3+ Year Circle Jerk Anniversary 🥳

in steem •  5 years ago 

exyle.jpg
I recently passed my 3 Year STEEM anniversary. I didn't put a post up or anything because it wasn't convenient that day and no one really cares. There are a very small handful of the people still around here that remember me doing pool meetings or any of that.

One thing in my 3 years here that has always stayed consistent is that a legitimate route to success has always been to cheerlead and talk about how STEEM is amazing. I mean fuck I did it the first couple weeks I was on STEEM. I was impressed and thought STEEM had a ton of potential. It still does but still has never reached it for several reasons.

This post isn't to pick on @exyle . I just used his picture to get you bastards to click on my post. Milestone 1 accomplished.

@exyle seems like a great guy but even a crypto savage like me is worried about his finances. I'm right more often than I'm wrong in the crypto world and my personal opinion is that building on STEEM is like building on a sandy cliff by the ocean. It will destroy your stored time, AKA money, and then steal your present time as well. DOUBLE WHAMMY



Over the years as new people have come and basically replicated the same circle jerk pattern of talking about how amazing STEEM is. @theycallmedan and @coruscate are a couple examples of newer STEEMians who have mainly focused on cheerleading STEEM. Are they bad people? No ...... I do realize that @theycallmedan is a cofounder of 3Speak which looks pretty cool and @coruscate has tried to positively promote crypto at live events and conferences. All these things are positive.

"Why so negative Phobos?"

After all this time circle jerking about how awesome STEEM is has been one of the only legitimate routes to success on this platform. It is honestly absurd. Can you imagine if someone's Instagram was just talking about how amazing Instagram was? People wouldn't follow that. Yeah yeah.....I know.... People can invest in STEEM and be a part owner....etc But you could say the same thing about Instagram. They could invest in Facebook which owns Instagram. Can you imagine how weird it would look if someone's whole Instagram feed was focused on telling people to invest in Facebook to pump their own bags?

People wouldn't be entertained or learn much of anything if that was the case.

You need to realize that STEEM isn't social media...... it is bait. And guess what?.....your money is the catch.

That money gets drained to a small number of individuals. Around about 60 or so people.

@exyle himself feels that after the next hardfork STEEM will become way harder to earn. So how is that going to attract new content creators if this is supposed to be a content platform? Are people going to want to invest $10,000 into trying to chase an extra $10 / month? Probably not.

STEEM is like a gazelle that got taken down a few days ago. The lions had their meal and so have the hyenas. A few vultures will get a few pecks in but not enough to nourish themselves at this point. The gazelle isn't magically coming back to life.

Now will STEEM price pump again? Yeah it will but your money will pump if you are in projects like Bitcoin, Litecoin, Monero, EOS, Ethereum, TRON ....etc and it will likely retain its value better in the meantime and you can set it and forget it. Also a main issue with STEEM is that to fully utilize the benefits of STEEM power you have to lock it up for 3 months which is far too long to get out in a crypto pump.

Crypto goes up like a rocket and down like a guillotine!!!!

You would almost have to be in liquid STEEM and then sell in the pump hoping that you bought at a lower price than what it pumps to.

There is a reason why STEEM isn't even keeping up with Bitcoin Gold and Bitcoin Diamond to name a few shitcoins that are out pacing it. Things were fundamentally broken and it was never corrected. The inflation rate is far to high for starters. It only benefits a small handful of people and Steemit Inc.

Do I Hate STEEM? No....but I see it for what it is. Sometimes the Truth Hurts

Yes ...... STEEM is the most well developed, most impressive blockchain project. That isn't necessarily translate to good price movement for a number of reasons.

I heard the BETA MAX was pretty awesome and so was the SEGA Saturn. Unfortunately that didn't translate to mass adoption.



You need to realize that the reason the issues here won't be corrected is because the incentives don't benefit those in power. Those in power will seek to remain in power.

Why do you think the Bitcoin fees got ridiculously out of control in 2017 and we had the Bitcoin Cash hard fork? The Bitcoin miners were incentivized to keep the fees high at the plight of the users on the network.

I know..... I know...... It is short sighted but do you really think the Witnesses and Steemit INC can really see past their immediate benefit to correct the situation for Joe Blow who might show up in six month and wants to write a blog about his water paintings?

Their judgment will always be clouded by their immediate financial gain even if it will benefit the overall health of the network in the long run.

Why Am I Still Here?

Well I thought the basement dwellers out there needed some advice about living the dream, lifting weights, and attracting women. Nah... just joking ..... that would be real content which has nothing to do with STEEM. 😲

Actually I make myself laugh with my posts a lot of times and I give crypto advice which is what this blog is about. I honestly think you should be weary of STEEM and your money will likely be better off in cryptos that will likely perform better.

While I don't consider guys like @exyle a mega church preacher because he has put his money where his mouth is I worry about the people investing in STEEM power.



250,000 STEEM Power still isn't going to be enough to really make a big move at this time because there are these other large accounts out there from three years ago. I have done a lot of calculations on different chains to see if a person could simply buy their way into having a goose that lays the golden egg. I have done this on Scorum, Golos, WhaleShares, Smoke, VIT .....etc and there are so many issues with trying to do that.

Power down times, inflation rates, liquidity issues....etc.

Get enough power to vote yourself into a witness position and then just upvote your own shit that no one really cares about because the platform isn't actually about content.

To do it safely you would probably have to invest $10 Million dollars here to solidify your future and escape the value erosion that we are experiencing. Also you would have to become the biggest whale dick anyone has ever seen by only upvoting your own stuff to try to recoup your investment and make a profit.

Yes technologically speaking the STEEM blockchain is badass but when it boils down to it we are all paying for the employees at STEEMIT INC who are likely over paid and paying for a handful of witnesses and other investors who will harvest the rewards at a fast enough rate to not go down with the ship. For what? To tell ourselves we are social media influencers?

The Positives?

Free Hosting For Our Blog

Authors get paid when people like you upvote their post.
If you enjoyed what you read here, create your account today and start earning FREE STEEM!
Sort Order:  

There have been a lot of whistling past the graveyard posts lately telling me why I should power up because all the great Steemit new whiz bang things are going to be rocket fuel to the moon. Sorry, I don't see it any more. Worst investment I have made in a long time was wasting a 1/3 of a bitcoin on Steem that would be worth twice as much instead of losing 50%. Pah! Steem! Spit!

I feel your pain. I understand why people have likely talked so positively about STEEM. It has great examples of games and alternative ways to post to the blockchain. It honestly is pretty amazing but unfortunately from an investment perspective it has been very questionable.

In my time on STEEM we have dropped from #3 on CoinMarketCap to #81. That is pretty extreme slippage to say the least.

Steemit is cool, but I treat it as a hobby and my time goes to hunting down the next eth or nano.

I sure with Nano had human readable addresses like STEEM. No inflation and human readable wallet address would be awesome with the instant transactions and no fees! I still have my solid Nano position but I might think about stacking more.

STEEM is like a gazelle that got taken down a few days ago. The lions had their meal and so have the hyenas. A few vultures will get a few pecks in but not enough to nourish themselves at this point. The gazelle isn't magically coming back to life.

LOL - One of the most interesting descriptions I've heard lately. Keep up the positivity!

Poetic justice! Maybe I'm kind of a good writer and that is why I stick around and talk to myself. Hahahha

The gazelle can just magically come back to life!
It has to.
Its got to.

....please?

Through magic! and the forces of evil.
i command you gazelle, rrriiiiiiizzzzzeeee.

Hahhaha! Maybe the Gazelle gets reincarnated as Voice? Just to be killed off again because no one wants to do KYC.

I've been asking quite some (non-crypto) people if they would be willing to sign up for something like Voice taking in account they would have to identify themselves and most of them are OK with it. But it would have to easy enough, taking a picture of your ID card would be fine, but sending your utility bills would just be too much to ask. Let's see how this KYC will look like.

Perhaps a viable investment in steemit today is in one of its tokens. There are some that seem to be able to walk well.

I worry about the tokens because of what I have seen on other platforms. Most of the tokens on Ethereum took a beating and also the tokens on EOS got sold off pretty hard to gain more EOS. So some of these STEEM tokens that are giving the tokens for people doing certain activities will likely get sold for more STEEM and then the STEEM is getting sold off for Ethereum, or Litecoin, or Bitcoin.

There may be a few that could possibly do good but it is hard to say. It seems like one of the only EOS tokens that has done well is pEOS.

I agree with pretty much everything you write about in your blog.

I have done my fair share in trying to explain to @exyle he is way to emotionally invested and to @taskmaster4450 he is way to positive about all of the new features being added to the Steem blockchain.

Other blockchains don't have working (d)apps, other blockchains don't have the community we have here on Steem. Hence Steem is amazing and way undervalued. Price will very likely go up!

I understand where they are coming from, but they picture Steem as if this project could fail but is still very likely to succeed.

I'm not that optimistic. Though this is certainly a possibility, I don't think this is very likely to happen.

Powering up to the max and taking pride in never powering down is a clear sign to me this is not good advice.

What are you holding yourself these days? Any change in your portfolio?

I can understand how a lot of these guys really want to focus on the positives and then they become so deeply invested in it that the majority of what they do revolves around promoting it and putting a positive spin on everything.

The premise that they are buying in when everyone is shaking their head no in general can be right. I mean everyone thought I was an idiot when I was pounding the order books last December just about every day. That already played out a couple of months later and I have been sitting in the money on the majority of that. Unfortunately STEEM seemed to be the wrong project to be doing that strategy on.

It is a tough pill to swallow because this ecosystem is pretty awesome with all the apps like eSteem and Partiko and people like Splinterlands and other games. So from first glance it would for sure seem like all this was undervalued but the initial distribution, the governance system, and the incentives here have been so messed up that it causes it to go into a death spiral.

I'm mainly holding the same stuff. Heavy in EOS, Litecoin, Monero, Tron, Ethereum, Bitcoin, ZCash, Nano and I have other positions in a lot of other stuff. I haven't really made a ton of trades or anything. Just kept buying and stacking more.

What it looks like is that Steem doesn't want to focus on rewarding quality content anymore. @exyle has made clear it is about building your account and then earning from it. That makes sense to a certain extent, but I don't see the broader audience being interested in that really.

It's not even about content anymore, it's now about building (d)apps, which brings Steem in competition with EOS. Why is Steem trying to be EOS? Why would you try to compete with EOS even? Try to focus on content, no? Like SteemHunt is doing. I do like the SteemHunt project the most, certainly!

I need to look in to Nano then! I don't know anything about that project.

I never understood why Tron is up so high up the list on CMC though, in your opinion what does Tron add that EOS or ETH doesn't? Isn't it like a mix of both in a way?

I agree with you that the larger audience isn't interesting on pumping a ton of money into STEEM to get enough STEEM to then talk about what you are going to talk about to pay yourself based on the STEEM you bought.

To most people the carrot of YouTube is much more enticing partially because people have gotten rich being YouTube creators and they can legitimately get famous on that platform. There are only a few stories from early STEEM where a couple people were rewarded extra ordinary money here for a brief period of time and then it relied on them powering down and getting the money out at the right time otherwise the new found wealth vanished into thin air.

There is no apparent path to success to content creators immediately but then when a person gets on here they see that people are getting the most support just talking about how great the platform is so they start doing that which oftentimes doesn't make sense to people looking from the outside in.

There has been little to no content put on STEEM that has any value on the larger Internet. For instance the stuff on DTube wouldn't be able to go viral or anything because the people getting rewarded were mainly just talking about how great STEEM and DTube are.

It is a good question of why there was this focus on competing with EOS and I think it was mainly something Ned decided with SMTs because he was mad Dan was gone. Unfortunately he couldn't execute and we still don't have SMTs.

Nano is interesting for sure but the main attraction to me was there is no inflation and no miners that have to sell coins to pay for electricity. Same with IOTA. They are both what are called DAGs. I just think if the right marketing is done with something like NANO that it will pump hard in the next boom. It is hard to say though.

It kind of seemed like we were going to get some relief from the crypto winter and in some respects we did with Bitcoin, Litecoin and a few others but now it is a big waiting game still on a lot of stuff.

Well Tron is a lot faster than Ethereum. It has 3 second blocks like STEEM but has the ability to do smart contracts where as Ethereum is 15 second blocks which is really too slow for real world applications.

EOS is superior with 0.5s block times. Tron is a legitimate project and the reason I'm mainly invested in it is because of the marketing and I always want a China play. My main China plays are NEO and Tron. People always want to root for their home town team so that is why I have them primarily. The one negative is that Tron has Justin Sun as CEO and he just makes stuff up half the time. It is almost like in China it is respectable to be sneaky and sort of lie about stuff though. I know that sounds bad but I have heard that from several different first hand accounts of people who have done business over there and that seems to be the way Justin operates. Taking all that away TRON does have a working smart contract platform.

It is almost like in China it is respectable to be sneaky and sort of lie about stuff though.

Absolutely.

Posted using Partiko Android

Confirmed once again! Hahhaha

Thanks for the reply!

I need to look in to Tron and Nano then. I researched DAGs a bit but never enough. I saw IOTA pop up there some years ago and got scared when they announced their proposal didn't even have blockchain anymore. Glad I didn't FOMO in at the time as it crashed hard quickly after that.

I am still looking into EOS the most. My account name is 'The Monetary Few' after all and I do love the way a platform like EOS uses inflation to run the network so it can have zero transaction costs. That's just brilliant in my opinion.

Projects like Eva.coop, Emanate, Prospectors, Infiniverse, Blankos, Everipedia... and of course Voice look really promising to me!

The recent development with LiquidApps are pretty amazing too!

Certainly Eva.coop and Emanate I do like a lot as they aim to introduce two tokens, one stable coin and one for investors. THAT makes a lot of sense to me. And I have to give it to Facebook for getting that part right with Libra.

Enjoy your posts and updates but don't see the point in posts that bash the very platform you're on!

I agree with many of your points but we're still so early in this game.

EOS has equally disappointed in recent months wouldn't you say? Voice was a huge let-down of an announcement.

Most would agree that STEEM's drop in price and ranking is not good but I keep being drawn back, despite attempts to put some space between me and it! Plus its potential (remains) huge and it is up and running.

Maybe we should give it a break and see what happens...?

Posted using Partiko Android

I have said several times in my YouTube videos that STEEM has a ton of issues. The reason I'm bashing it is because I give my thoughts on different crypto projects and personally I think it is financially wreckless to chase profitability on here when there were so many inherent issues that were never addressed.

Also it is frustrating for all content creators to find out that the platform really has nothing to do with content. Steemit Inc could have easily solved the situation by making the trending page a product of several different criteria. Amount of Upvotes, Amount of Comments, A base level reputation level of the creator, average reputation level of all upvotes......etc. Some sort of way to make the best content rise to the top. Instead they just have kept the Trending as purely Stake Weight which was another crucial mistake they let go on for years.

Personally I don't think we are early in the game. We were early with this in 2016 and it had so much potential. At this point slipping from 3rd on CoinMarketCap to 81st doesn't make people feel confident that they should place their money here. 6 months is an eternity in crypto. It is sort of like expecting a project like NXT to come back. It was a great project back in 2014 / 2015 but we can't really expect it to rise up to the top 20 again.

I don't know why Block One announced Voice without actually rolling out the app / site during the announcement. So yeah that was a disappointment and the fact they are saying they are going to do KYC is a huge blow in my mind. I don't think that is going to work because even guys like me don't want to go through it and I was a mentor for their hackathons in Sydney and San Francisco. As far as the price action I'm not too tripped out because I'm just going to keep stacking and I feel that our next window will be after September. Ultimately Voice isn't everything that EOS is. There are tons of other projects going on that people are interested in like Prospectors. Yeah we would all wish the price would surge more and get back to all time highs but it is going to take some more time. It is already way ahead of STEEM as far as being listed on Kraken and Coinbase at this point and it is technologically superior to STEEM.

I'm still here and have a little bit of stake but it has been over 3 years and it is clear that those in power aren't going to navigate the ship in a direction that is actually best for the entire ecosystem. They are acting in their own self interest and when people realize that they see that it is in somewhat of a death spiral.

I wish it weren't so and I can already tell that the next time STEEM pumps people will say that it was still a good thing to buy low and sell high but it is way more risky to do that here than is to just do it with Litecoin or Monero.

I wish this wasn't the case because the tech has a ton of potential. Unfortunately I don't have enough money to invest in taking this concept and fixing what I see as the issues. And I don't feel comfortable doing some sort of ICO to raise the money because people really took a severe beating on investing in a lot of this stuff.

Appreciate the full and detailed response. I enjoy your YT videos. I think most would find it hard to disagree that steem has a ton of issues!

Yeah, I think too much was left to slide during 2017 and can't help but think that the team at steemit were blindsided and ended up drinking too much of their own kool aid when prices were knocking $8 - they've implied that when they had the layoffs and a reshuffle of the leadership team etc.

I've also wanted steemit Inc to jump in and clean up much of the crap that's been going on (trending page etc as you point out) but wonder whether they've felt restricted by the whole centralised v decentralised model of crypto - "the code is the code" and all that...? If I was Ned, you would have needed to fight to stop me stepping in and messing with it! Maybe hf21 will help with the trending page etc...

Also, although Eli (the new md) is seemingly no Justin Sun, she at least has a focus on getting sh*t done and maybe languishing in 80th spot is right for Steem right now, whilst the painful and unglamorous work of getting up to speed with missed deadlines and general fixing is carried out.

Plus, I suppose I just want it to work. I know it's not good to get emotionally attached to projects but there's a kinda underdog status to STEEM that I like. It's not showered in investment like EOS etc. So many are betting against it. Yet there's a decent community here and some who are heavily invested and determined to make it work - it might only take a handful of influencers or communities to shift here and then it might be hard to stop.

Having said all of that, I powered down a chunk of my meagre stack a month or so ago. Feeling like it was all going to nothing. At these latest prices I might be tempted to have another little nibble, given the potential asymmetrics from here. I haven't written it off just yet - I just can't seem to be able to do it 😂

Posted using Partiko Android

Tell me more of these...'women'...you speak of. How do I attract them down into my basement? Trail of crumbled oreos?

Ice cream works best ....... and chocolate. LOL

Thanks for sharing such deep insight!
It’s painful to hear the truth. But I have an inkling of this any way.

Yeah it is unfortunate but at least we still have a place to share our ideas. At the end of the day we can utilize this place to build some friendships.

That’s great! Still life goes on.

All the best.