The evolution of Steem and Stake

Wishing that Steem was different doesn't make it different. The system here is far from perfect and a large part of it has to do with the way the early days of Steem were but, that is water under the bridge. There are a lot of people who want various groups on Steem to be different but, that isn't going to make it so and for the most arts, the ones that they want to change don't care what other people think about their behavior. The circlejerkers and maximizers are going to jerk and maximize, no matter how much of a written scolding they get from people they don't care about in the slightest.

What is good about most of the people who get their Steem easily though is like @acidyo said, they sell it easily too. What this means is that while it sucks at the moment, slowly those who are selling will be pushed out of the market as they are unlikely to buy back into Steem. We can see this from how many sold at the ATH and are now struggling to get back in at even these prices. When people convert to something else and especially fiat, a lot of bleed happens and while they made gains now, they often can't buy back into the same staked levels as earlier.

Or, they won't buy in because they think that buying Steem is silly because they can get it for free. I was looking at one of the 2016 accounts that Asher did a report on once, and in the first 5 months they earned the same vests that took me almost 2 years to earn. The difference is that they have sold and while they are still earning, they are unlikely to ever earn at that rate because, no one is ever going to earn at that rate again probably. To get those kinds of vests, they are going to need to be hitting 500 dollar posts a couple times a day without a bot in sight. Not going to happen.

But this is the future of Steem where those who earned early and cheaply and sold, slowly become an increasingly endangered species and accounts that the new generations of Steemians don't care much about at all. The people who have been buying in and powering up over the last 6 months likely don't even know who some of the 2016 accounts are because, those accounts are not socially active, they are the maximizers and circlejerks.

The problem is though that currently there is very little competition on the reward pool. Yeah, I know you might disagree with me but the thing is that those early ones in their circles and those who have been maximizing for three years now and have stake find it very easy to earn from the pool because, stake matters. But, the more staked users there are in the system, the less impact they have and of course as price rises, they are the ones who are likely to sell because they have made large gains easily. That might leave a bitter taste in the mouth of some but, there is a much longer game afoot than the short lived stage of maximizers. Seen Jerry's account lately? Joe's?

Look at those comments roll in... oh, that was tumbleweed.

Now, both of those users are well staked but, no one cares because unlike others, they didn't build a community around themselves and, they were largely seen as harmful to the community. Yep, they can still earn something and sell their votes or something but their growth is now limited, constrained. This will happen more and more and in time, no matter about the stake, there will be people struggling for relevancy and acting out for attention.

While all the things hapen over time though, there will be dips and bulls that bring people in and some of those people will be earning and powering up or buying Steem. They might not have a great deal in comparison but there can be many of them. According to @penguinpablo's exchange reprt a few days back, there is 80,000,000 Steem stored on exchanges which is around about 26% of the supply and twice that of what Steemit Inc openly holds (they might have some more too). Remember @theycallmedan saying everyone should own 1000 SP? That is enough for 80,000 accounts to have 1000 SP each and the current price is 461 dollars each.

Yes, that is a lot in some places but it isn't a lot in others and currently, there are only about 15,000 active unique users. If there were suddenly 80,000 users with 1000 SP each, this place would look very different and because they bought in, they would behave very differently to the people who only earned, especially those who earned easy and cheap Steem. You think they care about Kingscrown and his circle? Nope, they are going to be playing @steemmonsters, @drugwars, uploading to @dtube, hunting on @steemhunt and playing with all the other things that will arrive in time.

They will also be distributing.

That means that there would be a far larger staked consumer base that would be open to a much wider range of content types and experiences meaning that for the unstaked, there is a larger market to sell their content to and, more opportunity to build niche in their areas of interest and expertise. Oh, and if those 80,000 decide to use their stake actively and hot, they hold 2.5 times the stake of all the bidbots combined and active use means that there is the Steem powered up has to share more widely. Currently, the Steem sitting on the exchanges doesn't draw on the pool in any way meaning those that are here now have more influence with the SP they have but, if it were to come back, that changes.

And as said, if it is to come back spread across many accounts, that will completely change the way the system operates, especially if there is a lot of compelling things to do with stake for example, things like earn SMTs by voting, using or delegating to projects or if Resource Credits are used as a creative force in games and applications meaning, it requires players and users to hold sake to participate in them. For some projects, SMTs might choose to distribute based on stake also.

Who knows.

And this is the thing with living on Steem as no one really knows what the future holds despite how certain they might be. Have you noticed that those who are the most certain are generally the ones who think it will fail? Interesting I think as it is also those kinds of people in the past that get proven wrong, time and time and time and again. I have a member of my family like that: "The internet is a fad and won't last, digital cameras will never replace film and electric cars will never be mass adopted". That last one is loading as we speak.

The same person on cryptocurrencies? SCAM!
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The interesting thing on Steem is how quickly many people get invested into the philosophy and ideals of the platform and once many set their position, they get upset when the system changes in some way or, doesn't change in the way they want it to change. It is much like how people behave in the real world when they are born into a society that is pressed upon them and they start to feel proud over something they have absolutely no choice in. Proud of skin colour? Geez.

What it does show though is how sticky Steem can be as more than just an earning vehicle as many of the people who are here stay regardless of what they earn. Some of them recognize the opportunity and even buy in quite heavily and I know this because many of them have passed through under my posts from time to time. Real people with real jobs who recognize that they have a chance to be part of defining a technological future that improves social lives and, they have taken the leap of faith.

There is a lot of faith here and I do not mean of the religious kind, I mean of the much more important personal kind where individuals look to be part of something larger than themselves. Might it fail? Hells yeah - but failure doesn't mean death and in a decentralized system it is impossible to know how or what it could evolve into as it spiders across the globe and hooks into business, community and individual alike.

These days I am not spending too much time trying to listen or convince anyone of anything, I am happy to do my own thing with those who want to be part of Steem as it is, part of it as it changes and, part of it when it becomes whatever it becomes next and the time after that. Those who are willing and able to learn and adapt rather than hold onto their current ideals forever, no matter how irrelevant the position might become.

One of the strengths of decentralization of systems is that it is much harder to become irrelevant as it evolves to the conditions more like an organism does in nature. I have used the analogy of Steem being a city before and this is why; Countries come and go, names can change but the strongest cities endure time itself.

According to legend, Rome was founded in 753 BC, 2772 years ago. Italy however was founded in 1946, 73 years ago. The interesting thing is that when some papers were signed, Italy was created in a day however, Rome is still in the building phase and, will never be finished. Cities evolve.

So will Steem.

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]