Full Steem ahead: Implications of the Hive fork

STEEM price has risen significantly over the last two days and is now up almost 160% since the community announced the Hive fork and token airdrop. The network split is the culmination of a month-long spat between the Steem community and the Tron Foundation, which kicked off a series of contentious events when its acquired Steemit Inc. (and its massive STEEM holdings) on Feb. 14.

The price increase could represent investors looking to capitalize on the promise of "free" airdrop payouts, as STEEM holders, except for those associated with Tron and its reported allies, should expect to receive an equal amount of HIVE and HBD (Hive Dollars) tokens post-fork.

Investors could also be looking to hedge their bets. Steem and Hive will compete for users, projects, and developers going forward, with the possibility of one emerging as the dominant network. There's also a chance these opposing chains split the existing community mindshare down the middle, which could leave both networks with depleted resources and unable to sustain growth.

It's a difficult situation to predict, and comparing the current price movements of STEEM to past contentious airdrops and forks on major networks doesn't provide a strong indication as to what might happen next (unless that asset is Bitcoin).

But aside from the Bitcoin Cash-Bitcoin SV split, every contentious fork has resulted in the emergence of a single dominant network.