I wrote a post yesterday about my thoughts on the Tron acquisition of Steemit. Within the post, I listed the questions that were answered in the AMA and what I think will happen in the near-term and longer term. In the announcement leading up to the AMA, a Steem to Tron token swap was mentioned. However, this was dismissed by Justin Sun (@justinsunsteemit) in the AMA.
I am of the belief that the first words that come out from a person's mouth usually hold their true intention. Hence, I think a token swap is in Justin's mind at the start but he changed his mind to cushion the shock. Someone must have given him some good advice as a "token swap" without much planning/details will certainly lead to much backlash from the Steem community. Regardless, I see the "token swap" as something that will come inevitably. However, the way how this "token swap" may come depends on how Steem is going to integrate into the Tron ecosystem.
Before I start, I just want to say that these scenarios that I am about to describe are my speculations. I have an average understanding of Steem blockchain and my only understanding of Tron stems from what I know about Ethereum (since Tron uses Ethereum codebase with just a different consensus mechanism). In addition, for convenience sake, I will use TRC20-Steem to represent STEEM tokens on Tron.
Scenario 1: TRC20-Steem as the source of truth
In this scenario, Justin wants the entire Steem blockchain to be "migrated" to Tron. The entire data in the current Steem blockchain is to be "copied" to Tron. Through the use of smart contracts, most of Steem features (e.g. delegation, powering up, content management, voting and etc) should be able to be replicated on Tron. All accounts are also moved to TRC20-Steem and a snapshot is taken at the point the Steem blockchain is "copied" to Tron.
Being close friends with CZ from Binance, Justin can influence Binance to only recognize TRC20-Steem as the source of truth and de-list the original STEEM. Other exchanges will likely follow suit. At this point, 2 platforms exist. A die-hard group of Steemians will continue to maintain the original Steem blockchain, while another TRC20-Steem ecosystem exists. Steem projects will be forced to pick sides. The original Steem blockchain which has lost its major exchanges or the TRC20-Steem which has lost the original Steem virtues. In addition, SMTs become irrelevant.
This scenario is in my opinion the bad scenario as there will be a split in the Steem community. Most people will likely give in and join the new TRC20-Steem for obvious reasons, while the original Steem likely wither and die a natural death.
However, this is also an unlikely scenario. Tron is fundamentally different from Steem. Much of Steem features are not built-in to Tron and hence, a lot of work has to be done to replicate those features. Being a shrewd businessman, Justin should know this. Why waste time redoing things that are already available?
Scenario 2: Steem as the source of truth
In this scenario, the TRC20-Steem on Tron is just an auxiliary set of tokens to provide some kind of interoperability between the 2 blockchains. This will be similar to how USDT exists in multiple blockchains, the Bitcoin backed Omni, ERC20 and TRC20.
A token swapping gateway can be created to allow Steemians to swap STEEM into TRC20-Steem. By performing this swap, the Steemian basically burn STEEM and get equivalent amount of TRC20-Steem. Why would someone do this you might ask? There can be various reasons.
First, Tron does have a list of dApps. Justin may want to cross promote Steem and Tron by incentivizing Tron dApps creators to accept TRC20-Steem. Imagine being able to use STEEM and take a shot in one of Tron's gambling dApps 😅. Another reason could be liquidity, given the relatively large Tron fanbase, I won't be surprise to see TRC20-Steem being more liquid than STEEM itself. Finally, the use of TRC20-Steem opens up the smart contract features on Tron for the Steem ecosystem.
In this scenario, TRC20-Steem can only exists as liquid Steem which cannot be powered up or delegated unless they are swapped back to actual STEEM. However, I expect to see most Steem projects shifting to Tron for the smart contract feature. Currently, most projects only use the Steem blockchain as a decentralized data store. Much of the code execution are still done on centralized servers managed by the respective projects. By using Tron's smart contract, for code execution while still writing custom JSON to the Steem blockchain, projects can achieve better decentralization.
Source
Overall, I see this as good, win-win scenario. the original Steem blockchain remains intact with much of Steem features depending on it. The Steem blockchain continues to do what it does best, enabling a decentralized and censorship resistant content creation platform with proof-of-brain mechanism. On the other hand projects on Steem can tap on Tron's smart contract features and possibly Tron's fanbase.
Conclusion
I see the second scenario being the most likely outcome. If that happens, I remain bullish of Steem. In the unlikely event that the first scenario happens, I will probably abandon ship. What do you think might happen? Do share with me.
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This article is created on the Steem blockchain. Check this series of posts to learn more about writing on an immutable and censorship-resistant content platform:
- What is Steem? - My Interpretation
- Steem Thoughts - Traditional Apps vs Steem Apps
- Steem Thoughts - A Fat or Thin Protocol?
- Steem Thoughts - There is Inequitable Value Between Users and Apps
- Make my votes count! Use Dustsweeper!
- What caused STEEM to get dumped? Why I think the worst might be over
- Steem 2020 is about having a "SMART U"
Posted via Steemleo
I think Scenario 2 is best for both.
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Indeed. And I also think that should be the more likely scenario.
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곰돌이가 @joeypark님의 소중한 댓글에 $0.029을 보팅해서 $0.013을 살려드리고 가요. 곰돌이가 지금까지 총 7415번 $95.961을 보팅해서 $100.378을 구했습니다. @gomdory 곰도뤼~
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Too complicated, and too much uncertainty for me to understand what's going on. I will wait for the end results and see what I have to do. 😊 !trdo
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Congratulations @quotes-haven, you successfuly trended the post shared by @culgin!
@culgin will receive 0.01567350 TRDO & @quotes-haven will get 0.01044900 TRDO curation in 3 Days from Post Created Date!
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sidechaining with TRON would be the best outcome, so let'S hope for #2
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Indeed. I also hope for the best, though I am prepared for the worst
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Indeed. I also
Hope for the best, though I am
Prepared for the worst
- culgin
I'm a bot. I detect haiku.
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Nice analysis. I honestly don't believe in scenario 1. Why would tron want to crowd its blockchain with steem content. In addition to that transactions on tron are not free and you need a lot of frozen trx to do the required transactions. Small accounts couldn't post for free and it would simply not work because tron is too expensive.
Another point is that Justin has bought several other companies like bittorent or dlive. In the core these companies still remain the same.
It is quite possible to have a replicate steem token on both blockchains. This would allow much better access to markets. The Dec Splinterland token can already be bought and sold on both blockchains.
I'm quite positive about steem and tron and I think this will give an interesting dynamic once the panic is gone...
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Really? Of what value would one be over anoother?
Posted via Steemleo
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Let's take the DEC token from Splinterlands. You can exchange it into steem on steem-engine or you can exchange it on trontrade for tron. Both tokens can buy services on splinterlands. In a way the market defines their prices and people will find ways to make arbitrage which will peg the tokens one towards the other. For steem it would be the same.
The fact that you could trade steem on tron for all the TRX based tokens and on steem for all the steem based tokens will greatly increase the reach of the currency and therefore increase its market penetration.
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Thank you for this detailed response. I appreciate.
Posted via Steemleo
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Your points are clear but difficult to accept, especially the first and the second. We hope they don't come true. The FUD we already have these days are enough. But, if at worst case, everyone quits steem, then what use would what Sun purchased be?
Posted via Steemleo
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Hello friend @culgin, this post is very interesting, thanks for sharing.
I've been reading a little. If Justin bought steemit.inc and this is not the same as steem, who owns steem? And if he can change the steem chain and end the steem currency as we know it?
Excuse my ignorance!
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I hope that Scenario 2 will be the outcome as it will benefit Justin Sun and us in mutually cross-chaining blockchains. Upvoted!
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Resteemed already. Upvote on the way @culgin :)
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My conclusion go toward scenario 1.(more detailed post coming soon).
There is enough evidence that the swap has always been the objective, and the abandonment of steem blockchain is part of the plan.
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Tron "scam" - everything that touches Tron becomes a scam
Posted via Steemleo
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Here is how I think this will play out:
https://steemit.com/hive-175254/@phgnomo/the-steem-is-dead-long-live-the-steem
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Read your post, thanks for sharing. So far it seems legit, but it could also be an initial miscommunication. I guess only time will tell and I am patiently waiting :)
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Let's hope new information arrives that will prove me wrong...
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Very detailed analysis here, friend. Both scenarios are not unlikely, although I go with scenario 2. But if scenario one happens, I am off to TRON because that will be very bullish, at least in the short term, for the ERC20-Steem. Well, only time will tell.
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hi dear @culgin
Very good analysis, I congratulate you.
The situation is quite complex, I am in favor of the 2nd scenario happening because I am optimistic, but I think that what matters most here is the way the swap token will be made for all of us, I think there lies the most important part of everything this. Hopefully and do it in a simple and as traumatic way as possible for everyone, because otherwise I agree with many that many people will leave the ship.
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People who have suffered so far because the system was too complicated will now get another slap. This lot of complicated blockchain programming is not for ordinary bloggers.
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I very much doubt Scenario 1 is likely. He's too smart.
If it did happen though,
Couldn't disagree with this more. If anything, free of the ninja mine and programmatic selling, and more decentralised than ever, I could see Steem reach new heights.
Might take exchanges a while to come onboard; but even if its just blocktrades; imagine what'd happen to the price when the true believers dump their TRC20-STEEM to stockpile STEEMClassic.
The relationships are in place. The witnesses are trusted and established.
Could be the best thing that ever happened to the chain.
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Dear @culgin
Thanks for sharing your view on that issue. I was wondering how could SWAP be executed and my impression so far is, that all projects relying on delegations, auto-upvotes, curation trails - all those projects will take a massive hit and most will collapse.
The fact that Justing (or some advisors) figured out that currently idea of doing SWAP could potentially destroy his investment means simply to me, that they are doing research and trying to figure out what to do next. That they actually care about current steem community. And that's more than Ned ever did. So I'm still very optimistic.
Upvoted already,
Yours, Piotr
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Dear @culgin
Thanks for sharing your view on that issue. I was wondering how could SWAP be executed and my impression so far is, that all projects relying on delegations, auto-upvotes, curation trails - all those projects will take a massive hit and most will collapse.
The fact that Justing (or some advisors) figured out that currently idea of doing SWAP could potentially destroy his investment means simply to me, that they are doing research and trying to figure out what to do next. That they actually care about current steem community. And that's more than Ned ever did. So I'm still very optimistic.
Upvoted already,
Yours, Piotr
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