The Hivewatchers Operational Proposal for the Period July 2026 - June 2029
Ten Years of Protecting the Ecosystem.
This July marks the 10th anniversary of the project. What began as an anti-abuse project in 2016 has now spent ten years protecting the trust and the integrity of the ecosystem.
The Hivewatchers were originally started by @anyx (the project was called "Steemcleaners" then), who, while completing his PhD, became increasingly concerned about the amount of plagiarism, copypasta spam, and reward abuse taking over the platform. He created @cheetah bot, an automated similar-content detection tool that was a very effective and essential tool for detecting plagiarism. That project eventually evolved in 2020 into what is now known as Hivewatchers. The project has never stopped evolving, continuously adapting itself to new forms of abuse as the Hive ecosystem has grown.
Today, Hivewatchers is operated by @logic with the assistance of @guiltyparties and his @spaminator, continuing the original project's mission of protecting honest Hiveians while helping maintain confidence in Hive as a platform where original creators can thrive.
The Role of Hivewatchers.
The threat scope has been changing dramatically over the last ten years.
In 2016, plagiarism, copy-pasta and identity theft abuse were among the most common abuses. Today, the scope of abuse is much wider and significantly more sophisticated. Abuse is often organised, automated, and difficult to detect.
The Hivewatchers project investigates abuse across the Hive ecosystem while providing tools and services that assist Hiveians, communities, witnesses, and front-ends.
Current investigations regularly involve:
Reward farming groups and automated account farms
AI-generated content presented as human-created work
Large-scale SEO spam campaigns-exploits
Identity theft and identity deception
Cryptocurrency scams, including fake airdrops and arbitrage scams.
Coordinated sock puppet operations, directing Hive communities and curation projects
Blockchain transaction analysis
Social engineering attempts
External phishing campaigns targeting Hive users
The costs of running Artificial Intelligence are becoming lower, which increases the AI-related scale of abuse. This means that protecting the integrity of Hive requires continuous work by the Hivewatchers. AI-generated abuse requires a detailed investigation of content and context, backed by experience and human judgment.
Fraud & Identity Theft
Hivewatchers investigates identity theft, impersonation, deception accounts, fraudulent fundraising, and sophisticated sock puppet accounts and groups.
Investigations frequently combine traditional investigations with blockchain analysis to identify complex abuse that would otherwise remain undetected.
Spam Abuse
Large-scale spam groups never stopped attacking the ecosystem. The Hivewatchers have identified and disrupted numerous coordinated spam operations that often involved thousands of accounts. These spam networks included automated posting for reward farming, general malicious attacks on the Hive ecosystem and its community, or SEO manipulation.
These investigations often span multiple communities, external websites, and blockchain transactions.
Content Integrity
Protecting original creators helps preserve confidence in Hive's ecosystem and its reward system. Original content creators remain one of Hive's greatest strengths, so the Hivewatchers continue to investigate:
- Content Theft - Writing/Photography/Artwork Plagiarism
- Copy-and-paste Spam and Post recycling
- Various forms of Deceptive Publishing
- AI-generated content falsely presented as human-created
Hivewatchers regularly investigates phishing threats, blockchain-related scams, fraudulent investment and arbitrage schemes, and malicious abusers attempting to exploit Hive users.
Investigation findings are reported and shared with communities and developers to reduce future threats and risks. Most of Hivewatchers' work cannot be automated. Many investigations involve analysing various small pieces of evidence to expose coordinated abuse. Hivewatchers project has never remained static because abuse techniques have evolved. The project provides both investigative capabilities and practical tools that assist communities across the Hive ecosystem.
FUNDING PROPOSAL
This proposal requests funding of:
85% of the funding over the whole period will not be converted into Hive and transferred out of the ecosystem, but will be put into an HBD savings account.
[Decreased to 80HBD/day instead].
80 HBD per day for the period August 2026 - July 2029 (3 years)
The requested increase reflects the expanding scope and complexity of investigations over the years. Abuse investigations are time-intensive, particularly with the increase in AI-related abuse, coordinated spam networks, and increasingly sophisticated fraud operations targeting Hive.
Hive ecosystem's progress and success depend on trust.
Hiveians need confidence that their original work is protected, abusive and threat actors are held accountable, and that the reward pool is not systematically exploited.
Since 2016, the Hivewatchers have worked quietly behind the scenes to help maintain that trust.
The work has been consistent and evidence-based investigative work. Its aim is to protect honest users and to strengthen the Hive ecosystem as a whole.
Thank you to everyone who has supported the project over the past decade, whether by reporting abuse, contributing to investigations, providing important feedback, or voting for Hivewatchers' proposals.
Hivewatchers respectfully ask for your continued support for the next proposal as the project enters its second decade of protecting the Hive community.
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Images by [thepeakstudio](https://hive.blog/@thepeakstudio).
