Steem as a Digital Currency

nanzo-scoop (74) · 8 years ago

Good post! Steemit is very blog/ social media focused. I think it would be good to have an app that is payment focused. A pure online wallet. With address book feature etc. Stripped on social media/ blogging features.

With the option to lock up STEEM in SP being seen as a saving vehicle. And locking up SP into "Curation Fund(s)" seen as an investment option that pays dividends.

I'm sure there are some users would love STEEMs payment opinions (alongside dividends paid from SP/ Curation), whilst keeping arms length from the nitty gritty of reading blogs and social media.

As more apps are built on the STEEM blockchain, users can decide how best to allocate their SP (via Proxies) in order to maximise returns.

Another factor which has made Monero and Dash successful is the anonymity. If there was a way to make transactions from a STEEM wallet app even pseudo-anonymous, that would again give wider appeal.

$1.03

williambanks (69) · 8 years ago

You mean something like SteemBux?
https://steemit.com/steemit/@williambanks/steembux-is-now-officially-open-source

Which reminds me, I need to get that into the app store when I get a chance to catch my breath.

$0.13

13 votes

jrcornel (84) · 8 years ago

That is a great idea about an app that is payment focused. That seems like the next logical step! Steem certainly does have several distinct advantages over some other cryptocurrencies, most of which are mentioned here. If we could just figure out how to stabilize the price I would think there would be a lot of demand for other use cases...

$0.10

8 votes

digicrypt (60) · 8 years ago

I agree. Anonymity is crucial. Another reason DASH has been successful is how heavily marketed it is. DASH is marketed in a very inorganic way, where there central team promotes the currency through posts and videos in a way other cryptos have not. In the short term this method seems to be very effective, over the long term I am not so sure. My point is Steemit & STEEM could possibly benefit from a more organized marketing campaign. I am considering doing a post about that when I get the time.

$0.10

furion (70) · 8 years ago

I'm not sure how crucial anonimity is in a world where *99% of digital money transactions (by numbers, not volume) are not anonymous.

I do agree however that marketing is key here.

*I made that number up.

$0.00

digicrypt (60) · 8 years ago

Digital money transactions have not been anonymous because the average person hasn't had the ability to transact anonymously. Crypto currency changes that. There is now a new benchmark that has been set, now that other cryptos offer the function of anonymity, why would you choose something that doesn't give you that ability. That is just my opinion, I am not sure if people who know less about crypto would even care, but within the community it seems to be very important.

$0.00

someonewhoisme (54) · 8 years ago (edited)

Agreed on all points. Anonymity is key.

$0.00

samupaha (66) · 8 years ago

Yeah, anonymity is very much needed. Not everybody is willing to show to the whole world what they are buying and selling.

$0.00

williambanks (69) · 8 years ago

How cool would it be to have a Xapo like debit card, that is funded with STEEM/SBD, and acts as a bridge between digital and legacy real world?

Just an FYI, we can do that right now. TradeQwik just treats SBD as USD at a rate of 1:1 we don't even have an SBD market, you deposit SBD and you're credited with a face value amount of USD.

You can withdraw to your card existing card, or we can issue you a card once we get enough orders to make it viable to order a batch.

We also run ATMs (albeit in Mexico) where you can buy and sell SBD, we may expand that network soon.

Sorry not trying to take over your thread with an ad, but everything you're talking about, are things we're working on right now. Follow @tradeqwik and @vivacoin for more details.

$0.62

snowflake (65) · 8 years ago (edited)

What are some practical things we could do now, to reverse the price trend, and allow people to save in Steem and sleep well at night?

Reduce power down period to one week . This should be in hard fork 17 imo. The sooner the better

The faster steem is tranfered from weak to strong hands the faster the price can start to go back up. Sure the price might go down to 1 cent but that's exactly what we want so people can sell their share for pennies and get out fast.
Locking people's coin for 3 months doesn't prevent people from selling, it just slows down the price discovery process. This feature looks scammy from the outside, people don't like being locked they want control over their money. You are not going to get any investment from people if you remove them ability to withdraw their fund at any time.

The lack of liquidity is also a killer for speculators and also the uncertainity coming from constantly moving liquid supply.

edit: the best solution would be to remove steem power and let steem be votable after 7 days held in an account
it would remove complexity created by having steem power ( power up/down, coins locked,etc..)

$0.13

furion (70) · 8 years ago

I think you have a very good point here.

I think maybe the rationale for 3 months is as a form of safety mechanism, if there is a sheep-mentality event (ie. everyone panics), the damage is contained, and there is time for people to cool-off.

$0.00

liberosist (70) · 8 years ago (edited)

Also, it may be to prevent people from voting multiple times with transferred stake. If with a 30 day payout period 3 months was necessary, surely with HF17 and 7 day payout the power down time should come down to 3 weeks. I agree with @snowflake, a lock-in period of any kind is bad PR.

None of the top cryptocurrencies have any lock-in, yet they are successful and relatively a lot more stable than Steem.

$0.00

smooth (70) · 8 years ago

The main rationale is to prevent multiple voting attacks (vote, transfer coins to another account, vote again). If somehow the voting issues are separated from the currency issues (or the voting issues addressed another way) there isn't a need for it.

The proposal to have one 7-day voting period (instead of the current 24 hours + 30 days) cmeans power down could be reduced, probably to about 3 weeks, without being any more vulnerable to multiple voting.

$0.00

snowflake (65) · 8 years ago (edited)

1 week and 1 minute would be enough to prevent double voting if voting period is 1 week.
Why 3 weeks?

$0.00

liberosist (70) · 8 years ago (edited)

[Nesting limit] I totally agree - that makes a lot of sense. I had written about eliminating Steem Power and just having Steem a long time ago. Waiting one week before it counts as influence is an elegant enough solution. That'll do away with any lock-in period, make the system much simpler and more accessible to users and open up the currency to investors.

$0.04

snowflake (65) · 8 years ago (edited)

Good to hear man! I agree it would be a more elegant solution. Hopefully we can get the devs on board :)

$0.00

smooth (70) · 8 years ago

assuming the payout is exactly 7 days then yes. i assume it would have the usual extended period as now so you can't snipe vote at the very end. that means someone who votes and then initiates a power down would get their first 1/3 before the post is over, allowing a partial double vote, which is the same as now.

$0.00

snowflake (65) · 8 years ago (edited)

I see what you mean, you want 3 weeks so someone is only able to partially double vote right? 1 week would allow someone to double vote with all stake..

I think it would be best to completely remove steem power and allow users to vote with steem that has been in their wallet for more than 7days.
Say I have 100 steem in my wallet and I just sent myself an extra 50 steem , my upvote would be worth 100 steem until 11th of march ( 1 week from now) , after 11th my vote would be worth 150 steem.

if I vote for something with 100 steem then decide to send those 100 steem to another account to upvote the same content, the other account will have to wait 1 week for the 100 steem to be included in the upvote, so it would be too late to upvote for the same content. This design seem like it would be more secure and not interfere with user experience, also would remove complexity of having 3 currencies.

$0.00

liberosist (70) · 8 years ago (edited)

I could start a power down with account @david on Sunday, make a post on Tuesday, upvote it on Wednesday, get my SP liquidated to Steem on Sunday. Power up the Steem to @goliath, vote on second Monday. The payout happens on second Tuesday, with effectively two votes for the same SP holding.

That said, this could be probably be prevented by disabling voting for the stake powering down. So if you power down 75% of your SP holding, it'll all be liquidated in one week, but for that week you would only be voting with the remaining 25% of your SP.

The idea of disabling voting on powering down stake was previously brought up, but the problem is due to the long drawn schedule it never made sense. However, if someone wants to liquidate their SP holding anyway, I don't think anyone would mind not voting for 1 week.

[Edit - snowflake has a better solution. Just do away with Steem Power, and let Steem be votable after 7 days held in an account]

Doesn't the SP delegation feature have something similar, the reverse way? I.e. when a delegation is canceled, it'll be one week before the delegator can vote again.

I'd definitely like to see this implemented. A 1 week power down period sounds much better.

$0.00

snowflake (65) · 8 years ago (edited)

That said, this could be probably be prevented by disabling voting for the stake powering down

Check my answer to smooth above. A system where steem power is removed and where only the steem that has been in an account for 1 week can upvote would also solve the problem you mentionned.

$0.00

snowflake (65) · 8 years ago (edited)

I think maybe the rationale for 3 months is as a form of safety mechanism, if there is a sheep-mentality event (ie. everyone panics), the damage is contained, and there is time for people to cool-off.

This is anti free market. In such event you need to let the market play out, risky periods is actually when traders make the most money.

The 3 months lock period is an unnecessary barrier to entry. It prevents a lot of people from investing and playing the curation game. Nobody want their money locked, even a week is too long but it is required to prevent double voting. A week is enough to contain damage anyway, you don't need 3 months for that.

$0.00

furion (70) · 8 years ago

I was just trying to play devils advocate. I think the arguments you've laid out for 1 week are very appealing, I would love to hear @dantheman's take on it.

$0.00

thecryptofiend (74) · 8 years ago

At that point one might ask what the purpose is of having a power down period at all? Perhaps it would be better to just allow people to vote according to the weight of the liquid Steem in their account?

$0.00

4 votes

snowflake (65) · 8 years ago (edited)

You need a locking period to prevent someone from transfering his stake to another account and vote multiple times on the same stuff.
But you make a great point, and I have been discussing this with the busy team recently and they also seem to agree that SP could be removed too and that 3 currencies is confusing for people but we would need a mecanism to prevent double voting with liquid steem.

$0.11

4 votes

thecryptofiend (74) · 8 years ago

Of course and I think it was mentioned in the white paper too. Not sure what other mechanism could do that though.

$0.00

snowflake (65) · 8 years ago (edited)

@fabien said something like, if the payout period is 7 days then only the steem that has been in the wallet for more than 7days can upvote. I havn't thought about all the details but i think it could work.

$0.00

thecryptofiend (74) · 8 years ago

I will need to think about it but it might.

$0.00

svamiva (60) · 8 years ago

Someone who wants to get out quickly could just sell his account.

$0.00

lukestokes (75) · 8 years ago

Should we draw any conclusions from bitshares with is now at a third of a cent? How low can it go?

$0.00

stellabelle (75) · 8 years ago

The answer lies inside this video:

Notice how the workers are constantly trying to rebuild, but cannot because they do not possess the power. See how this power imbalance affects the entire ecosystem and makes it dysfunctional. The answer lies in there.

$0.07

snowflake (65) · 8 years ago (edited)

@furion If you don't mind Ill add a few other reasons why steem is the best digital currency.

Steem/SBD is the only crypto with a real chance of being used for commerce as it's stable and SBD can be pegged to any asset.

Steem is one of the only altcoins that has actual intrinsic value, if the value of the token where to go to zero steem would just be as useful as it is now. Sure the rewards may be zero but people would still distribute those steem with their voting power and steem could very well have a higher price in the future.

Steem has community built in, which means it has a huge advantage over other crypto to bootstrap the currency.

People don't have to spend their own money to get steem, they just have to post and they can receive some steem.

Steem's blockchain is superior to pretty much every other blockchain in terms of technological advancement.

Steem has the potential to be integrated on every website in the world, that puts the technology on par with ethereum.

The development in steem is fastest growing than any other blockchain

Steem is super user friendly, no weird addresses, instant and free transac,etc..

$0.02

11 votes

tarekadam (67) · 8 years ago

Great addition to @Furion 's points. We are sitting on a gold mine indeed.

$0.00

englishtchrivy (72) · 8 years ago

@furion word on this two points! some are trying their best to use it already but like some food store in Germany is already accepting Steem for a choco cake I remember that they met up in that place and used SBD or Steem can't remember but anyway .. you are right about these 2 points. We need a plan for this to happen and we don't have any as of the moment.

I have always enjoyed the payment properties of Steem, however it never occurred to me that this is actually Steem killer feature, a gem hiding in the plain sight.

I think too much time has been spent on the blogging aspect of the platform, and some of us forgot how good is the payment side of things.

as for this ...

How cool would it be to have a Xapo like debit card, that is funded with STEEM/SBD, and acts as a bridge between digital and legacy real world?

I once read on one of @heiditravel's blog where she was asking Ned and Dan for a Steem card. If you have read a few of my posts where I mention how btc is being used here - all you need is to scan it on your phone. Why not something like that? Handy and very easy to use.

What if we could pay for more things and services online with STEEM/SBD?

I guess with this we have to swallow the fact that it's going through inflation and I remembering watching one of the dollarvigilante's video and I remember hearing it there that it is also designed this way. However, since @mallorcaman and @williambanks have recently given Steem a small breakthrough to be of used then maybe it would help if the many of us try that.

Can we think of any applications, other than blogging, that would tie in nicely with STEEM as transfer of value?

how about ads? many don't like having ads but I think once we start having ads and if we let the community choose which ads come out of each one's post then it would be okay or would that be too much work for the witnesses?

$0.02

4 votes

cryptofreedom (65) · 8 years ago

In my opinion the reason that the price of Steem has been consistently decreasing is the fact that there are a large amount of very large holders who are willing to sell at a specific price, combined with the absence of the required number of individuals to buy Steem as a means of investing.
Any time when Steem's value begins to increase, the increase is nearly always met with a very strong sell resistance which quickly drops the price back down. Steem as a cryptocurrency is different than others in respect that many medium to small size holders didn't necessarily have to invest "money", but rather time and effort.
In most cryptocurrencies, many holders will take a specific position and not sell until it is profitable, but when individuals don't have to invest currency to acquire the Steem many individuals are willing to sell during a price increase. Much of the Steem volume traded is likely from early adopters and witnesses who have recurring costs, meaning that they need to have a flow of income to come along with it.
I have heard from numerous different users things such as "I would sell at x price" and that's not necessarily a bad thing, but when a large percentage of users would be motivated to sell at specific prices, maintaining any major price gains would likely only be possible if there was a significant increase in investment into the Steemit platform.
Especially for individuals who acquired their Steem through rewards , individuals want to ensure that they actually get as much as they can out of their Steem if they have a short term view rather than an investment view. The abundance of sell motivation during any price gains make it very difficult for Steem to hold any of the gains it has earned.

$0.02

son-of-satire (69) · 8 years ago

This is a great post, and STEEM really is superior to Bitcoin in a number of ways.

I think the problem is though, that not enough people know that. This is a good article, but it's directed at those who already know all the benefits of Steemit.

We need to find a way to get this info outside of Steemit and in front of the eyes of the masses. Especially those who are only recently learning about crypto through the news of the Bitcoin price rise.

$0.00

13 votes

edrivegom (66) · 8 years ago

I also think that the steem is better than the bitcoin you have to give it more to know I think it would be very good that all help spread so that more people know the steem there is much talent in steemit that can create very good creative advertising that highlights the benefits of the Steem

$0.00

cryptomancer (63) · 8 years ago

There are many cryptocurrencies which are technically superior to Bitcoin, but that doesn't mean they will necessarily succeed in the long run. In addition to brilliant technology, to be successful a project needs brilliant marketing. Plus Bitcoin already has an established networking effect to overcome.

The Ethereum team has done a good job on this front, which is one reason Ether has become the #2 crypto by market cap today. Vitalik & his team travel the world, speaking at conferences, developing business contacts, and getting companies interested in developing for the Ethereum ecosystem.

Steemit is well positioned for a similar marketing blitz due to its social nature. But what I haven't seen so far (or maybe I'm just not aware of it) is an effort to reach out to the commercial sector and get big companies excited about Steem. I think this should be a priority. The Steem price isn't going to recover from Joe Sixpack and Susie Soccermom buying a little here & there. It's going to take organizations & seasoned investors with deep pockets, who recognize the potential of the technology and see an increasing network effect leading to more adoption.

$0.00

btc-dialog (54) · 8 years ago

I think in terms of what needs to be done: I think there are some issues with how steem works at its core that is the reason for the bad performance.

I've outlined this here:https://steemit.com/steem/@knircky/i-am-doing-it-again-power-up-steem

I think the blogging and social media app needs to be fixed. Then the payment and blockchain features can be used.

$0.00

arthuradamson (66) · 8 years ago

Great post.
By coincidence I wrote this on a newbie post to help explain Steem as they had no idea what crypto-currencywas.:::::
In theory. "Steem-coin" has the potential to become as valuable as Bitcoin.
In many ways it is even better than Bitcoin because it is far easier to use.
One reason is that you dont need a long complicated addresses to send money (steem) to someone.
Say I wanted to send some Bitcoin to someone: Here is what a typical Bitcoin address looks like: 1NsfyXf6PXFKsu5AQ9hBbEZ7YFSfykEfU9
If I want to send Steem to someone a typical address is: @sumsum
See the difference?
Once people get how easy Steem works in this way then it will have huge influence on how we use and send money.

$0.00

joele (55) · 8 years ago (edited)

Only few of these English speaking/writer are into Blogging, and these bloggers do not invest more because they can earn by blogging.

Crypto users are more interested in investing to make more coins specially non-english users.

My suggestion to give all users to participate not only users with English writing skills.

A discussion service like Reddit should be added to Steemit, so everyone can use this service.

An alternate account name for anonymity, transactions for this account is not viewable to public.

A minimum Steem requirements before you can earn interest from Power Up. (like 10K steem)

Add Steem News/Update link on top of the page.

$0.00

denmarkguy (76) · 8 years ago

I think some of this is natural evolution. There will always be a number of early adopters whose primary objective is short term gain. Outside crypto world, they buy IPOs and dump them three weeks later. Their "investments" aren't really predicated on value and performance, but short term price spikes.

Longer term investors (I believe) are more value oriented; they invest in things based on "this seems like a really brilliant idea" and a prepared to hold for much longer period. But that puts the onus back on us to "have something worth investing in."

The social blogging platform is a really good start because it fills a niche nobody currently owns (between Facebook and WordPress), with the added attraction that contributions earns stake in the platform... wrote a lengthy piece about that, last night.

In terms of functionality and utility, I see the platform being a really good basis for a true peer-to-peer marketplace based on Steem/cryptocurrencies... a combination of eBay & Etsy & music; doing the best of what these sites were before they went all "big corporate." Take PeerHub as a basis, and "pump it full of steriods" and you have something... take out a minimal transaction fee (2%? 3%? eBay and Etsy currently cost you about 10%) and pump that back into the system as liquidity. If traders additionally accept BTC and USD, Steem would have additional "value backing."

I was also thinking of the idea of creating an attractive base for charities/non-profit organization who could receive donations directly from their supporters who might create supportive content and give up their rewards. Again, for a much smaller fee than similar external platforms offer... and yet, there's a commercial "fee" that can be collected as the actual financial underpinnings for the system.

I'm thinking of this because there's always the issue that the system currently "gives away" Steem for content... there needs to be something more sustainable for long term attractiveness and viability.

$0.00

eric-boucher (68) · 8 years ago

Great post and an enlightening one to boot!

In relation to your last question, I guess I would love to see the top Steem developers and investors make act of presence at many of the cryptocurrency "shows" or related financial expositions to give direct exposure to the knowledge of it as well as the rugged sustainable philosophy behind the platform itself. From there, knowing that we already have a pretty amazing community on here already, it would be a matter diversifying our connections through a two-way communication platform allowing by the same token to start branching into other social medias much more efficiently and at a moments basis. It is my conviction that THIS is urgently needed either way! but, who am I to talk as I am not the one behind the wheel? Maybe the ones that do have a master plan that is following its due course in spite of us all and in spite of it all?

Thanks again for the great point of views you offered us by writing this article. All for one and one for all! Namaste :)

$0.00

tfeldman (65) · 8 years ago

I think we just need more speculation that the price will increase. If a short term investor thinks the price will go up will he or she sell? The dumping may occur because some mined vs bought but even a short term investor will have temptation to hold if they think they can make more! How to increase speculation...that is the question....

$0.00

tarekadam (67) · 8 years ago (edited)

Great and informative post! Up-voted and followed. I agree that we need some real world applications where Steem can be used to buy / sell things. In one of my last posts I suggested an Online Tutorial site where various content could be purchased with Steem (Similar to Udemy, Lynda).

The comments from @snowflake also make a lot of sense to me regarding

Reducing the lock period
Provide more / better marketing (e.g. like Amanda is doing for Dash) and
Probably get rid of SBD and SteemPower and just hold Steem.

It would be great if someone from Steem.Inc could provide their opinion on these points.

$0.00

steevc (73) · 8 years ago (edited)

I've used Steem and SBD to pay people for art and music. I want to do more of that. It's really convenient and doesn't eat into my bank account. I'd allocate part of what I earn here to such purchases. I hope to see more options available soon.

It will be a shame if SBD has to go. As you said that makes life easier for sellers.

Would it help if some whales used their Steem to buy art from some of the fine artists here? Distributing the Steem would help to balance things out and it may encourage others to sign up and become part of that market.

$0.00

freebornangel (73) · 8 years ago

Now if we could just get them basta,...uh, folks, to stop selling,...

$0.00

pnc (64) · 8 years ago

Great post @furion. I still think the SteemPay project was a good one to get the payment going. I just got in contact with people doing remittance to Africa and they were amaze of what steem can be for international payment especially with micro-payment or selling digital product where we can pay with Steem and SBD. Also SteemQ was a great project, so what do u need to make this project back again in terms of development (cost, ressource to bring a better version).

$0.00

furion (70) · 8 years ago

SteemQ was built on some very flawed assumptions. I have a few ideas on how to fix it, but then it wouldn't tie into STEEM's model anymore.

$0.00

araki (63) · 8 years ago (edited)

I enjoyed reading this blog and every comment here, i would like to stress in some points and give my humble opinion :
.
First of all great blog @furion, thank you for time and effort, i have been searching for info about STEEM potential as cryptocurency and why price is falling in such a dramatic way.
Really i didn't know some of your good points about STEEM as cryptocurrency.
I think your point about payment app is crucial, to take STEEM from experiment credit in Beta test social platform to currency that people can really use.
.
@snowflake point about Reducing power down period to minimal is mandatory i think, without giving a chance for double vote, delay pay out crate unstable market, price can fall any time, it happened before, happening now and it will happen again.
.
@nanzo-scoop, I think anonymity is over evaluated in cryptospace, i mean if I am not drug dealer or doing something wrong and my coins is protected well against hackers, I won't care that much to be invisible (take a look at BTC).
.
@cryptofreedom have a good explanation that people give away their STEEM easily specially if they got it as a reweds, I thought same way before but i think this is not the real problem, i think about blogger as a miners they earn every coin for making platform alive and attracting new comer. like mining when difficulty increase price follow it and it will if new miners\steemian join the platform.
This will lead us to the last and best point.
.
When I open a discussion about STEEM in Poloniex troll box where you can find a traders and some investors they all have negative impression about STEEM for example they used to say " STEEM take our money and give it to bloggers" or something in same meaning, such a claim come only from people don't understand STEEM or STEEMIT. In fact a lot of people in cryptospace still think that steemit is a scam.
Like @son-of-satire said "We need to find a way to get this info outside of Steemit and in front of the eyes of the masses"
Thnx again for the blog & the helpful discussion :)

$0.00

jrcornel (84) · 8 years ago

SBD is being removed as a currency? I hadn't realized that...

$0.00

smooth (70) · 8 years ago (edited)

It isn't being removed altogether, just the amount created to pay rewards and the amount in circulation is being reduced. (There was some discussion about removing it altogether but there is no current plan to do so.) It is a natural consequence of STEEM's price dropping (since SBD is backed by STEEM, if STEEM is worth less then you can't have as much SBD) so in that sense the two issues mentioned in the post are really the same (declining value of the coin).

$0.00

jrcornel (84) · 8 years ago

Ah I see... that makes sense. For some reason I had read it differently then that in the post. Thanks for the explanation!

$0.00

harferri (78) · 8 years ago

Nice post 👍

$0.00

markush (62) · 8 years ago

Great post. Can you explain this further.

"It comes with built in escrow. Seriously, if you don't trust someone to do their part (ie. in a mercantile exchange), just escrow the transaction with a trusted 3rd party."

$0.00

etcmike (76) · 8 years ago

Upvoted and Re-steemed!!!

This is a really great post that every Steemian should read!

Thank you for putting this post together,
Steem on,
Mike

$0.00

yoganarchista (68) · 8 years ago

Upvoted and Resteemed :)

$0.00

decentralizd (62) · 8 years ago

Some great reasoning here, now we just need people to stop being plebs.

$0.00

the-oracool (65) · 8 years ago (edited)

Don't forget number 9, my child. It is intimately linked to the community in which one can find @the-oracool.

This should be the main selling point when it comes to STEEM.

Excellent post, I might add.

$0.00

ender (52) · 8 years ago

Usually you would raise interest rates to protect a currency.

It is an interesting idea though steem is already like the much ballyhooed dash evolution.

$0.00

valiozzi (9) · 8 years ago

3 days withdrawal a convenience? Quite the opposite! The most inconvenient.
efficient, yes. PoW simply sucks.
,,who in the world would want to hold a currency that keeps losing its value? - not true. watch ZEC

$0.00

furion (70) · 8 years ago

3 days for restoring from savings an inconvenience? I don't think so. Its like a secure 'savings' account, and you keep large amounts of money there.

For smaller amounts, you use your regular balance, from which you can withdraw instantly (3 second block time).

$0.00

lukestokes (75) · 8 years ago

Great post. I was going to write something similar this weekend. I can't, for the life of me, understand why so many other altcoins are mooning right now while STEEM is going down. At the same time, it seems, bitshares only goes down. What gives? These seem to be incredible technologies with huge potential. What am I missing here? Or, maybe a better question, what is the market missing?

Is @dan simply too much of a genius, too far ahead of his time, to explain the advancements he's created? I understand this technology is incredible, but I can't fully explain, in simple terms how it all works. I've been trying for 7 months now.

$0.00

snowflake (65) · 8 years ago (edited)

I think there are many things, the ponzi FUD is probably one of the reason people are not touching steem, the fact that steemit inc owns so much steem is possibly scaring investors and also the lock period has done a lot of damage, basically an event that could have been done in a week which is the selling of early adopters/miners's stake took over 6 months so when you look at the chart it doesn't look pretty. I think the complexity of the whole system also played a part and the inflation was a huge mistake. I've talked to many people in crypto and they still think steem has 100% inflation...

$0.00

lukestokes (75) · 8 years ago

I think the complexity of the whole system also played a part

I feel the same about bitshares. I've read a bit about it, but still don't understand it very well.

$0.00

samupaha (66) · 8 years ago

The currency is being distributed to people for their efforts, but if they want to use it for something, they need to sell it in the markets.

The price won't go up until we have genuine usecases for steem and SBD. Currently there is constant supply to the markets but not much demand, except some investors.

$0.00

lukestokes (75) · 8 years ago

But couldn't the same be said for most coins? To me, STEEM has more of a genuine usecase than many other cryptos. At least Steem Power gives someone influence on a social media platform.

$0.00

samupaha (66) · 8 years ago

For most people, the influence they get is very little unless they can invest a huge sum. So they rather work for the influence, they write posts to get it. Unlike most cryptocurrencies, Steem can be acquired by other means besides buying or mining it. If you can invest by writing posts, why you should use your money?

This is of course a good thing, because it gives a way to distribute the currency to the hands of many which makes us closer to the network effect. But that is only a one part of the success.

The next hardfork will remove some of the natural demand for steem (smaller account creation fee), so that will make the situation even worse (not much, of course, but still a little bit).

If we want more genuine users for the currency, we need a marketplace or something like that.

If we want more investors, we need better marketing. Dan is great blockchain dev but marketing isn't his strongest feature. Unfortunately Ned isn't that great in that, either. For example, Ned's interview in Epicenter was failure. He had a great audience of blockchain devs and investors but he wasn't prepared to answer all the most important questions about how Steem was launched, some technical details about consensus protocol, etc. There wasn't even any effort to make things clearer in the aftermath – which would have been a great chance to try to understand why some people are skeptical about Steem and give them satisfying answers.

Big investors want to fully understand how their investment works. Currently it's very hard for people to get up-to-date information about Steem. One of the most important things is the whitepaper which hasn't been updated since the launch.

$0.00

slickwilly (66) · 8 years ago

Upvoted! Yes! Steemit is the best. Those are great reasons.

$0.00

srini (59) · 8 years ago (edited)

When you evaluate the two currencies or even more, you should take Gold price as the deciding factor instead of comparing with the otherdigital currencies. Because BitCoin new-found demand has been happening due to the China factor, where more people are buying because of the instability of their currency. That trend may dissipate quickly. Ideally, if a currency performs over the 'world inflation index' (i imagined this index where we have to take the average of all the nations) and still it performs better, then you need not worry. Or else, the simple calculator is gold. But not with other cryptos.

$0.00

ocrdu (71) · 8 years ago

I'm rooting for: "pay for more things and services online with STEEM/SBD".
Also, a question: Can you send a memo/comment with Bitcoin transactions yet? It would be very convenient for seeing who payed for what etc. when you get an order on a website. A currency that can do that, inside or outside the blockchain, would have one up on BTC.

$0.00

the-ego-is-you (59) · 8 years ago (edited)

And as for STEEM...who in the world would want to hold a currency that keeps losing its value? How do we course-correct, and stabilize the price?

Call me a little behind the curve, but is this even possible to stop? Steem has inbuilt inflation that it needs in order to provide content creators with rewards, so how exactly would you counteract this and to what extent?

If SBD has to disappear entirely, that's a little sad IMO. Coupled with services to diffuse who sent what where, it would have been a killer currency: Stable, decentralized, anonymous.

-Btw @furion could you plot / explain how we would go about plotting the most stable out of the above currencies mentioned on a separate chart? I'd like to see how they performed (separately, but on the same chart) as a portfolio.

$0.00

evimeria (60) · 8 years ago

upvote

$0.00

mughat (56) · 8 years ago (edited)

The main thing that needs to happen is to give STEEM holders a ROI.
One way is to monitize all these great articles using ads and give the profits to STEEM holders. As it is now STEEM holders only suffer paying for rewards. There is no real ROI.

I did a post on this a long time ago: https://steemit.com/steemit/@mughat/the-future-of-steemit-will-include-ads-of-some-kind-here-is-why

$0.00

blocklab (59) · 8 years ago

Great article. I also bought a small portfolio of altcoins last year. BTC and Ether performed great while nxt, ardor sucked. Steem is now ridicously cheap so I would suggest to buy with some play money and see if it goes up again...

$0.00

stealthtrader (67) · 8 years ago

Awesome points, but with private transactions being popular, what about an option to send STEEM privately..?

$0.00

biophil (66) · 8 years ago

I like all of those things, and for a while I was confused about why Steem seems to have been received so poorly despite all its benefits.

I suspect this is because it's quite centralized. I don't know if anybody has formalized this well yet, but it seems to me that any coin that involves stake-weighted anything absolutely needs to have the stake spread out across a large group of individuals.

Steem has stake-weighted everything, and a huge portion of the total stake is controlled by only a few individuals. Of course I'm familiar with the standard arguments for the security of proof-of-stake (i.e., the biggest stakeholders won't act badly because they're the ones who have the most to lose), but I think that must feel pretty flimsy to many people.

So how does a highly-centralized cryptocurrency defeat the stigma of centralization? A combination of two things:

Stick around for a long time to build trust
Decentralize.

The first just happens over time, and we'll have to wait it out. The second is also happening in Steem, bit by bit. Every time the founders sell more of their stake, Steem inches away from centralization. Every trending blog post by a newbie redistributes a tiny fraction of Steem's market cap away from the whales.

$0.00

tjpezlo (61) · 8 years ago (edited)

Insightful... I have to agree,like you I would have earned more had i held on to my BTC acquired in 2014.

I believe in steem's intrinsic value as a coin that even though it countinue to bottom, I Still have around 70% of my portfolio in steem. I started accumulating steem for the 3rd time at .00016 and we are down to .00007 but Im not even worried. I'm postive steem is ripe for accumulation.

Here's my recent post on steemchart update
https://steemit.com/steemit/@tjpezlo/trading-idea-usdusdusdsteem#@cassidyandfranks/re-tjpezlo-trading-idea-usdusdusdsteem-20170304t221630934z

$0.00

realme (40) · 8 years ago

"8. Its censorship resistant."

How is that different from, say, Bitcoin?

$0.00

furion (70) · 8 years ago

8 is really meant to differentiate it against centralized digital money.

$0.00

lovecoins (41) · 8 years ago

Shared!! https://getpocket.com/a/read/1636024454

$0.00

faddat (66) · 8 years ago

ping

Hey, how to set up my own instance of steemdata? I'm working on it now but I figured that it might be best if I ask first, stumble blindly later. Thanks.

$0.00

furion (70) · 8 years ago

Your best bet is to user Docker, or maybe Kubernetes, and wire all components together. If you do, feel free to submit the config as PR.

$0.00

faddat (66) · 8 years ago

Very gladly. I see you already have docker-compose files-- are they known not to work? I did have some issues using them.

$0.00

mikkolyytinen (67) · 8 years ago

A debit card would be so good without having to go through all the exchanges. I was just thinking about it earlier this week and noticed there were few posts about it already, people want it. I can't imagine what it would take to make such a thing happen, but it would cool for sure.

$0.00

floridanow (61) · 7 years ago

Bitcoin will only ever mine 21M coins...they are over 16M now. This means scarcity in the future....which means price protection...and price rise

$0.00