See you at Hive-Fest 7! September in Amsterdam...

It's nice to see Hive Fest back as a real life event for 2022, and I'll defo be heading to Amsterdam for the event this year, even though we don't know the exact details of venues or events....

Going to the previous two Hive Fests was defo the right decision for me, although I missed the two virtual events as I couldn't get along with the technology, also for me fake VR (just talking through an avatar on screen with no headset) is basically just like talking on the phone - which i hate, so even had the technology worked I probably wouldn't have gone.

But anyways, IRL is something I can do and something I defo will do for that mid-September weekend.

I'll probably fly even though that will probably involve a stop-over for several hours in London - I have BA Vouchers from a couple of years back which need using and all flights seem to go via London - and I'll probably just opt for whatever mid-range hotel will end up being selected for the venue - I fancy a hotel stay, it's been a while!

Hopefully by that point of the year things will be cooling down in Portugal so I can give my young trees a good watering the day before I leave and they'll be fine for what will probably be at least 5 days of my absence, maybe a bit longer: it's often worth extending a stay if you're going to spending 1 day travelling in each direction anyway!

I think I'll skip dropping back to the UK for a visit en route - getting from one of the airports back to Kent both ways adds on several more hours and probably another £100, probably more, and I'm planning on driving back in spring anyway for a longer stay.

What's changed on Hive since Thailand...?

It's interesting to think about some of the major evolutions...

• The absolute take off of Splinterlands stands out as the major development, that's gone bonkers.
• The development of Cub and PolyCub as well - I think they are younger than three years old overall.
• The price of Hive seems to have settled comfortably above $0.50 for a while now. Although maybe I shouldn't jinx this
• BeeSwap I think is worth a mention too - and Hive-Engine tokens more generally!
• And finally the @spknetwork seems to be doing somewhere.
• More recently I'm a fan of oneup and the oneupcartel too, but it's still very early dayz for these projects!
• Finally I think just the general stability is worth a mention - Hive has just worked - no major outages, a steady stream of new users, regular users just plodding along - I mean maybe one might call that stagnation but given the inflation I'd call it progress, just about...?

These events are worth going to...

If you've never been to one of these events and you're in Europe, especially if yer in Europe, I thoroughly recommend going to Hive Fest 7, you'll get to meet some of the characters around the chain, and probably even some of the main witnesses, @blocktrades and @gtg have a habit of attending, and think about it.... there aren't many social media conclaves where you can just idly chat to the people who secure the networks, but you can with Hive!

And personally I've never actually been to Amsterdam either, so it'll be nice to explore that and maybe soak up some of the local 'culture'.