STEEM & TRON| Steemit Crypto Academy| Season 4 - Homework Post for Task 2

Proof of Brain (PoB)

Proof of Brain is simply the examination, approval, and curation of content. PoB determines the extent to which a content is good/bad and the originality of the content (plagiarism is shunned at). This enables the decentralized updating of the blockchain with good content; an enablement that is made possible by the consensus and the wisdom of the people. Good contents are further rewarded from the reward pool.

Reward Pool

How is the reward pool distributed?

The reward pool is distributed as follows:

• 75% funds the authors, curators, and steem DAO - Authors & Curators (65%) - Steem DAO (10%).
• 15% goes to sp holders
• And 10% goes to the witness for regulating the blockchain.

Worthy of note as part of the PoB is the steem power (sp) because it determines the rewards that are received by an author. Sp holders have more voting power and voting weight, therefore contents that are curated by higher sp holders are more likely to receive higher rewards for brain work.

What does curation mean to you?

Curation is everything from :

1. Identifying a content - finding and reading the content
2. Evaluating the subjective value of the content- Carefully reading the content to know if it is important to you or bears some useful knowledge.
3. Evaluating the objectivity of the content - Determining how original the values of the content and how safe or harmful the content is to the community. For example, racist or pornographic content would mean a red flag.
4. Alerting red flags in the content - Bringing to the notice of the community any found breach such as plagiarism or pornographic contents.
5. Voting - Eventually upvoting the content in the case of approval or also nominating a content for curation in some cases.
6. Resteem - Resteem the content to the interest of followers, thus advancing sharing of information (a peculiar and necessary feature of social networks) while circuitously aiding content discovery.

What are the benefits of building SP?

Benefits of building SP

SP holders on the steem blockchain are liable to certain exclusive rights and privileges that are not common to all steem users. SP holders are more like major shareholders on the blockchain, giving them some level of advantageous influence. Some of the benefits of holding SP are as follows:

• Greater voting power and voting weight (The higher the sp of the curator, the higher the reward)
• Greater influence on the distribution of the reward pool (Higher sp holders contribute 32% of the reward pool)
• SP holders receive 15% of the yearly inflation (dependent on the amount of vested SP) in relation to the amount of vested SP across all users
• They have a greater chance of Admin rights over a community
• The 1trx:1SP reward model is a heavy plus to holders SP, as they are entitled to more Trx rewards.
• Greater tendency of becoming a promoter, country representative, and engaging in governance voting
• Greater tendency of having one's content listed on the trending view thus increasing tendency of followership and networking.
• Skills of SP holders can easily be recognized, considering their most likely large followership
• They can become influencers and promoters for the blockchain, giving them room for a more followership base.

Conclusively, since they are more like major shareholders on the platform, they are well-positioned to benefit from any major spike in the value of stem.

How do you explain self-upvote as a good or bad social behavior and why?

Self-upvote

Self-upvote is when a steem user upvotes their own post. Self upvote, when measured on my continuum tends towards the bad end. I may not outrightly declare self upvote as a good or a bad social behavior, but I think generally, it is more of a bad than a good social behavior. Self upvote on a positive note shows that you appreciate your post, and by implication means you have done a good job. Also, in steemit where even quality posts can be ignored, a steem user may engage in self upvote just for reassurance sake and keep them going in the system (psychological reward). By upvoting oneself, you get a little chunk of the reward pool.

Self upvote is more of a bad social behavior because it negates to a large extent the concept of PoB since Proof of Brain and content discovery rely on the wisdom of others to determine the quality of a content. It undermines the idea of curator and author reward (a win-win for author and curator), thus making it a selfish act. Self-upvote should be avoided as it is no marker to determine the objective quality of content. It contradicts the convergent linear reward (consensus judgment), which is the reward algorithm of the steem blockchain. Theoretically, self-upvote may see one's content aligned to the sub-linear zone (lower zone) where contents are limited from appearing on the trending view, thus reducing the awareness of one's content ( I don’t think this is binding on whales). When self-upvote becomes a habit that is drawn out of selfish inclination, it limits one's possibilities of earning curation rewards because they are more likely to ignore the curation of others' content and focus only on theirs.

A steem user who is in the habit of self-upvote and does not understand the intricacies of the general voting window are more likely to upvote their post within the first five minutes after the content is published. The result of such action would see such users lose a certain percentage of their curation reward.

Finally, I also think that continuous self-upvote by high sp holders drains the reward pool and may have a negative long term action on the price of steem, one of the reasons being that new steem users may be deterred from continuous engagement on the platform because of high competition over grapple of very limited rewards (just saying). If one must self up-vote, there should be a reasonable pattern(a pattern that does not harm the user and blockchain) . I can comfortably say that Self-upvote in the light of the argument presented above is more of a bad social behavior than a good one.

Explore Coinmarketcap.com to indicate rank, STEEM price, and coinmarketcap of STEEM(screenshot required)?

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What are the different tokens to earn by socializing in the steem blockchain?

The steem blockchain rewards one with the following rewards: steem, Steem Power (SP), and TRX (Tronix).

• STEEM

According to steem whitepaper, steem is the fundamental unit of account on the steem blockchain. Steem is the liquid currency of the blockchain, i.e the other tokens (SP & SBD) are converted to steem for liquidity, transfer, and exchange.

• STEEM POWER (SP)

SP serves as a long-term capital invested into the steem blockchain. At baseline, SP is steem that is committed to a thirteen-week vesting schedule on the steem blockchain. It cannot be transferred or divided except it is reconverted back to steem through the process know as powering down. Conversion of steem to SP is known as powering up. SP holders have more influence over the distribution of rewards, thus SP is an access token that grants its holders exclusive powers on the steem blockchain.

• STEEM DOLLARS (SBD)

Steem dollars is denoted by the acronym SBD. SBD serves as a short-term debt instrument that can be converted to ownership or liquidity at a rate determined by the USD. Structurally, 1SBD equals 1USD but since there is a considerable difference in volatility between USD and SBD, the rate of conversion depends on the current price of USD at the time of conversion. SBD keeps steem users motivated to keep on sharing quality content on the platform.

TRX (TRONIX)

The partnership between steem blockchain and the Tron blockchain enables steem users to receive Trx tokens, which is the native coin of the Tron blockchain

How are they distributed ?

• Author – Default distribution is 50% SBD/50% SP (or combined variations between SP, SBD, and Steem, depending on - the debt ratio of STEEM: SBD)
• Curator – Curators receive 100% SP in rewards
• TRX – 1Trx: 1SP (steem users receive 1 TRX for every 1SP received (a generous offer!))

How would you use your TRX earned in steem blockchain to optimize earning in Tron Ecosystem?

The Tron ecosystem is a vast one with so many possibilities and rewards. With the access provided by the Tronlink wallet into the Tron ecosystem, steem users can optimize the use of Trx (Tron native coin) in the following ways:

• Gain rewards by Swapping Trx tokens for other available (and desirable) tokens at Justswap (Tron Dapp)
• Gain rewards by supplying Trx tokens to the liquidity pool, and buying collateral tokens for borrowing on Justlend (Tron Dapp)
• Use Trx to engage in cost-effective trade on Poloniex (a major world exchange)
• Use Trx for liquidity pool mining and stable coin mining on Sun.io (Tron Dapp)
• Engage in governance voting
• For games enthusiasts, Trx is used to register for peer to peer games with people from all over the world on Rocket game launcher (Tron Dapp)

With the Trx, the Tron ecosystem is your harvest ground, as there are many useful Dapps one can take advantage of.
see image below for list of existing Tron Dapps

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