High Steem Inflation Helps Secure The Chain
I've heard some people say that when SMTs are rolled out, no author or curation rewards should be paid out in STEEM, SBD or SP. I don't think there is any reason to slash the global content reward pool any time soon. Why? Because the current stake distribution is still concentrated into the possession of Steemit, Inc and a number of large stakeholders to a degree that is dangerous. Under the present conditions, a hostile takeover would be easier to carry out than it will be in a few years' time.
Also, the main source of value of STEEM is the fact that it is traded on major cryptocurrency exchanges. Its value is mainly speculative at present. Suppose author and curation rewards were only paid out in SMTs, none of which were traded on major cryptocurrency exchanges. Based on the current abysmally low valuations of Steem-Engine tokens we can conclude that without being listed on the likes of Binance or Poloniex, none of these tokens would have any chance of reaching meaningful valuations.
Essentially, switching to only rewarding witnesses or SPS funding recipients from the global pool at too early a stage would end content rewards on Steem. For an application specific chain whose value proposition is the tokenization of online content creation, it would be a serious mistake. The main token content reward pool shouldn't be done away with without getting a healthy number of SMTs listed on exchanges first. Only a small number of SMTs would stand any chance of getting listed at an early stage.
The fact that the SPS fund pays out the rewards in SBD is an indirect source of additional inflation. When the price of STEEM is high, 10% of the total inflation allocated to the SPS amounts to a large amount of SBD every week. To the extent those earnings are not cashed out immediately but kept liquid, they can add a significant source of STEEM inflation when they get converted into or traded for STEEM when the price of STEEM is low again. That is actually a good thing particularly after Steemit, Inc being acquired by the Tron foundation because it is no longer in any acute danger of going under because of a bear market.
What do you think?
Yea, I think that makes sense. I was on the fence with this. Wondering if we should switch to an SMT once they're released, but I guess that comes more from looking at it from a price perspective. When thinking about it from the perspective of securing the chain, what you're saying here should definitely be something we all take into consideration.
Steem has so much room to grow that I don't think the inflation will matter if we can get some real traction and with all the recent changes I think that's a real possibility. We'll see.
I don't think any swap from STEEM to a Tron token has any chance being done for a long time if ever. All of the functionality that Steem has should be replicated on Tron as smart contracts, which is no easy feat. Steem is rather complex. The only people who currently understand the code thoroughly are the Steem devs at Steemit, Inc. Tron smart contracts are coded in Solidity, the same language that is used on Ethereum. Because Solidity was created for Ethereum, it is not a common skill. Throwing more developers at it would not automatically help a great deal. No one would trade their STEEM for any utility token powering unproven vapor ware on Tron. I think the initial statements to that effect were mainly a brazen marketing stunt by Justin Sun.
That's what Dan likes to say. He thinks the inflation rate is irrelevant from a price point of view, within reason of course, meaning that it won't make difference whether it is 8%, 15% or 20%. I agree because during a bull run, small cap altcoins tend to shoot up by orders of magnitude at best in a very short time.
I think the communities are key. I don't think SMTs will make a difference any time soon. Users must be funneled directly into the communities.
By the way, I was reading Quora today when someone mentioned they'd be debunking certain myths all day long if they could monetize it. I chimed in telling that person that they could do that on Steem. I added a link to the new Steem app AltYes (or FullAlt or something) that makes it easy to cross post between social media platforms. My comment to that answer was deleted because it violated community norms or something. I've written close to a hundred answers as part of Dan's Quora Onboarding Initiative (this wasn't one of those) and I never received as much as a rap on the knuckles for posting links to my Steem posts. At some point, Dan instructed everyone to link to Steemian Roundup on Quora rather than to their posts. Does Quora have a problem with cross posting in general or was it the monetization advice that got that comment deleted?
@tipu curate
Upvoted 👌 (Mana: 0/20 - need recharge?)
I agree. I'm glad you posted this as it's a fundamental matter. And I would like to see more people engaging with discussion topics like these - that's why we have communities now, so we can have such discussions. But you get only a couple of replies and I don't know why.
Hi @markkujantunen!
Your post was upvoted by @steem-ua, new Steem dApp, using UserAuthority for algorithmic post curation!
Your UA account score is currently 4.391 which ranks you at #2540 across all Steem accounts.
Your rank has improved 19 places in the last three days (old rank 2559).
In our last Algorithmic Curation Round, consisting of 95 contributions, your post is ranked at #26.
Evaluation of your UA score:
Feel free to join our @steem-ua Discord server