Hold On The Panic Is Coming...
Image credit @arcange
Recently I've been watching people solve the fictional problem of End-Users and Content Creators selling Steem.
In 2016 Steem launched mostly as SteemIt with a few people holding a huge amount of stake and marketing a Social Media application. We had one front-end and one front door. Making it easy for people to find Steem and sign up. Thousands did.
Some of our early users did invest and many held. However, they could not support the selling rate of a few huge stakeholders.
The last months of 2016 and 2017 saw mainstream showing a lot of Interest in crypto and many people without previous crypto experience were able to find Steem sign up and learn about crypto, meanwhile those early miners sold. SteemIt Inc sold to support their business, dan and ned sold, Bernie sold, Smooth sold, Abit sold, etc.
Sometimes People Say Stupid Things and Others Repeat It.
As the price trended downward the idea that Content Creators were not "buying" began to circulate with the large stakeholders. The concept that somehow the "bloggers" were draining the new Steem. caught on, and It's hilarious. Please look at the chart above and tell me how it is possible for those people to have more than a tiny impact on the price.
Several gaming blogging and various sites have launched and seen huge support from our own community pushing those games up on the sites that provide information on dapps. Is it because the games were great? Or is it because our community is great? I say it both and mostly the community.
From the beginning, we have ignored large stakeholders using the inflation pool to stack Steem rather than add value to Steem and if that behavior continues we will continue to see the same results.
Our DPOS system combined with Stake elected witnesses who control the decisions that have been made and the code that has been dropped, the marketing that has been done (or not done) Now they have decided that the Authors earn to much. :) (Not all of them think this, it is those who say and repeat stupid things without validation)
As I watch the conversations about how to move forward and a bunch of people who have done very little to add value and very little to analyze what has happened talk about making this an investor-friendly space, and it is painful to watch.
The Inflation Pool should be used to support those who are doing things that grow the economy of Steem. Those efforts could be anywhere from site cleaning to posting real content and engaging, to running a witness, building an App or many other things. However it seems some of our decision makers no longer understand that the part of Steem that works is the community full of people who use, clean, build, and run these apps.
The bull market is here again, everyone is talking about crypto. We have the ability to onboard and train mainstream users... but will we?
Stay tuned...
I always try to beat into the ground the concept of just how scarce Steem really is. Why do we need big “investors” coming in?!? We need businesses and users. If we hit even 10 Million users in the next couple years we’re talking about the average account size being 40 Steem, earning 2 to 3 Steem per year from the rewards pool. And those are averages. Factoring in Steemit Inc. and current whale stake, we can cut that in half for the median. At only 10 million users, look for 20 SP to be a sizeable account balance! Crank it up to 100 million people, (still small considering traditional sites and media) across all the apps & countries being served by Steem and we’re looking at single digit Steem balances being normal, 2-5 Steem.
I don’t want to attract 200 vulture capitalist “investors” to buy a million Steem each. I want to attract 10 million users to hold 20 Steem each!
Any talk of investor friendliness is ass backwards. Apple has a great company ideal that states, “Profit is our reward for providing an exceptional customer experience.” In the case of Steem, business and user friendliness are paramount to investors. Investors will reap their rewards when those segments are properly tended to.
I do not know for sure, but it seems to me whatever formula you have used to arrive at these predictions is missing something. Have you factored in inflation? And what about all the debt on the network? There is some 9 million SBD out there which is, I am not good at arithmetic, but something like 22 million STEEM waiting to be added to the total supply(though since the change in the UI that prevented the average user from burning SBD for STEEM and instead offered only the option to trade SBD for STEEM, I have wondered if someone is amassing a lot of SBD waiting to turn it into STEEM at the perfect moment when it will return the highest amount of it, and if that is the case, then you can expect a massive inflationary event at some point in the near future), and new SBD will continue to be created every day now it seems.
I do not think that 20 STEEM will be considered a sizeable amount of STEEM in a couple years. 200, seems more realistic to me. But, this is just my initial thoughts when reading your comment. If you can provide the formula you used to make me better understand how you arrived at where you did, then that would be helpful. Because it sounds for sure that if what you say is correct, holding onto even 1 STEEM right now could be very profitable. I want you to be right, my brain is simply not accepting it right now - so if I've missed something, do enlighten me.
Honestly, just some quick rough estimates in my head. But you got me to take a look at the actual figures a bit more! 😄
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So with the debt we’re at 333 million Steem existing. Inflation is roughly 8.5%.
Let’s even say it’ll take 5 years to reach 10 million accounts. Simplistically speaking (+8.5% a year) we’re up to 417 million Steem by then, but it’s actually less because of falling inflation and some burn mechanisms. 10 million accounts in 5 years time = 41.7 Steem per account if everyone magically had an equal share! The “middle class” will actually have about half this amount. And with inflation that year running around 35 million Steem, the average Steem per year per account is 3.5, again with the median being half that or less. We’re talking 1-2 Steem per year earned by “normal” accounts if we hit 10 million users in 5 years!
Steem is a very scarce commodity with even a modest userbase. 500 Steem won’t remain the threshold to “minnowdom.” At any sort of scale that’ll practically be the new whale!
Thanks for taking the time to break it down for me. This is quite inspiring. I will need to start acquiring more STEEM, and selling less of it.
Do feel a bit silly as I have had probably 20,000 or more of it altogether, but I suppose I didn't have much of an option but to sell that at the time I did. I am just glad it's still not too difficult to earn small quantities of it at this moment in time.
I always knew I'd be a wealthy internet tycoon 😜 hodl hard! my hopefully 2000 organically grown steem will be the stuff of legends ! If I can buy just one Lambo it will have all been worth it! I imagine my portfolio will be a few BTC valued at a John McAfee dick eating Million each, and If that all goes to shit I'll have my dramacoins to fall back on...
How much is 20 steem going to be worth when freedom and company have millions and control the code?
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I’m heartened by the clear demonstration of aggroed’s case earlier this year that the Freedom vote is not necessary to achieve a top 20 witness position. There also is a clear trend toward the growth of stake percentage in the smaller accounts.
I haven’t seen the numbers quantified, but it’s my gut feeling that there is also lots of stake in these small to midsize accounts going unused in the witness process. I do hope to see the Steem political system develop more as things progress. I’d love if there were even just a few organizations that clearly espoused their witness voting criteria and new users were better informed on how to evaluate several proposals and proxy their votes accordingly.
I think Steem is still more decentralized than many projects like the block producers on EOS for instance. The biggest risk is if the official Steemit Inc. accounts would ever step in and put those vests into witness voting. That would be the only insurmountable voting obstacle with the present stake distribution. If it were to happen I think we would then see a very clear fork/exodus at that time which I’d support.
I can agree that seeing aggroed rise up the ranks was a positive. I'm not hopeless or I wouldn't be here. My unpopular opinions generally get a defensive why are you even here if you don't like it response. For the drama of course!!!
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“The Inflation Pool should be used to support those who are doing things that grow the economy of Steem.”
Such a powerful statement. People like you and I will evangelize as it is because of the growth of our stake, belief in the platform, and opportunity for new people. The whales may have gotten on the ground floor, have a huge stake and not the bandwidth of time to be pulling their weight actively.
If they did leverage a portion of that stake and invest in an automated way of helping reward the active contributors, engagers, and preachers (like @fulltimegeek, @nathanmars and a few others have done) it would work wonders
Can you imagine the passive posters all getting enthused to progress the platform because of consistent rewards?
I am glad the whales offload so I can pick it up cheap! It is a great time for new folks to get in now that the elevator is at a lower floor. ;)
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I kinda wanna flag this just for mentioning ftg as a preacher! He is the epitome of idiotic sociopathic vindictive behavior that does nothing but destroy reason and logic with his twisted manipulations.. Holy shit I can't believe you are praising that clown
Free down votes let's get real messy let those accounts whack away at each other until they realise its futile and they would better serve themselves not being bad actors in a totally fucked economy.. Then when the dust settles maybe people will feel safe and enjoy our experimental ecosystem again..
I kinda wanna upvote that comment because it is well written and to the point! He does get in some big dust-ups here and riffles feathers sometimes for sure.
Personally, I am a commenter and engager because I feel it is one of the most important pieces building community. He has probably rewarded me more than anyone else here for my comments and it really means a lot to me.
While I respect your opinion, he has been one of the few who have helped me with ongoing generous support and upvotes for engaging. If some of the other whales had an army of bots rewarding others for contributing, this would make a big difference.
I respect this statement and kinda wanna follow you..
I want to take this opportunity to say I don't think people even steem whales involved in dust ups and spamming nonsense are inherently despicable people, nor do I think any of them are here for the philanthropy. They are products of the environment and are playing the hands they have within a system that rewards bad actors.
Hence the eip debate that's been bubbling on for a couple years now. It's dicey stuff. I'm also here to build a community engage and I'm taking the organic approach.
TBH I was afraid I'd get a nasty reply from you as I'm quite blunt as you can see. I really sincerely appreciate that you are able to see both sides of the shituation while also being loyal to your main benefactor.
I know there was a time when these whales did great things for the chain and I get that they're embroiled in an ongoing war. I was once caught in the crossfire and survived to tell the tale steem on and hope to be a voice of reason.
I agree with your take on whales... they aren't any more evil than the system facilitates them to be.
I am a career plankton-nobody on Steem, and on behalf of my fellow countless hordes of plankton nobodies... I can tell you @skramatters, that those of us tiny crustaceans with eye stalks poking out of our chitinous little shells to see have noted for a long time that "bad actors" as you call them, are very well rewarded for their toxic engagements, bot army abuse, flag-bullying, etc... Steemit is the perfect habitat for de-clawing the wisdom of the "free market" when whale monopolies are literally built into the system and may crush even the largest concerted efforts from all except other whales.
That said, Steem and Steemit is still all a good idea... and the evil is bearable (until a better and "less evil" alternative emerges).
Well said! Very well said! I'm in complete agreement with all your observations and inputs..I would love to upvote this comment but it would get dusted. So I'll make sure to vote your blogs and give you a follow..
I don't think many of us plankton are aware our single votes on engaging and deserving comments don't go to the author.. This actually encourages real networking and connection though if spun...shit I just saw u haven't posted in a, while so I'll upvote and hopefully someone else will as well..
Yah man I can tell your reply contained a passion that also suggested you know the ins and outs more intimately than I do. With so much flattery for upvotes going on, I enjoy the hell out of a comment loaded with blazing guns. Hell, @berniesanders entertains the hell out of me though he really angers some, including some of my longest running friends here.
Either way, I am not gonna learn a damn thing if I tell people who disagree with me to STFU. I appreciate your perspective for sure.
A most awesome response that is warming my heart to the idea that there are rational and compassionate people here that can work together.. I'm not triggered at all 😂
I totally feel you on the excesses of flattery and while I am passionate, my guns blazing bravado is only intended to create this right here. Camaraderie and working towards a better blockchain..
Humble pie served up over here a heap of it. 🙏
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I love panics, everything goes on sale in panics!
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@whatsup,
Definitely I am awaiting to see the next bull market and hope it might be the market that brings STEEM to the two figure value! Nice explanation!
Cheers~
There was a time when I thought that the introduction of vote-selling would be the death of this platform. Never before, in any context whatsoever, before STEEM, had the phrase "do you want to buy a vote" been acceptable.
However, upon further inspection of the progression of society, and the massive businesses that now revolve around paid promotion, I think steem will be just fine, given that it appears we are moving into an era where paying people to say you're cool will be the norm.
So as far as content, I expect it to continue to decline for the most part. Just consider the early days when people used to make grand claims of filling the blockchain with excellent content that will last forever. Now half of it if not more is posts that have no meaning at all beyond earning money - take for example all of these "Guess the price of x crypto at this time" posts. What the fuck value do they have at all?
This is not really a problem, however, depending on what perspective you're viewing Steem and STEEM from. Because it has become so very clear to me that this platform was never about content, and certainly not good content. It is called Steem for a reason, a word most definitely derived from the word esteem, because this platform has always been about reputation, and I might even go as far to as to speculate(put your tinfoil hats on) that it was somewhat of an experiment to see how a community would police itself within a transparent, self-governing, anarcho-capitalistic blockchain society.
I am getting off point. What I want to say is that I don't think anyone has to worry about whether Steemit is what it is supposed to be or not, or whether it is going to survive or die. It has the most transactions of any and all blockchains occurring on a daily basis, and certainly one of the most highest amounts of users. The value of STEEM is destined to rise because it is one of very few cryptocurrencies that is no longer speculative and actually has a wide range of utility, and that is why it is also one of very few that are undervalued, as opposed to massively overvalued, at this point in this time.
My advice to anyone currently within this ecosystem, is to ignore the politics and just try and make some STEEM while it's still possible to do so without selling your soul. It's not that I don't think things could be changed for the better. I happen to believe that if the majority could rise above the psychological effects of the gamification of both society and this platform, and realise they are on the same team, that together we could make unprecedented changes to this platform that would echo into the society of tomorrow and impact the lives of so many in the most beneficial regards. But, unfortunately that is too much of an ask for most, who would rather "win" than work with others, and I have seen too many with the balls to stand up for others have their legs amputated by the very people they have tried to help. It's far better - far wiser, that we just allow the few who have usurped control of the network to play their games, and be thankful for whatever we can attain before their thirst for power leads this platform to evolve into something entirely different, where earning solely for being a good author is no longer possible at all.
So many excellent points here thank you for stating lot's of food for thought.
Basic training or a steem boot camp would be advisable.. I'm sure the onboarding activists have some general guides but my opinion is for retention there would need to be a devoted staff of mentors. That being said I don't know how I'd field smart cookie questions from new users that quickly discover they are at a serious disadvantage and why that is.
I'm not even going to attempt to get into the eip debate as its foolish for me to discuss for a myriad of reasons.
I triggered the shit out of someone today for merely expressing there's some major issues that will make it difficult to retain new users and pointing out that the truth of the matter is all our potential adopters are happily on reddit,fb,ig,medium and twitter where the harsh realities of unchecked monetization aren't at play.
The internet is notoriously brutal when it comes to just interactions that aren't tied to economic incentives.
Pretending things are OK here and chastising someone like me for speaking freely on a comments section about mass adoption rewards is exactly the type of shit that makes a passionate dedicated well informed steemian like myself not give a damn to reason with delusional cheerleaders..I can only imagine what a new user with half a brain will confront.
The whole great community aspect is a murky sea I've yet to navigate and don't see any clearings. Speaking frankly I care about my friends and family IRL and would never subject them to this platform...
Also incentives for adoption seems desperate, reeks of MLM and is a page out of the ponzi book.
Sometimes, given the minor issues focused on from the powers that be, the trolling and account destroying taking place etc, I wonder if it is desired by those who control the most stake for this to be a long term project. Could be they have cashed out so much over these years they are sitting on so much Bitcoin etc they could care less if it fails.
I keep reading about growing the user base while it seems a portion of the birds in hand are being urged strongly to leave.
yeah, it's odd. I can't tell if they are just that inexperienced or if they really don't care or maybe both.
Investors think mostly about their investment which is understandable. They wanna grow it. If that's their only goal this will continue. If someone really believes in this project they would contribute more to the system I think.
Despite I fully agree with you, I think steemit inc is making very little in what marketing concerns...
It looks to me that it is only the community, ourselves, who is promoting largely the STEEM blockchain and not the main blockchain developers and creators... I think it is time to see more STEEMIT advertisements outside our blockchain. We need mass adoption so let's focus on that target and stop criticizing ourselves on stupid things as technicalities, reward pools rapers, flagwars, dormant whales and bad actors... That kind of things are everywhere in other social media platforms as well.
Let's stop looking our own belly and work towards the audience outside.
Exactly... You said it nicer than I do. I call it wanking or yanking our own chain
First off the selling can only happen when people are buying, so whatever was sold was simply a matter of redistribution and price correction / discovery. I don't know who's saying that the problem is people selling steem, but I do know that that the EIP isn't geared in that direction what so ever and the Real Problem it's trying to solve is in creating a healthy economy that encourages outsiders who are constantly coming to the site from the millions of searches that have millions of posts and comments keyworded among the very first results, and all that traffic is presented after they consume the article, with a very negative view of our community, where some asshat who runs two filters in photoshop rendering clouds and dots a couple of "stars" is spamming the trending with overpriced crap that has absolutely zero value in creating a conversation and that doesn't deter the asshat to claim that as his motivation for that uter vapid crap he calls art as he dangles his vote for generic and spam responses, and nobody is going to want to buy steem or power up, and that's one among the rest, like the dillweed that is on his 7th? post about the avengers infinity fart, with the writing skills of a retarded monkey, and this overpriced crap sends one resounding message to any would be users: this place is a cesspool of mediocre and sub par content and if you want to pay yourself for sub par or mediocre 'art' then come right ahead. Possibly, the other message is to all scumbag thieves and scammer Ta's, that you can rake it in powering up as you dangle your power for the idiots that will pile up trying to get some curation rewards.
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Wow I've met my match 😂 nothing to add please continue if you have more. Well done drama token creator this is a feisty post...
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I don't know when I started agreeing with Baah so much, but lately you have been on target!
You've got
DRAMA!To view or trade
DRAMAgo to steem-engine.com.