State of the Sndbox - Week 17 [Reconsidering “Currency,” Presentations and Workshops]
State of the Sndbox is a weekly newsletter that provides the latest in Sndbox activities, introduces new fellows, projects, and provides the best resources in creative empowerment for the Steemit community. To get up-to-date on all of our development throughout the week, be sure to follow us @sndbox.
This Week in the Sndbox
Welcome to the 17th State of the Sndbox newsletter! So far this week, we’ve announced and covered three major Steemit talks in three different cities - Seoul, New York City and Washington D.C. November has become a month for presentations and workshops!
For a more thorough breakdown of what our members have been up to, be sure to go through our weekly Sndbox Selections of the Week post that we publish each Monday.
Cryptocurrency ≥ Currency
Ever since coming onto Steemit over a year ago, our team been diving deep into strategies for cryptocurrency education, awareness and onboarding. As we all know, this is not always an easy task as the greater public greatly doubts the applications and trustworthiness of crypto in the "real" world today. Technological and financial obstacles aside, cultural understandings of this emerging domain may just be the heaviest aspect holding it back.
Our newest article “The Biggest Problem with Cryptocurrency is that it is Called Cryptocurrency” looks to transform our perspective on “currency” and our attitudes towards traditional value. We encourage you all to read this article and give us your feedback. As we continue efforts in cryptocurrency education, all of us need to be rigorous in the words and methods of explanation we choose. We hope this article becomes a resource that you can use to better describe this rapidly evolving ecosystem!
Our Presentations at the Seoul Google Campus and Cooper Robertson
In this past week, we’ve presented in three major venues - the design offices of Cooper Robertson, the Seoul Google Campus, and the World Bank Group. We were invited to each of these occasions to go through the work of Sndbox, the use-cases and potentials of Steemit, and how both can potentially integrate with the host’s practices. Each were followed by extensive and dynamic group discussions, overall promoting the effective use of blockchain technologies.
You can read more about the specific events here:
Cooper Robertson on 11/15/22
Seoul Google Campus on 11/17/17
The World Bank on 11/20/17
Stay tuned for a recap of the World Bank event! We have a lot of exciting materials to discuss and will cover takeaways from the roundtable where we presented. Our team met with a broad range of urban planners, architects, economists and resiliency strategists to explore the potential of Steem as a resource for sustainable city planning. More to come on this soon!
Want to support Steemit content and workshops like these? Consider joining our curation trail! You can learn more about the @sndbox incubator mission here.
Thank you for reading this week’s State of the Sndbox.
Thanks for the update... cool to see the various initiatives unfolding!
On the "currency" issues, I believe one of the challenges we face (espcially with alt coins like Steem) is that they present more as an "investment asset class" than a "currency." What do you DO with these things? You can invest in them and trade them in markets and....? The word "crypto" merely makes them sound even more technical and convoluted.
In our efforts to try to "Sell" artists on the idea of something like Steemit as a potential social marketing/side income stream... the more "functional" questions arise: "Yeah, but I can't just buy a basket of groceries or art supplies with this." Which-- in our current incarnation-- is largely true.
I am hoping that-- possibly as part of @sndbox outreach?-- we might also put more support behind fledgling projects like @steembay... which is trying to create an internal peer-to-peer marketplace based on Steem/SBD that would allow us all to trade goods and services with each other... in other words removing some of the potential ambiguity surrounding the notion of a "currency." I realize it's not exactly what your post explores, but it seems to me it might be beneficial if simple functionality is part of the currency discussion.
This is great @reddragonfly, thanks for raising these points. And we agree, there are huge barriers (especially for artists) who need real examples of what Steem can be used for in order to become compelling to dive into. Projects like @steembay are super exciting, because they are adding utility to this ecosystem through really innovative solutions.
We think this kind of utility within Steem will only continue to grow. 2018 will be a major year in defining visibility for cryptocurrencies... Steem could be a huge leader in this movement to become more visible, accepted and empowered.
The etymology of currency is the condition of flowing.
The human brain has neural networks, and electrical signals flow through it. When people belief in the same thing, trust networks are created between minds in which currency, or money is readily accepted. Current flows through networks, and this is facilitated by centralised databases before the advent of blockchain technology, the backbone of cryptocurrencies.
Since cryptocurrencies are essentially programmable currency, we can create trust networks that contain various utilities and merit systems. Cryptocurrencies can also be viewed as tokens that provide users with rights to access functions available in their respective networks. Hence, they're kinda like assets / commodities as well..
Btw, I'm not entirely sure if the etymology of currency has anything to do with what I've described :P
It's adding a new layer of intelligence to the web. And we've spoken about this before I think, but the quote at Steem Fest "editing the blockchain is a lot like open heart surgery"... really solidifies the notion that there's a living thing being manifested right here (or at least the beginnings of one).
Currency as an infrastructure of flow + trust is super interesting. I've got to mediate on this one... might be worth another post soon ;)
Thanks for your efforts!
Love the energy I gleam from this post. The community is great and I bet the Steemit in 3 years will look very different than now.
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Excelente... Productivo y Beneficioso
Good post my friend
I like your post
Once visit my blog
Where can we chat? Do you have a discord server? Or a chat place anywhere?
Agree with @lehi and the collages are very effective on informational posts.
Nice your blok @sndbox
Hello @sndbox
You guys have really been impacting positively on the community through encouraging meetings and meetups
I am in agreement with you regarding problem of cryptocurrency primarily lies in its name. I honestly can't agree more!
This is the type of project that deserves to be massively supported. More greese to your elbow sirs...