You are viewing a single comment's thread from:

RE: Why SBD is trading so high (and how you can help)

in #sbd7 years ago (edited)

Since I was linked this and the topic is very relevant (again), a few points:

  1. Why is it in users' interest to keep the SBD close to $1 if that means lowering it? The only purpose of SBD from a Steemit user's perspective is to earn money, and for that purpose, the more it's worth, the better. Why would we want to bring it back down to $1?

  2. Witnesses are, as far as I understand from this post by @dragosroua, witnesses actually stepped in and increased the supply of SBD to combat its rise.

  3. Who's to say SBD really needs to be pegged, or is fully intended as such? It can also be that when we're paid in Steem we're paid in stocks, but when we're paid in SBD we're being paid in "stock options," but those options have been priced at $1.

  4. Honestly, SBD only has a downward trend, as its only real use to Steemit users is to sell it, and its marketshare is relatively small for crypto enthusiasts to buy fully, as opposed to the more robust Steem economy, that is also useful for those who want to buy more power on the platform.

  5. Finally, let's say that it's a failure of SBD's goals to be worth 9x a USD. What is lost on the platform from it? Why should the platform (as opposed to users in #1) should strive to return it to its "correct" value? Aside from striving to fulfill an initial goal?

Sort:  

Where is this post linked from? I've been seeing lots of increased attention on it lately.

  1. You say "The only purpose of SBD from a Steemit user's perspective is to earn money," but that's only true when SBD isn't price-stable. For most of its history, it's traded at nearly $1 apiece, which makes it 1) useful for commerce, and 2) useful as a store of value. In STEEM-bear markets, I used to sell all my STEEM for SBD, and that saved me from a lot of depreciation. Now that SBD is trading so high, it's not a reliable store of value so when I want to protect my STEEM profits, I need to send it off-platform to sell for BitUSD, Tether, or actual USD.
  2. Yes.
  3. The original version of the whitepaper made it clear that it was fully intended as such. Since it's not fully designed as such (as made clear by its current premium), it's debatable whether the founders of STEEM really cared all that much whether it was pegged or not.
  4. Only use is to sell it? You'll have to elaborate on that. As I wrote in point 1, in some market conditions it is quite useful to hold SBD.
  5. I've recently conceded the point that not much is lost when SBD is trading so high. I dearly miss its utility as a store of value, but right now it has an alternate purpose to massively-increase author rewards, which is likely a good thing for the platform as a whole.

I was linked this in a private chat with a friend after we discussed the value of SBD. I think he googled and came across your post. I suspect with the rising prices of SBD, people are looking the issue up.

1_ SBD still has that purpose. SBD is insured to always be worth at least $1 worth of Steemit. But that's just another way of saying it's there to help you earn money, just as a minimal amount. This is tied to point #5 as well.

2_ This is actually not true. @eonwarped had a discussion with @dragosroua on the topic, and the price feed he's presenting goes "up" when Steem's price goes up, not SBD's. So if Steem is worth 3 USD, it becomes 75/25, because you get 3 times as much SBD as Steem...

4_ Well, held as insurance against a situation where it drops below $1, but if it's worth more than $1, why would you want to hold onto it until it becomes worth less than that? :D

Moreover, I'm talking about how it can be used within the steemit ecosystem, and while Steem has uses within the system, SBD is only really there for fiscal purposes. Which eventually require selling it, even if you hold it for a while.

Coin Marketplace

STEEM 0.16
TRX 0.17
JST 0.029
BTC 69391.27
ETH 2511.15
USDT 1.00
SBD 2.57