Steem Fork Faces Legal Threat From Mining Firm Over ‘Hive’ Name

When selecting a reputation to your crypto mission, it is a actually good thought to Google it first.

The most recent to have apparently fallen at that hurdle is a bunch of Steem neighborhood members who lately opted to type a brand new blockchain over fears that Tron founder Justin Tron would search to exert an excessive amount of management of Steem’s ecosystem.

The group, Hive.io, dubbed the brand new blockchain Hive, and it materialized by way of a tough fork of Steem final week. The plan is to breed all steem tokens with new hive tokens on a one for one foundation. Solar’s massive pile of steems wouldn’t be copied over, leaving him with no energy within the new chain’s governance.

Nonetheless, in selecting the Hive moniker, the mission has stepped on the company toes of a blockchain agency branded with the identical identify.

HIVE blockchain Applied sciences Ltd., a publicly listed mining agency based mostly in Vancouver, Canada, revealed a discover Monday saying it has despatched a cease-and-desist from its authorized representatives to Hive.io, saying the brand new blockchain is tapping into its funding in constructing “goodwill” within the business.

“In response to a number of shareholder inquiries understandably confused by this Blockchain’s announcement, HIVE clarifies that it has no affiliation with this Blockchain,” the mining agency writes. “HIVE believes this Blockchain’s use of ‘Hive’ and ‘Hive Blockchain’ is, deliberately or in any other case, complicated with the Firm’s model, which it has used globally over the Web in relation to its reference to blockchain associated items and companies together with cryptocurrency.”

Frank Holmes, interim govt chairman at HIVE stated the agency has “no difficulty with the proposed blockchain past its identify.”

“Nonetheless, for authorized causes, now we have no choice however to hunt to guard our pursuits, dispel the continuing confusion and keep away from any potential injury to our fame,” he stated. “We’re hopeful this may be simply resolved with a reputation change. Any continued utilization by the Blockchain will solely proof an deliberately predatory, deceptive and fraudulent technique.”

CoinDesk reached out to Hive.io for remark however didn’t instantly obtain a solution.