Downvotes on Hive are ways that Hive users can show dislike for a post or try to scale down rewards they feel are too high for a post. Downvotes take away post rewards. Whereas upvotes add rewards to a post or comment, downvotes negatively impact the post's reward balance.

How much a downvote decreases a post's reward is based on the downvoter's Hive Power (HP). Just like with upvotes, the more HP the downvoter/curator holds, the greater the impact of the vote.

Downvotes are a bit controversial on Hive. There's been much discussion on the value of downvotes, or not. Some argue that downvotes are simply the way of a free market economy. Just as someone can freely upvote and increase rewards, that person can freely downvote and decrease rewards. Others dislike downvotes and spin-offs have emerged. For example, the Vybrainium community is a no-downvotes spin-off of the Proof-of-Brain tribe. And, the Blurt blockchain is a Hive spin-off with no downvotes.

One thing that might be agreed upon is that a Hive user should downvote with caution. Downvoting is rare, you are literally taking money from another user, it causes passion at times, can earn you disdain, and can earn you enemies on the chain.