Hive Is Bleeding Value While Steem and Blurt Surge: What Went Wrong?

What’s Going On with the Price of Hive?

I’ve been closely tracking the values of Hive, Steem, and Blurt since the beginning of the year, and their price movements have been particularly interesting. Unlike major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Dogecoin, or Litecoin, these three often don’t follow broader market trends.

If you had purchased one token each of Hive, Steem, and Blurt on January 1st, 2025, your combined portfolio would now be worth roughly $0.33. That alone isn't necessarily alarming—but it’s a steep drop from what the value would be if the prices had held steady or followed common crypto trends. Had their prices remained the same, your small portfolio would be worth about $0.60 to $0.61 today. That’s a 45.2% decrease in value. To put it into perspective, if you had bought 10,000 of each token, your portfolio would currently be worth around $3,300 instead of the original $6,000 to $6,100—a significant loss.

Breaking things down individually: Steem has suffered the largest overall collapse in value, though Hive isn’t far behind with a fall of 42.9%, since the start of 2025. Steem fell by 49.4%. Finally, Blurt was far more resilient by falling 22.5%.

It appears Steem lost its edge to Hive in the past, but recent trends show Steem is rebounding more rapidly. Over the past 7 days, Steem has increased by approximately 12.7% (according to CoinGecko), while Hive has risen by 8.9%. Interestingly, the biggest short-term winner is Blurt, which has surged by 14.4% in the same period.

One of the reasons Hive's value appears to be falling or growing more slowly than Steem and Blurt may stem from a stagnation in community engagement and a lack of clear, aggressive outreach strategies. While Hive was once viewed as the more decentralized and innovative successor to Steem following the Justin Sun acquisition, many users now express frustration over Hive’s increasingly bureaucratic governance model, and perceived gatekeeping by top stakeholders. In contrast, Steem has benefited from a nostalgic resurgence, capitalizing on its older user base and simpler interface, while Blurt has gained traction due to its ultra-lightweight design and open posting policies, attracting voices that feel restricted on Hive. Hive’s fewer incentives for casual users and creators, may be contributing to its diminished price performance and slower user growth.