Intro to HIVE, HBD and Hive Power

The Difference Between HIVE, HBD and Hive Power

HIVE, all caps, is the base liquid token of the Hive blockchain. HIVE is a cryptocurrency similar to Bitcoin.

The price of HIVE is determined based on supply and demand of the token; like any other currency on any other exchange out there.

You can use HIVE increase your Hive Power (HP), or you can trade it for Hive Backed Dollars (HBD).

Hive Power (HP) measures how much influence you have in the network. The more HP you have, the more you can influence the value of posts and comments. However, HP is not as liquid as HIVE.

If you wish to power down your HP, and get back your HIVE, you will receive an equal amount of HIVE each week for 13 weeks.

Hive Backed Dollars (HBD) are a liquid stable coin designed to be pegged to $1 USD. You can trade HIVE for HBD at any time.

HBD may be converted into HIVE at any time. The process, in this case, takes 3.5 days. The price will be the "median" price of HIVE (using the price feeds from the Hive witnesses).

Moving HBD to Hive Savings

If you’re not planning to spend or withdraw your HBD, you can place them into your Hive Savings.

HBD in savings pays, at the moment, a 20% APR (Annual Percentage Rate) defined by the Hive witnesses. HBD in savings is subject to 3 days withdraw waiting period.

What is Hive Power?

Hive Power (HP) measures the influence you have in the network. The more HP you have, the more you can influence the value of posts and comments. HP is not liquid HIVE.

When you power up liquid HIVE, you increase your HP. On the contrary, when you power down your HP, you’re converting back to HIVE tokens.

Now, you can keep your HP to have influence or decide to delegate your HP to other users.

When you do that, your giving your power to someone else to increase their content vote value for example. The HP you delegate is always your own, because HP will always belong to the original owner.

However, remember that you cannot power power down delegated HP. You have to first un-delegate and then power down.

Delegated HP shows up in your wallet in parentheses.

What’s Powering Up and Powering Down?

If you have HIVE liquid tokens, you can Power Up to get more HP (Hive Power) for your account.

As we said earlier, the more HP you have the greater voting influence on posts and comments. Also, more HP means more curation rewards and greater influence on approving Hive witnesses.

Powering down simply means decreasing your HP and turn some of that HP into liquid HIVE tokens. Of course, you will lose your influence in the network in proportion to to how much you power down.

The process is quite long, taking 13 weeks. The process of powering down will transfer 1/13 of your HP to your HIVE balance each week for about three months, which is in fact 13 weeks.

Why so long? For security reasons. So, imagine someone get hold of your Hive account. If they initiate a Power Down process you’ll be able to see that and stop it. In fact, an initiated power down can be stopped at any time.