New to STEEMIT, got a question

in steemit •  8 years ago 

Hello Steemers,

My name is Mattie, I'm new to this forum. In a next post I will introduce myself further. First I would like to pose a question.

While trying to understand the concept of Steemit I stumbled upon some (to my understanding) conflicting explanations about powering down from STEEM Power.

In the F.A.Q. on this site it mentiones a 13 week cooldown on a payout in STEEM:

STEEM Power - STEEM Power (abbreviated SP) is a measurement of how much influence a user has in the Steem network. The more STEEM Power a user holds, the more they can influence the value of posts and comments. STEEM Power is less liquid. If a user wishes to “Power Down” SP, they will receive equal distributions of the STEEM weekly, over a 13 week period.

https://steemit.com/faq.html#What_is_the_difference_between_STEEM__STEEM_Power__and_Steem_Dollars

However, in places on this forum I found a different explanation, citing a 2 year period for a 'power down':

"How to Withdraw STEEM POWER
Withdrawing STEEM POWER from your steemit.com account requires you to initiate a process so called Power Down that starts converting your STEEM POWER to STEEM tokens that you can transfer to other users or withdraw and sell. When you initiate a Power Down your current STEEM POWER will start to get converted in 104 equal parts and each of these parts will be available to you in the form of STEEM.

The first portion of STEEM will be available in your Wallet after exactly one week, then in another week you will get the second part of the 104 and so on with the process taking up 2 years or 104 weeks to complete. At any time you are able to Cancel Power Down from your Wallet the same way you initiated it, but the advice is to stop it once you have been paid one of the 104 installments."

https://steemit.com/steemit/@cryptos/how-to-power-down-your-steem-power-the-smart-way

So, what is the story here, which period is it? Did the period change from 104 to 13 weeks? (And if so, how is that possible? Who decides?) Or did I miss something? I hope someone can explain.

Best regards,
Mattie

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They changed the economic model from two years to 13 weeks a while back. Steemit is still in beta so they are trying to figure out what will best serve the interests of the community, site, and future of the currency. 13 weeks is the current model, it may change but I doubt it, they are slowly figuring out what works best.

Hi Justryme, thanks for explaining.
13 weeks does seem a bit more practical indeed.

One question remains, who are 'they' and how come they can change the economics of an already functioning blockchain app? Isn't the whole idea of this technology that nobody has all the power because of its decentralised nature?

They are the steemit developers 'steemit inc' in conjunction with all of the delegates we vote for, who run the network in this DPOS crypto currency backed system. One can only change the parameters through a hard fork, which is a rewrite of the code, and must be approved by all delegates (like what Bitcoin is trying to do with segwit and the miners).

No one person has the power because of decentralization, however the collective does have the power, the delegates are our voice. They have power because we elect them.

Good questions @bbm85, good answers @justtryme90 :-)

Good question! No idea how it works myself really, reports seem contradictory.

I think Steem Power (SP) is a vest token and has influence on your post and curation activities (more SP, more rewards). STEEM is a liquid token, you can transfer to other users (buying products and services) or exchange it for other cryptocoins (Bitcoin mainly).
You Power Up when tranform STEEM in SP and Power Down when doing the inverse.
You can check Steem.center wiki too: https://steemit.com/welcome/@steemcenterwiki/welcome-to-steemit-here-are-some-useful-wiki-articles-for-new-steemians
Welcome and good luck again!

Thank you for replying. I did figure the difference out between steem and steempower. I get that on this platform its best to have a lot of steempower. But the time it takes to transform it into something else ( fiat money or bitcoins) through poweringdown to STEEM is quite a factor. 2 years or 3 months to get to your capital is quite a difference...

I've heard that Bitshares, one of the Steemit founder's previous blockchain project, was launched with this idea of different tokens (vest, dollar pegged and liquid). Maybe comparing both could bring insights to help understand here. Good luck!

Welcome to Steemit!

Thanks! Have you got any idea about the powering down?

You are going to love it here! Follow me at https://steemit.com/@bitgeek

Thanks, following you now!

Hello Mattie, welcome to Steem! :-)

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