Hive. Just to be sure, Hive Keychain is great for storing your keys and accessing the different d'Apps on Hive but be very careful to have your keys stored some where else that is safe. Maybe even more than one place.
I remember the time when you and Bluefin gave us this guideline, believe me, things were not problematic to understand. At the start, everyone considers that it's sophisticated but after reading and learning this everything fits better into the mind of the reader. And most importantly writers who are not in the field of crypto can understand it completely.
I have a question, if we delegate HP to someone(to help him/her get started) what advantage do we get?? I mean we can remove it but do we get any sort of else benefit ?? Is it useful for our account growth??
you still continue to receive the interest that HP earns but an additional benefit for delegating... that would be the good feeling of helping a fellow Hivian. :)
This is awesome, @shadowspub. I feel like people write great intros from time to time and then when you want to find them again, you have to try to remember where you saw it and who posted it, and of course how far back in their blog you have to go to find it.
Do you know if there is a repository for such onboarding posts?
Not that I'm aware of ... when I get the series completed .. I will do a 'directory' post that puts the links together and then will hold onto that link as a pointer to the content.
I am leafing 😜 less confused! I've been puzzling and puzzling until my puzzler is sore, but hopefully I'll puzzle like that no more!!
Shadows, your post has given me an idea to create a long string of teeny tiny Speak3 & YouTube videos using your outline as a guide. When I make videos it takes me a few, well, takes, as in ten to twenty per pop. So far, I created a few dozen 3-5 minute videos and posted them to Twitter (sadly no, not dBuzz yet).
Because it takes me so many takes per video, if I am sharing a bite size tidbit about posting on Hive, by the time I'm done, I will have that piece of the How-to down pat.
I could celebrate making leaf angels! 🍂
@epodcaster @iwannabeme @andysporring @bitterirony
that perfectionism part of yours is terribly heavy to carry. Have you considered telling it to get into the backseat while you drive? or, maybe the trunk, backseat drivers are such a pain.
You know me so well and we haven't had our first beer yet! 🍻 👯♀️
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Hi, You could share some of the links here. Or in DM on discord. I ll like to see what you mean.
I got referred to read.cash through a dreemport post. Not sure if it's appropriate to your learning series but it seems like it's not a front end to Hive but a totally different block chain publishing platform. Intrigued by that. Are there more of those types of places out in the world?
oh yes...
Read.cash is one of many.
there is noise.cash also - from what I remember - that is more like a twitter version of read.cash
there is also our legacy chain - steemit.com
(though there was a very valid reason why many left from there hahaha - you can still earn there - but I'd ask around for a lot more opinions on whether it was worthwhile)
there is also blurt.blog
One person that writes one post, and then takes the time to crosspost that post on MULTIPLE platforms to earn well - is @olawalium ! He MIGHT even be the person tat you read on read.cash! hehehe
He is @olasquare on read.cash.
If you wanted to find some more platforms to crosspost and earn across multiple locations - HE would be a GREAT person to ask!
and nice to meet you @iwannabeme ! hehehe so glad to see that DreemPort is doing EXACTLY what it was meant to do! (or at least ONE of those things) Introducing people to OTHER options so that we have the GREATEST impact with our content - and also have the greatest ability to interact across the platforms!! :)
https://twitter.com/ShadowsPub/status/1517942704923152384
The rewards earned on this comment will go directly to the person sharing the post on Twitter as long as they are registered with @poshtoken. Sign up at https://hiveposh.com.
I believe this would be really helpful. Thanks for showing me, I ll also show my noobs.
Although I have some complains to make. It's all for improvement and not castigating.
I have had issues onboarding through peakd and ecency.
For peakd it's either it just gets stuck at the point of confirming preferred username. While ecence keeps say up address is low. Nog sure what that may mean. A friend of mine even concluded it was racism hehe.. I had to calm him down and find an explanation..
I have mostly used leofinance to get people in, with Facebook and Twitter ad-ons, those where really exclusive idea and I appreciate the team everyday for making onboarding that easier. Especially using twitter.
I should make a post on it.
I also a bit focused on onboarding these days.
The other difference is that peakd and ecency had they worked for me, would have been cool because of the referral and keeping records, no benefits. But with leo, nothin like that but I feel more satisfied with the ease it brings.
I m also quite convinced that after onboarding, mentoring is key, I ll definitely share your series with them.
If there is an onboarding project kindly let me know if it.
Great work @shadowspub
That's interesting to know on the onboarding issues. Is it possibly something to do with the networks in your area? Mobile vs desktop useage maybe?
Leofinance is doing a lot of work on infrastructure from what I've read, sounds like it makes a difference for some.
It doesnt matter which, both Mobile and pc.
Thanks to the Leo guys.
This is so so helpful
I am new here and although I just started creating contents immediately, I always wondered where I can go and read up where the whole wallet section is explained as I am a complete wanderer in that space.
You really cleared the air for me
Thanks
Popped in via @dreemport
glad you found it helpful and thanks for stopping by. There are more sections coming yet. It's up to part 3 now.
Okay
I will be waiting for them
This is just perfect.. I've been finding it difficult explaining most of these things to the newbies.. I guess I've found solutions to my problem. I just have to forward this to them so they can go through it.
Thanks so much for your effort.
@dreemport directed me here
glad you found it helpful @davidbright .. there is more to come yet. I've been trying to keep each part to about a 5 minute read.
Oh. That's so thoughtful of you. Waiting for the rest of it.. Keep it up ma'am
Are you serious ma'am? If our Hive is stake, once those hackers that send pishing links won't be able to take our HP?
Well the best solution is a hacker doesn't get in.
But should one do so, your HP is locked and takes a week to get 1/13 of it. Any funds you have in Savings HIVE or HBD, is safe for 3 days.
Anything outside of savings or staked can be taken right away.
Keeping an eye on your wallet and protecting it is pretty crucial.
Whoever tries to steal staked HIVE will be in for a rude awakening when it's discovered that it takes 13 weeks to unstake the full amount. Each week only 1/13 of the staked HIVE gets unstaked.
It could be worse: the thief could try unstaking a similar HIVE-value of staked BLOG, and that takes 60 weeks. This I discovered the hard way.
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
You mean the HE token, BLOG, takes 60 weeks to unstake? 😲🙆
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Nicely done and very informative!
This is fab Shadows. i am going to read the whole series now...look to reinforce my knowledge and see if I am missing any foundation or building blocks so far in my journey... I almost certainly am! haha
@shadowspub I have recently joined this platform when I started the procedure to sign up I have faced many challenges as I have no any knowledge about it at that time but when I signed up even still have some confusions but after reading your post I became able to guide other peoples and your post helped me about clearing my confusions you have given me great idea for saving my keys as you have suggested Hive keychain as it saves our keys and provides whenever we have need and also I have learned a lot for increasing my HP as above mentioned we can buy it thnks for guiding in a well manner in the form of Post