Pretend the HBD haircut already happened. What would you do? A Cry to witnesses, holders and Hive full-time employees

<img src="https://i.ecency.com/DQmWFwYFVhHJeVZxeNGjkMPHHt2QpLH97pbqNWJ9iKWJMaE/screenshot_2026_06_09_at_13.38.19.png" alt="" /> This post comes as HIVE reaches yet another all-time low. I did not want to write again because I cannot and will not make a new post every time we reach a new all-time low. Yesterday we reached one and I thought about writing, then I stopped because at this pace it would become spam. Today we touched it again, so here we are. Yes, the whole market is ugly, alts are bleeding, but not every coin is printing all-time lows weekly while its stablecoin is so far off its peg. Some coins bounce when the market breathes, not us, we did not participate in yesterday's tiny bounce, quite the contrary we printed all time lows two days in a row. Hive has its own problems that cannot be hidden under “the market is bad”. As I write this, [CoinGecko](https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/hive) shows HIVE is sitting around a 25 million dollar market cap. [Steem](https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/steem), the chain we forked away from after a malicious takeover, is in almost the same market-cap neighborhood, both are around 25 million market cap, are they doing something right or are we doing something wrong? [HBDStats](https://www.hbdstats.com) shows the HBD debt ratio close enough to the 30% line that pretending the haircut is some distant theoretical mechanism is irresponsible. Hive’s own [HBD page](https://hive.io/en/hbd/) explains that when the haircut activates, HBD stops printing normally and the $1 peg breaks by design. Actually it stops printing for mortals like us, for the DHF the printing keeps going very well. We are so close to the haircut that we are most likely to reach it than not. We will reach the haircut. So here is the question I want witnesses, whales, DHF-funded teams, frontends and everyone who cares about Hive to answer: pretend the HBD haircut already happened. What would you do? I beg for an answer because I know you are reading this. The line is close enough to matter now -------------------------------------- If the haircut happened tomorrow nobody would treat it like a normal market event. Witnesses would be asked why HBD savings was still paying a high yield. DHF proposals would be judged with fear. Frontends asking for hundreds of HBD per day would look different. Events, reimbursements, infrastructure, public goods, all of it would go through a much harsher filter. Normal people would feel the impact, others would stay financed and that would HURT MORALE. So why wait for the line to be crossed before acting like the line matters? If the answer after the haircut would be to cut, pause, reduce, disclose, reroute, defend only the essentials and force every proposal through emergency scrutiny, then the responsible thing is to start doing that before the haircut. Else the haircut is not governance information, it is just **punishment for holders after governance failed to react in time**. I am not saying HBD is UST nor that Hive is Terra. The mechanisms are different and the haircut exists to prevent infinite debt expansion. The human lesson from Terra/Luna still applies though. Confidence can break faster than people expect when a stable asset, a high yield, reflexive backing and denial all sit in the same room. If our answer to being close to the haircut is “keep funding, keep printing, keep calm”, then **what exactly did we learn from every failed crypto economy before us?** The official HBD page still displays 15% APR, while recent tracker-based discussion says some witnesses have already cut the rate down from the 15% era. Near the haircut HBD yield should be cut hard. Half is a signal and zero is a cleaner signal. Feel free to disagree. This is economic bankruptcy, not chain death -------------------------------------------- Hive is not legally bankrupt. The chain works, blocks are produced, apps load, posts are published, witnesses sign and proposals pay all while people comm […]