Is This the Next Facebook? UK Social Network UHive Enters the Field with its Own Digital Currency, Receives $2.3 Million Funding

With a focus on incentivized content creation, its own digital economy, and safeguarded user privacy, UHive is set to change the social media landscape when it releases in October.
Yeah, we’ve all heard the reports that Facebook is losing favor, and like much in life, all good things must come to an end. Although Facebook is arguably one of the most influential companies of our generation, that’s not to say users aren’t getting bored with the lack of innovation, and outright angered by the lack of privacy and Facebook’s business model that literally funds itself off the back of its users.
This is the critical juncture where new, hungry startups are going to smell the blood in the water and come along with a solution that rights all the wrongs perpetuated by the likes of Facebook et al. Startups, like UHive, one of the UK’s freshest new social networks. In development for two years, and having already received £1.8 million initial investment, UHive is an innovative social network that is adding new features and experiences which existing social networks have lacked – think privacy, incentivized content creation, and a digital economy.
So what are social networks getting wrong, that UHive is promising to fix? For instance, traditional social media is dominated by a “click, click, click” mentality, and maneuvering these sites often feels clunky, tiresome, and messy. Twitter and Facebook have become a chore, scrolling for hours looking for engaging, relevant content, which really diminishes the fun that a social network should be providing.
Do you ever feel that “Facebook fatigue” after scrolling for more than a few minutes? We never got that while exploring UHive. This app’s navigation is organized spatially. Pages and profiles instead become “spaces” on a geographic plane, and these spaces vary in location and size depending on relevance and importance. More followed and commented pages and profiles become larger visual spaces compared to less relevant, niche ones which will appear smaller.
Compared to other social networks, UHive is the only one we’ve used that truly feels like you’re exploring a world. Navigating from space to space is a fun process in and of itself, and exploring these locations and pages spatially feels more natural and fluid than traditional scrolling. UHive is positioning itself as the social network of the future. This innovative layout also boasts VR compatibility and says that its features and layout were researched and built on the basis of human psychology.
But any successful new social network must also be based on economics as well, and so UHive utilizes its own built-in digital economy. That’s right, you’re able to sell, purchase, and trade within the social network. The foundation of the economy is a currency called UHive Tokens which are built on blockchain technology.
Users automatically get UHive Tokens from advertising revenue: the more people that visit and follow their pages, the more UHive Tokens they receive. Users also receive tokens for engagement on the app, measured by the amount of time they spend logged in as well as how often they post and share images and videos. Wait for a second, I gotta go make another post.
With these tokens, you can make purchases within the UHive ecosystem such as buying additional spaces, special designs, advertising, and special effects. In addition to tokens received from advertising revenue and engagement, users are able to purchase additional tokens with fiat currency and more prominent cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Etheruem. UHive Tokens are particularly easy to buy and use. There are no fees and you can purchase them from anywhere in the world. We bought some and the transaction times were fast. There’s already a lot of buzz around the tokens. As of today, over 500 million tokens have been sold.
Tokens are stored within an internal wallet, an online part of the app that allows you to see your total balance of UHive Tokens, withdraw and deposit amounts, and view your transaction history. This wallet is ultra-protected, utilizing private encryption keys and private servers on a unique, secure VPN. The tokens themselves are on the Ethereum blockchain and can only be accessed using the corresponding private key if the user wallet is encrypted.
According to its founders, UHive’s development was based on the study of human psychology, so on the one hand, UHive supports familiar social media functionality in its “Civilized World.” Here, users can find and join communities of similar interests, make and share posts, and in general do anything that fulfills the social drive to communicate.
Unique to UHive, however, is the “Grey World.” Here, users are free to anonymously, but safely, interact with one another, create profiles, and express themselves as whoever they want to be. Within this world, users can fulfill their fantasies and unconscious desires. There’s absolute freedom.
With safety and privacy being paramount to any social network nowadays, UHive was developed from the ground up with this in mind, by creating patented technology that monitors and moderates all activity on the network.
The app is also built to incorporate VR technology. This makes perfect sense given the set-up of UHive, where it feels more like exploring a world rather than viewing pages on the Internet. It’s already future-proof with Oculus, Playstation VR, Android Daydream, Samsung Gear VR, and other major VR technology compatibility built-in. Which means in the near future you’ll be able to easily view videos and images, post, share, comment, and explore the UHive ecosystem to your eyes, heart and mind’s content.
UHive managed to simultaneously feel both familiar and experimental. It was engaging without being “too much” and it was, simply put – fun. The app is like a breath of fresh air in the stale ecosystem of social networks, and while it can sound and seem pretty science-fiction-y at times, it also has clearly struck a chord. As of now, the network has sold 500,000,000 UHive tokens, 40,000 spaces, and received funding to the tune of £1,800,000 from investors. Currently an early access app, UHive is set to be released in beta by early Q4, 2019.
We recommend you try out UHive here, available on both iOS and Android.