It has been some since I purchased Steem for my account. Now that we are on Hive, I have not purchased any since the change. There is a lot of good news that is making me consider buying more Hive.
First, Hive does not have the ninja mined stake. There are a few whales. I don't know any of them and haven't seen them around on the platform, which leads me to think that maybe they aren't very active. Maybe I'm just hanging out with the wrong people. In any case, I don't worry about whales throwing around their weight on Hive. I just haven't seen it. Still, without the ninja mined stake, we don't have constant selling going on that drives down the price of Hive.
Second, there is an increasing trend towards Hive Power being distributed more and more among members. The overall balance of power is evening out. That gives me some peace of mind about the stability of Hive.
Something else that convinces me to invest in Hive is that I stand to have a boost to my account when the last of my Steem is powered down and transferred over. At about the same time, some of my leased Steem and leased Hive will become available to me again. That will start a new round of Steem power downs. It also means that my votes and posts will be worth more, especially with the boost. I'm financially more capable of investing in Hive now than when I started with Steem.
Thus, it makes sense to bet on Hive a little more as I'm on a roll. How would my account be different if I had 3000 HP? 5000 HP? 10000 HP? I remember what it was like when my votes could not even get 0.001 in rewards. At the moment, because of my delegations, my votes are at 0.01 at 100% power. It would be exciting when my votes are worth 0.10 or more.
Would I be more inclined to write posts? Would I curate more?
Some of my thinking goes to retirement in about 12 years. I can retire from my job and draw pension. If I build up my Hive today, perhaps I can supplement my pension income until I am old enough to draw social security. With so much time on my hands, I could definitely afford to put in a few hours of curation and writing every day. Certainly the quality of my writing would improve. It would be less rushed and even edited.
The biggest gamble is if Hive will be here in 12 to 20 years. This is still relatively new technology. We don't know what happens to old blockchains other than Bitcoin. They do tend to fork. Hopefully we have seen that last epic fork of this chain. As long as we can sell out of the old and buy into the new, I guess it can't be so bad.
I guess what has changed in my mind is that I now see my Hive account as an asset. I see it as something that will produce income. At the moment, the income is not exciting. However, if I take it seriously and invest in Hive with that same seriousness, I could improve my own life and the lives of others through my curation. That's amusing. I'd be buying myself a job. At least it would be a job I enjoy.