Smart Media Tokens: The Key To Making STEEM One Of The Top Blockchains!!!!
The white paper written a decade ago by an unknown person(s) was one of the most revolutionary events in the last 25 years. That simple document fundamentally changed the money game forever.
Before this idea, the creation of money fell into the hands of a few. Historically, it was the rulers, i.e. Kings, who created the money. After that form of government dwindled down, this right fell to governments. Over the last century, we witnessed this ability given to the central banks.
Today, anyone can create money. Because of that white paper, we went from money creation in the hands of a few into the hands of many.
Earlier today, I wrote an article about the blockchains of STEEM and Bitshares. One of the most interesting aspects of Bitshares is that anyone can create an asset on that blockchain. By backing it with Bitshares, one can create his or her own money.
What is so revolutionary is that this is a new form of financing. Before cryptocurrency, projects were financed either through a bank, in the form of a loan, or through venture capital which gave up part of the ownership of either the company or the revenue stream. Either way, someone had to approve your idea.
Now, projects can be funded simply by creating a token on Bitshares. This gives one a liquid token that is instantly traded. Obviously, how liquid and the value it trades at depend upon a number of factors. The bottom line is anyone can create a token but having it worth something requires someone willing to buy it. That is where the value of the project comes in.
The ICO craze of a year ago exemplifies this point. While there were many ICOs that were scams, a lot were used to fund viable projects. Ethereum raced to the number 2 cryptocurrency, in large part, due to the activity in the ICO market. The ERC20 protocol is an absolute gold mine for that blockchain.
Smart Media Tokens (SMTs) are STEEM's answer to the ERC20 protocol. This technology will allow individuals to create tokens on the STEEM blockchain. Unlike those created on ETH, these tokens will have instant liquidity since they will be paired with STEEM and traded on STEEM's own internal exchange. This is huge. A token created on STEEM will have at least one exchange automatically pick it up.
Over the last few months I wrote how we are rapidly moving into a "tokenized" world. @ned said he wants to tokenize the Internet on the STEEM blockchain. This is not too far fetched. Over the next 5 years, we are going to see tokens created for most of what we use in society. As more of our daily lives are moved to the blockchain, this will allow for the opportunity to finance ideas through cryptocurrency.
The one challenge with this is my belief that 95% of the people in the world are not going to purchase tokens. They will not invest in cryptocurrency no matter how attractive it might be. This shows us a disconnect that needs to be merged. How do you have a tokenized world when most people will not buy tokens?
This is precisely where the STEEM blockchain steps in.
Funding through ICO is getting difficult since many governments are staritng to crack down on that. This makes the Ethereum edge start to dissolve. Bitshares offers a great option since it is really nothing more than an asset creation/token swap. Of course, there could be some hindrances depending upon where someone resides. Nevertheless, these are options.
The challenge with both these options is they require people to purchase tokens. It is a "buy-in" model. Show up with USD, ETH, or BTS (or whatever other currencies accepted) and buy what you want. As I said, this does not work for the masses.
Enter Smart Media Tokens.
SMTs offer the same advantage of funding with one key exception. Since the STEEM blockchain has a built in content/reward system that is standard when using the protocol, people can earn the tokens in addition to buying them. This is a major game changer. SMTs enable us to move another step forward towards a tokenized world by giving people the opportunity to earn tokens for doing things they normally do.
No money is required.
Speaking of money, one of the negatives people harp on the most about the STEEM blockchain is the Whales and the uneven distribution of STEEM. SMTs take care of this problem making the point moot for any of the sites creating their own token.
Anyone creating a new token is free to distribute it however seen fit. This means that if someone is not happy with the present workings of Steemit, the possibility exists to create another social media interface along with a new token. In fact, some of the existing applications we see in use today, like D.tube, Zappl, or Busy, could create their own token, thus establishing a new distribution layout.
SMTs offer the possibility of hundreds, if not thousands, of different tokens existing on the STEEM blockchain. If @ned's goal of 500K entrepreneurs on the STEEM blockchain within 5 years is reached, we will see thousands of tokens created on here. This means that the distribution of STEEM, from a usage standpoint on these different sites, means nothing. It is not a factor in how those applications will operate. Each one will establish its own reward system within the parameters of the basic protocol set up.
As I stated in my last post, an application is only as good as the blockchain it is located upon. If the network is not sufficient for what is taking place, this will cause problems. STEEM is one of the more advanced blockchains. From what I can garner, @dan was way ahead of the pack when he created BTS and STEEM. Now, everyone is trying to play catch up while these blockchains keep moving forward.
Smart Media Tokens are a way for STEEM to assert itself as one of the top blockchains. This will take all the advantages of ERC20 and BTS created tokens while giving people the ability to earn it.
In my mind, this will be an enormous step in creating a tokenized world.
This is where the future is.
If you found this article to be informative, please give it an upvote and resteem.
To receive the free basic income tokens you are entitled to and help end world wide poverty, please click the following:
Pictures by Google Images
What doesn't steem have? lol I guess maybe our search engine could be improved to better compete with Google but I guess that can be an SMT. lol
Another huge advantage with many SMT's will be that early adopters are able to share the reward pool with much less people and hence earn impressive amounts of the token compared to Steem where already many more players are in place to share the reward pool.
Unless you're a software developer or have a really good understanding of the Steem blockchain it's easy to think that whales are ruining everything.
What many people fail to understand is exactly what you say:
SMTs can be used to plug all the holes in the system.
If you think Steem is corrupt then move to something more fair.
People are way to impatient so they just assume it's all going to crash and burn. They can't see how this platform could possibly change from the way things are, even though it's changing very quickly from a month to month basis.
So the question is...When will SMT's be ready for adoption?
I literally printed out all the white papers that Steem had and read SMT's over and over again. It got me the most excited about anything blockchain related I ever discovered.
But does anyone know when they will be ready to rock? Seems to me, once they do, Steem wins EVERYTHING :) lol
No word on release date. As I wrote in a comment above, one of the challenges was redoing the entire internal exchange since that was only created for the STEEM tokens...no it has to be able to handle unlimited ones.
I am not sure it wins everything but it will be a great blockchain to own. We are going to see some amazing things on here..even more so than what is being created now.
Steemians will be very happy.
Lot of hype, we need a date, damn it ned.
You are making me very excited to be earning steem. Not that I wasn't already, in the past 3 months I've become part of a wonderful community of photographers @photogames that inspire one another to keep creating and keep learning. They've had me so busy that I'm a bit behind on actually learning the value of STEEM but I will definitely be following your posts now as you seem like quite the information guru on the subject. SMT's being linked to STEEM like ETH and ERC20 is huge!
I still do not understand the Steemit model correctly. People buy Steem, Steem Power and Steem Dollars. This makes it possible to distribute rewards to people using the platform. But sooner or later (ok, much later), this inflow of money will stop. Where is the reward money coming from, as I see no ads on the platform? Or are the SMT the long term solution to this?
To me, the most exciting aspect is that it increases demand for Steem. I feel like that will make Steem a top coin!
It most definitely does...big time.
The more tokens created using SMT means that they need to lock up STEEM for bandwidth...both creating demand and lowering freely traded supply.
That is a pretty good deal.
I agree with your point of view, nevertheless it's being long time since the SMT announcement and there is no new from devs... Hope we can see it soon.
Good post.
From the little information I could find, one of the major challenges they have is they have to redo the exchange. It was designed for the three tokens on here...now it has to be done for unlimited numbers...
No news is frustrating but anyone who does development knows it isnt easy and full of pitfalls.
I really love the idea of SMT, I really hope they come to fruition and work the way they have the potential to.
Amen to all of that.
We were talking about the SMTs back in December and creating our plan to be one of the innovators and entrepreneurial groups first to market with this.
The ability to earn your tokens rather than buy them never occurred to me actually. The bonus is that the exponential amount of transactions has no prayer of being fulfilled on chain anywhere but STEEM which hasn't even flapped during this explosive growth.
Being vested in STEEMit and loving the STEEM blockchain, I really hope you are right because we have to pick the right places to be and work.
Great intel again!