Towards our Own Economy: Excited about STEEMBAY Becoming Part of the Steemit Environment!

Yesterday, I was excited to see an official announcement that @steembay is now live and running, here on Steemit!

SteemBay is the brainchild of veteran Steemians @pollux.one and @schererf, and is an initiative to create an "eBay like" peer-to-peer ecommerce market here on Steemit.

In short, you can create a post for an item or service you would like to trade, call in the @steembay bot with a tag and it then "manages" auction style bids from others, for the normal 7-day duration of your post... much like it works on eBay. Of course, the best way to learn more is to visit the @steembay page. The announcement is currently available in English, Spanish, French and German.

Part of the reason I am giving @steembay a plug here is that I believe this will offer a great benefit and support for both Steemit and the Steem token, in the longer run.

Creating Economic Viability for the Steem Token

Having a peer-to-peer marketplace where we can all trade with each other using Steem or SBD without having to leave the platform (or convert anything to Bitcoin of fiat) could be a major step towards establishing a deeper "economic reason" for the Steem currency to exist.

Compared to most coins out there-- which are, essentially, more of an "investment asset class" than actual currencies-- Steem is already ahead of the curve because we have the Steemit social content platform which involves "commercial activity" in the form of the rewards system. But is it enough? Will SMTs be enough?

Having an active internal marketplace where community members can trade goods, services and more with each other could only serve to help cement to viability of the Steem currency.

Why Does This Matter?

Call me skeptical, but I tend to side with many who believe that cryptocurrencies are in a bit of a speculative bubble at the moment.

If you look at all the ICOs coming to market these days it almost seems like people can raise millions of dollars with no greater business plan than "using the word blockchain in the white paper" after which every person on the planet blindly throws money at them.

Alas, that's unsustainable, in the long run... at some point, they will all have to "deliver the goods." And I believe that-- much like the "dot-com bubble" burst in 2000-- there will eventually be a reckoning... and (to paraphrase Warren Buffett) "when the tide goes out, you discover who's been swimming naked." 

Of course, when the dot-com bubble burst, the solid companies with something "real" to offer made out just fine-- Dell, Yahoo, Amazon and others are industry giants, today.

How does that relate, for @steembay and Steemit?

If we have an actual Steem-based economy in place when the big cookie crumbles, it will offer us the all important "differentiation" that will set us apart from all the so-called "shitcoins" that will take it in the nose.

Of course, this is just my opinion-- I'm no financial expert. However, this seems like a really important step, so I encourage you to support the @steembay initiative!

What do YOU think? We're you aware of the SteemBay initiative? Do you think it would be a good thing for Steemit, once it is developed? Would you be interested in using a Steem-based peer-to-peer marketplace to trade goods and services with other Steemians? Leave a comment-- share your experiences-- be part of the conversation!

(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for Steemit)
Created at 171121 17:04 PDT