Thanks to professor @sapwood for providing yet another interesting lecture on inflation rate and block reward, account recovery and encrypted message and use of memo key in the week 7 of the Steemit Crypto Academy.
Without further ado I would like to delve deeply into the issues of the day.
MOST STEEM TOKENS TO BE MINTED IN THE NEXT 10 YEARS
From calculations earlier made by the professor @sapwood it can be seen that the rate of inflation reduces by an approximate percentage of 0.42% every year. Actually this is due to the fact that the rate of inflation is in a constant decrease at 0.01% every 250,000 blocks produced.
It is a known fact that the number of new STEEM tokens being minted for every block is proportional directly to the inflation rate and virtual supply. To this effect, the virtual supply increases due to the reducing inflation rate.
The inflation rate is approximated to drop at a particular percentage every 8.68 days. This represents a 0.01% decrease for every 250,000 blocks minted.
With this inflation rate more Steem tokens are being minted. Hence, the greater production of Steem tokens results in increased virtual supply.
The continuation of this trend in the inflation rate will eventually result in the maximum supply of Steem tokens being produced in the year 2031. Then the inflation rate will remain constant for some time. Therefore, the greatest supply production of Steem tokens would be occurring from this year 2021 to the year 2031 (about 10 years).
IMPORTANCE OF BUILDING STEEM POWER IN THE NEXT 10 YEARS
Steem can be earned in a number of ways. It can be earned as a content creator, a content curator, as a witness, by Steem DAO and by Vested Token Holdership.
Out of all these, you can actively participate in the acquisition of Steem as a content creator, curator or by what I call "active vested token holdership".
Apart from normal author and curation rewards, I believe one can build up Steem Power by what I choose to call "active vested token holdership" this refers to the conscientious effort aimed at increasing Steem Power by setting more posts to 100% power up!
The highest production of Steem will be occurring in the course of the next 10 years. Hence, apart from the DPoS method of Steem sharing, it is important that one actively takes conscious efforts aimed at increasing the Steem Power. After 2031, there will be a decrease in the production of Steem token.
Therefore, it is important to seize this opportunity seeing that the highest number of Steem is going to be minted from 2021 to 2031. Meanwhile,actively building up your Steem Power can also affect the value of the Steem you receive from the system automatically (as a Vested Token Holder) when new blocks are minted.
BUILDING SIGNIFICANT INFLUENCE POWER IN THE FORM OF STEEM POWER
Significantly, influence power in the Steem Blockchain can be built up from Steem Power.
First, the more Steem Power you possess the greater rewards you receive from content curation. Again, the more of it you have the greater your reward benefit will be as a Vested Token Holder when new blocks are minted.
Whichever way, you stand the chance of attaining the position of a whale by acquiring as much Steem Power as possible within these 10 years of highest Steem production.
THE DIFFICULTY OF EARNING STEEM REWARDS AFTER 2031
With the decreasing inflation rate block rewards are equally decreasing. Eventually, this will affect the supply volume in the future. What this means is that a lesser number of Steem tokens can be produced after 2031.
Hence, any Steem rewards from the lesser number produced results in low Steem rewards. So, this factor makes it difficult to earn significant Steem rewards after 2031.
APPROXIMATE NUMBER OF STEEM TOKENS TO BE MINTED FROM 2021 TO 2031
OBSERVATION
The approximate number of tokens to be minted from 2021 to 2031 can be calculated from the already prepared table above by professor @sapwood.
This this can be gotten by subtracting the number of Steem tokens there is in 2021 from the number of Steem tokens there will be by 2031.
Mathematically,
Approximate number of Steem from 2021 to 2031= Approximate number of Steem by 2031- Approximate number of Steem by 2021
From the table,
Approximate number of Steem by 2031= 685 million
Approximate number of Steem in 2021= 392 million
So, approximate number of Steem from 2021 to 2031= 685 million -392 million
Therefore, approximate number of Steem from 2021 to 3031= 293 million Steems.
So, an approximate number of 293 million Steems will be minted from 2021 to 2031.
Since the difference in time frame between 2031 and 2021 is 10 years it means that each year 293 ÷ 10 Steems will be produced.
This represents an approximate value of 29.3 Steems being produced yearly for the next 10 years.
THE YEAR THE INFLATION AND BLOCK REWARD WILL LIKELY SATURATE (TENTATIVELY)
From calculations made earlier by the professor @sapwood, it has been observed that the inflation rate will stand at 0.95%.
This figure can be read off from the underlying table to likely occur by April, 2037.
Also, it can be seen that the block reward will stand at 0.708 at the same time. This is because the block reward decreases with inflation rate.
How to calculate this
To get the rate at which inflation decreases annually simply take the difference in inflation rate of two successive years ( say March 2021 and March 2022).
Annual inflation rate decrease= March 2021 decrease- March 2022 decrease
Where, March 2021 decrease= 7.69%
March 2022 decrease=7.28%
So, annual inflation rate decrease= 7.69- 7.28= 0.41%
Mathematically,
Number of years for inflation rate to decrease from an initial 7.69% value to a final 0.95% value is:
(Initial value - final value)/annual rate
So, (7.69 - 0.95)/0.41 = 6.74/0.41
= 16.05 years(approximately)
Adding 16.05 years to 2021 (the current year) gives us 2037 as indicated in the table.
STEEM RECOVERY ACCOUNT
My Steem recovery account
My Steem recovery account can be gotten from steemscan.com. Once you are there simply search for your profile using your username.
Once you have done this, an account summary of your profile is provided. It contains your recovery account as indicated by the red circle in the image below.
Information to be provided to my recovery account for account recovery
Account recovery can be done on steemworld.org. The interface looks thus:
In order to initiate the account recovery process some important information would be provided to your recovery account. These include the name of the account to be recovered and the new public owner key which is your previous key
However, this process must be initiated before 30 days after the account may have been lost.
SENDING AN ENCRYPTED MESSAGE TO ANOTHER PEER
To send an encrypted (private) message to another peer in Steem Blockchain you should go to steemitwallet.com and login using your master password.
Then click on the minute inverted triangle beside your Steem value:
From the drop-down that pops out click on transfer:
You are ushered into the main page for the transfer.
Here you have to provide the name of the receiver, a little token (at least 0.01 Steem or SBD) for transfer and then the message which must be preceded by an hash tag(#) without space. These will be filled in fields provided with the tags @, amount and memo respectively.
Click NEXT and then OK to confirm your message:
Keys required to send a private message
I signed in with my active key while trying to send a private message. However, when I clicked on the next button to send I was required to provide the master key:
So, the master key is required to send a private message.
Keys required to decrypt a private message
When I logged into my wallet with my active key I did not see the private message. However, I was able to view the message when I logged in with my memo key.
So, the memo key is required to decrypt a private message.
Keys required to send an encrypted memo tag to exchange
From the screenshot above it seems I have to provide the memo key before I can send an encrypted memo tag to exchange. Unfortunately, this didn't meet any success even after providing the memo key.
However, I discovered I could send the message with the master key. So, the master key is required to send an encrypted memo tag to exchange.
Keys required for sending an encrypted memo tag to another user
My attempt to send an encrypted memo tag to another user with the active key didn't meet any success. The system claimed to require the memo key.
Still, providing the memo key in this case didn't work out. However, I was able to send the message with the master key.
CONCLUSION
It is very important that we understand the inflation rate of the Steem Blockchain. This will help us to understand why it is necessary to accumulate Steem between the year 2021 to 2031.
Also, understanding the functionalities of the Steem Blockchain is important. We should understand the concept of "recovery account" in case we ever lose our account. Again, we should understand how to encrypt and decrypt private messages to both exchange and private users.