#hive

Hive Dev Fund Proposal - Pilot (P1)

Hi everyone! Long time no see.

Today, I am here to tell you all about a plan, initially proposed by @blocktrades and has been in discussion for a bit now.

Hive Dev Fund: AI Agent Developer Tooling Pilot Program

TL;DR

A pilot program to fund LLM code assist/agent subscriptions for Hive developers, starting with Claude Code. The goal is to boost programming productivity across the ecosystem. $10,000 total over 2 months (~170 HBD/day) until it ends.

What is this?

This proposal creates a Hive Dev Fund a pilot program that provides LLM code assist/agent subscriptions to qualifying developers. The idea is simple: AI coding tools have reached a point where they can realistically multiply a developer's output by 10x (see 10x engineers, used to be a meme, but now quite the reality). At $100–200/month per developer, this is one of the most cost-effective investments the DHF can make in Hive's development/programming capacity.

As mentioned before, the idea was initially proposed by @blocktrades and evolved through discussions.

Why does this matter?

Quite a few devs on Hive (especially those in countries where $100–200/month is a significant expense) are either not using AI coding tools at all or are cobbling together free alternatives that don't deliver the same results. The difference between using the best available tools and using free alternatives is massive.

How does it work?

Application Process

Developers apply through a straightforward process:

Apply - Submit an application demonstrating your involvement with programming as a whole (bonus points for Hive related dev) (existing projects, Git contributions, known track record, etc.) or a clear plan for what you intend to build.
Review - Applications are vetted based on developer history, quality of prior work, and the viability of proposed Hive contributions.
Approval & Disbursement - Approved developers will receive funding for their subscription.

During the pilot program, please write and share a post on Hive why you'd like to participate in the program and receive funding and what are some of your plans. It doesn't have to be a lengthy "explain yourself" post, but something basic, with your credentials. GitHub link, past projects etc.

Should the program continue, I will be creating a dedicated website for it with a much more appealing/data rich system.

If you are a brand new user without a Hive account and would like to apply to this program, please send me a message on Hive's Discord server and I'll help you create one.

Tiers

For the time being during the pilot program, we are focusing on Claude Code subscriptions, which have two tiers. $100 (5x Max) and $200 (20x Max) applicants will be granted either of these packages depending on their application.

Accountability

After each month, recipients are expected to show tangible progress whether that's reaching a close-to-MVP point on a new Hive project, meaningful updates and maintenance on an existing one, or concrete contributions to Hive core infrastructure. This isn't maintenance for the sake of calling it maintenance, we're looking for real, verifiable output that reaches the hands of the users.

Funding will continue as long as the developer is producing good work and the Hive Dev Fund is able to cover it. The goal isn't to kickstart someone and cut them off, it's to remove the financial barrier that prevents developers from using the best tools available.

Scope

We are currently looking for development in the following:

dApps and frontends — New applications, features, and improvements
Core infrastructure — Contributions to hived, HAF, Hivemind, and related systems
Open source tooling — Libraries, plugins, and developer tools that benefit the ecosystem

Why Claude Code specifically?

There was some discussion about whether to be tool-agnostic (like OpenAI Codex). The decision to use Claude Code comes down to a few practical reasons:

Core team alignment — The core Hive development team already uses Claude Code, and repositories are being optimized for it.
Ease of Use — Claude Code is currently the "easiest" (debatable, ofc) tool to start using AI coding agents.

Of course, these are subject to review at later.

Budget

Item	Amount
Total Proposal	$10,000
Duration	2 months (~60 days)
Daily DHF Rate	~170 HBD/day

This is a pilot program, therefore, the budget is intentionally conservative to keep the barrier to approval low and demonstrate results before requesting additional funding. Therefore, any funds that are not used (and should the program be cancelled after approximately 3 months funding plus some extra time) will be returned to the DHF.

Why a pilot?

This is deliberately small in scope. A pilot program allows us to:

Prove the concept
Establish evaluation criteria
Generate tangible results

If the pilot is successful, a follow-up proposal with expanded scope and budget can be submitted based on real data about developer output and program effectiveness. Honestly, in the future, I would love if Hive Dev Fund became something like a "small scale DHF" that can help fund developers' contribution to the Hive ecosystem, on a smaller scale, yet faster and hopefully more effective than the DHF itself as there are no vote thresholds.

Who is going to be the manager of this?

Many of you may know me from my work operating api.deathwing.me, one of the most used public API nodes on Hive, serving over 180k unique users monthly at one point. I've also developed Drone (a custom API middleware, now replaced Jussi) as well as FRIDAY (a notification bot for Discord, operating for 5 years at this point), and have been a consensus witness (top 20) and active contributor to the Hive ecosystem for years.

I'll be handling the application review process and fund disbursement. Administration costs are relatively minimal. (AI agents, LLM spendings, we're aiming to have minimal "human" administration cost as much as possible, especially during the pilot program)

Your Feedback Matters

This is a community-funded initiative and your input matters. If you have questions, suggestions, or concerns, please share them. The goal is to make Hive development faster, more accessible, and more productive for everyone involved.

Vote for the Proposal

PeakD: Click here
Ecency: Click here
Hive.blog: Click here

Comments · 46

@mortezayousefi(67)· 62d
this post was posted 5 months ago what was the result of this effort
@vempromundo(71)· 108d
Me and @shiftrox are currently working on Horizon Forge (@horizon-forge), an auto-battler strategy game built on Hive, and this pilot program is exactly what we need to scale our development.

We are currently in the middle of a massive refactor to transform the game into a deep RPG ecosystem. In the last few days alone, using AI assistance, we've implemented:
- A new 72-point RPG attribute system (STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS, CHA) for all heroes.
- A complete Gear and Inventory UI with sliding tabs and dynamic stats.
- A procedural item engine (Chaos Motor) that uses AI to generate unique names and lore for drops.
The next phase involves heavy database migration and complex combat logic (d20 system and proportional penalties). Having a Claude Code subscription would be a massive force multiplier for us to reach our MVP faster and deliver a high-quality product to the Hive community.

I'll be preparing a full application post shortly with our GitHub links and progress shots. Thanks for pushing this forward.
@wagginston(61)· 135d
Does this program start soon? Some people I know are very excited for it :D
@sn0n(65)· 174d
This would be life changing!!! Submitting application : https://peakd.com/hive/@sn0n/dhf-claude-application
@mateodm03(75)· 174d
My application to the program:

https://peakd.com/hive/@mateodm03/application-for-the-dhf-funded-claude-mateodm03
@rishi556(72)· 174d
My application: https://peakd.com/hive/@rishi556/dhf-funded-claude-application
@redditposh(88)· 189d
_{This post has been shared on Reddit by @dlmmqb through the [HivePosh](https://hiveposh.com/) initiative.}
@ponpase(72)· 199d
Thank you for great project ... i think its the best project for hope to the future.

Hive ecosystem will grow
@nftea.gallery(71)· 199d
Your open source developers should qualify for free github copilot! I get it entirely for free for my Gridcoin/Bitshares contributions, so considering hive projects are also open source on github the devs should qualify (at least the largest contributors).
@hoganprofi97579(63)· 199d
Smart and sharp, you've got my vote.
@tokenizedsociety(70)· 199d

Apply - Submit an application demonstrating your involvement with programming as a whole (bonus points for Hive related dev)

Could you clarify this last part (bonus points for Hive related dev) ?

Shouldn't it be mandatory that the work is related to Hive?
@mickiewicz(64)· 199d
Maybe it would be better to build more independent solution where the community could run its own service with opensource models. I'm against to pump money into Big Tech and becoming dependent on them. Since access to the service would be limited to dozens of developers(not milions of users) so maybe DHF could handle costs. I thin such solution is more aligned with the spirit of free software and free economy.
@valued-customer(75)· 200d
Use GAAP. The DHF has to account for disbursements, or we might as well be throwing money out a car windown on a driveby.

Also, HF28 may have had other effects that didn't impact me, but I note that I can now only cast about half as many votes as I could before it rolled out. I also note that HBDfunder comments bleed VP of whales much faster now, and roll in those sweet, sweet curation rewards with, apparently, half the effort. This focuses inflation from the rewards pool purely on curation rewards, and denies creators their share in that pool.

That's gotta end.

Thanks!
@forykw(71)· 200d
I agree having people getting used to this is quite important and will put weapons on anyone's projects. Not something for me to participate here, although I admit that it helps a lot with exploration of the code and troubleshooting.

I have been trialing with other MCPs like https://replit.com/refer/forkyishere for example, and this market of assisted stuff is going to flood the market soon enough. Which is also a bad thing in terms of how much crap will start to appear if people are not carefully making an effort to produce things that are really working correctly.

Been a crazy bump of learning this year with these things.

Eager to find out about the applicants and how you are planning to balance the type of applications areas... as in, what if (kind of dream come true to be honest) all applicants would want to work on HIVE core development and only 1 or two for tools/applications/games/etc... would the focus be trying to add 1 of each kind of thing or balance initially and if not more diversity, fill with remaining applications in order to maximize the outcome (aka people using claude with HIVE in a general sense)?
@hivebuzz(74)· 200d
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@urun(69)· 200d
sounds like a waste since opencode kimi 2.5 is free...

PPl that are not able to use free models in combination with claude ( even 20$ one) should not get it for free.

Is like nothing on hive need to have a market mechanic.

Anyway there is a reason the token is close to worthless
@eddiespino(80)· 200d
I pay $20 for ChatGPT, and I can use it on OpenCode without paying extra. I haven't tested Claude. Is it much more powerful?

I'm not much of a coder; I'm more on the PM side of things, but maybe it would be interesting for the devs in @mantequilla-soft and @aliento.

I think that the proposal is great, but it's bad timing, I guess.

Why not create the fund some other way? Why use the DHF?
@blanchy(75)· 200d
If we don't approve this Hive gets left behind. The progression over at Claude is unbelievable at the moment. Normal coding is for dinosaurs at this stage.
@hivepostify(56)· 200d
Excited to see this pilot program! Supporting Hive developers with AI coding tools like CloudCode will definitely boost productivity and innovation across the ecosystem. Looking forward to seeing the results! 🚀
@redditposh(88)· 200d
_{This post has been shared on Reddit by @bhattg through the [HivePosh](https://hiveposh.com/) initiative.}
@seckorama(78)· 200d
I'm not a developer, but I think it's high time for something like this. We mustn't be neo-Luddites.
@pizzabot(60)· 201d
PIZZA!

$PIZZA slices delivered: geneeverett tipped hurtlocker @geneeverett_(2/5) tipped @beggars

_{Please vote for pizza.witness!}
@geneeverett(76)· 201d
We are bleeding users and price and nothing is done to address immediate problems, just more hype and nonsense. And it gets supported. Unbelievable. And people wonder why I sold a year ago at .60 cents 🙄
@forkyishere(70)· 201d
I have to come back to this.
@theguruasia(69)· 201d
Are you sure this might reduce current DHF free mint HBD? Most of these devs are using those subscriptions & enjoy $300 per day just for prompting.
@coldbeetrootsoup(76)· 201d
How many Phases do you have planned?
@beggars(71)· 201d
I don't want to come across as negative here, because I love Hive. I've been around since the Steemit days, and the developer community is genuinely strong even if it's smaller than other blockchain ecosystems. And I appreciate that this is a modest pilot with a conservative budget. That's the right way to test an idea.

But I'd honestly rather see proposals funding specific projects and developments on Hive than AI subscriptions, even at this scale.

The proposal does mention accountability, and I think that's good. Developers showing tangible progress after each month is better than nothing. But here's where I get stuck: if we're measuring success by output anyway, why not just fund the output directly? If someone builds a great dApp or contributes meaningful infrastructure work, fund that. You skip the middleman of monitoring whether a subscription is actually being used for Hive work, because you're paying for results instead of tools.

And that's the core issue for me. There's no way to verify that these subscriptions are being used for Hive development specifically. A dev could use 80% of their Claude Code usage on freelance work and 20% on a Hive project, show the Hive project as their monthly progress, and nobody would ever know. I'm not saying people will do that, but when you're spending community funds, the structure should make that kind of thing difficult by design, not just hope it doesn't happen.

What I think would be more beneficial is starting with a list of things the community believes Hive actually needs. Tools, dApps, services, infrastructure layers, documentation, onboarding flows, whatever. Then fund those efforts directly with clear scope and milestones. Tie the money to deliverables. That way the community sees exactly what it's getting, and developers have something concrete to be accountable for.

I also want to push back a little on the 10x productivity framing. AI tools in the hands of a skilled, experienced dev are an absolute force multiplier. I've seen it firsthand. A senior developer who already understands architecture, system design, and debugging can use these tools to move at genuinely impressive speed. The AI handles the repetitive stuff while the dev focuses on the decisions that actually matter.

But for inexperienced juniors, or even some intermediate devs I've worked with over the years, these tools can be a trap. They generate code that looks right, passes a quick review, and then falls apart in production because nobody involved actually understood what was being built. The 10x claim assumes a baseline level of competence that not every applicant is going to have. AI doesn't replace the need to know what you're doing. It accelerates people who already do. That's a big difference, and the vetting process would need to be pretty rigorous to account for it.

None of this is me saying the idea has no merit. I get the reasoning, and I respect that it's being pitched as a small pilot rather than a massive funding ask. But if we're going to spend community money to grow the developer ecosystem (especially during what appears to be a bear market and negative sentiment in crypto), I'd rather see it go toward bounties for specific features, grants tied to shipping working software, or direct funding for projects that people on Hive can actually use. That feels like a more accountable path to the same goal.

In my case, I'm a senior dev and I already use these tools, so I don't need a subsidised subscription. I would rather be paid to work on a problem or task instead.
@jocieprosza(68)· 201d
The timing is poor so I think if the authors decide to vote it through they need to:
1. Support the burn proposal,
2. Commit to not convert the HBD and use the internal market
@loeranking(59)· 201d
This is a genuinely interesting and timely proposal. The idea of lowering the barrier to high-quality AI tooling for developers feels like one of those leverage points where a relatively small amount of funding can unlock outsized returns for the Hive ecosystem. The emphasis on real, verifiable output and monthly accountability is especially reassuring, because it keeps the focus on shipped value rather than abstract experimentation. Overall, this feels like a smart way to invest in developer productivity, particularly for contributors who may have the skills and ideas but not the disposable income for premium tooling. I’m very interested to see how this unfolds and what kind of projects and improvements come out of it.
@sk1920(74)· 201d
Nothing really depends on us, so why bothering with multiple proposal posts? We should burn all the remaining DHF to start funding anew
@blocktrades(80)· 201d
I expect this is likely to be THE most impactful DHF proposal ever if we get a sufficient number of qualified applicants.

If all the Hive programmers master using Claude Code, we should see a huge leap in productivity. Personaly, I estimate that I'm at least 10x more effective as a programmer with it.
@vaipraonde(69)· 201d
I heard hive hackathon

@mengao @xvlad @r4topunk @shiftrox
@investingpennies(60)· 201d
I saw "AI Agent Developer" in the headline & decided to support this already.
@encuentro(71)· 201d
Saludos,Creo que Hive debería lanzar un juego sencillo y adictivo, como un clicker para móviles o una ruleta, que sea fácil de usar y que pueda hacerse popular rápidamente. La idea es que el juego ofrezca pequeñas recompensas en Hive u otros tokens, pero sin perjudicar el Hive orgánico, algo completamente separado de las publicaciones y los upvotes. Estoy convencido de que mucha gente se uniría rápidamente. Solo se necesita que expertos analicen cómo este tipo de juego podría generar recursos y tener un impacto positivo en el ecosistema. No tengo mucho conocimiento técnico, ni económico, es solo una idea que se me ocurrió. .Sería genial que; los desarrolladores la consideraran y la hicieran realidad! Hoy en día, la gente busca formas de entretenerse, especialmente en un mundo tan complicado como el latinoamericano . La clave es que esto no afecte a los creadores de contenido, sino que, al atraer a más usuarios, se genere una mayor demanda de Hive, incluso entre aquellos que no crean contenido. Solo es una idea que tengo, ¡un abrazo a todos!
@vaipraonde(69)· 201d
Yeah! sure! and i wanna apply, im doing everythig with free tier. $200 is almost my rent value! lol
@hivecuba(71)· 201d
I dont know if a new proposal would help with the current situation but at least it is one that look for those that can do more with less.

Regarding the scope, creating an MCP of Hive should be a priority in this case. We have use Claude Opus 4.5 and beyond the good results in many aspects, Hive remains a difficulty for certain actions. An MCP build by Hive core developers and with the use of IA to speed up the process would be heavily beneficial to accomplish a good result from this proposal.
@hivebuzz(74)· 201d
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@ecoinstant(78)· 201d
I.... tentatively really like this as an idea to pilot test. Management is always a challenge, but frankly, you are a great candidate. Thank you, voting.
@latinowinner(58)· 201d
good luck
@blanchy(75)· 201d
By extension especially with the new Claude multi Agent Experimental mode that launched today, if we were to approve this proposal then should development hours be cut significantly saving Hive thousands of dev hours in funding?? Also The danger is every half of Venezuela will be applying for free Claude. I trust you would manage this accordingly?
@papilloncharity(83)· 201d
Proposal done, and all of the best with your efforts!
@stayoutoftherz(80)· 201d
We don´t need more development, we need more / better marketing! The product is already decent, but nobody knows about it!
@chronocrypto(76)· 201d
This is great I’m sure to apply.
@vimukthi(76)· 201d
This is definitely worth testing out. We need more developments in DAPPs that can bring in more users.
@dlmmqb(75)· 201d
It's an easy WIN WIN for the ecosystem.
@mateodm03(75)· 201d
The proposal sounds very interesting and could be a great help to independent developers. In my case, I don't usually have much time to devote to these types of tasks on a daily basis, but with a tool like this, I think I could make much better use of that limited time and be more productive.

You can count on my support.

	Our Hive Power Delegations to the January PUM Winners
	Feedback from the February Hive Power Up Day