Who The Hell Said Cryptocurrency Transactions Were Cheap?
I did it again. I bought more Steem for Ether, because it’s soooo cheap… They gave me 848 Steem for an Ether. Don’t follow me: It’s already 947 Steem/Ether at the time of writing. Bad luck. Maybe I’m a fool to do this before the Hard Fork 21.
High payout, high inflation
I converted the new Steem to Palnet tokens (Palcoin, PAL) because the page seems to be a good test of a 50/50 percent author/curator reward system. And because payouts are pretty high there. Although this means a lot of inflation in the system, at least at the beginning. That can cause nice price falls later.
But I learned some interesting things:
- Blocktrades applies a fee (margin) of 2.4 percent
- Steem Engine applies a fee of one percent.
- Steem Engine tokens are very illiquid.
I made a poll before I wrote this post, to know what people think about the fees and transaction costs in general. The result was quite interesting: Most people don’t tolerate any fees. Maybe they are used to the “zero-fee” system on Steemit, I don’t know. But nothing is really free.
See the poll here on dPoll
I have had at least six different bank accounts and at least three brokerage accounts in my life, as far as I can remember. Maybe most people are staying with the same bank all their life. All banks and brokerage companies have to survive, so they are charging fees. Finance services providers also have to eat, of course.
Steem price under pressure
Cryptocurrencies are cheap, some cryptos are without fees – allegedly. I’m not sure. In the Steem-system, you don’t pay transaction fees, but witnesses are receiving a part of the inflation in the system. So, with this inflation we are paying them. They sell some Steem if they have to pay the bills. And Steemit Inc. is also selling some Steem from time to time to cover its expenses.
These sellings are putting Steem price under pressure. We pay with the weak Steem price, actually. Bitcoin also has inflation and “miners” are selling some part of it to cover expenses. Who told me cryptocurrencies are eliminating the expensive banking costs? I can’t remember. But I don’t think so.
High margins, high expenses
So, buying Steem and converting it into Palnet tokens, first took a 2.4 percent margin of my Ether on Blocktrades, than one percent on Steem-Engine.com. (Because “there is a 1% fee on all deposits and withdrawals”.) But that is not all. On this page, the “mini-stock exchange” is not liquid. That means, the volumes are small and the prices are fluctuating a lot because the high margin.
The margin is the distance between the best selling price (cheapest offer, “bid”) and the highest demand (best buying price, “ask”). In theory. Because if I want to buy, for example, 2000 PAL, and the best seller has only 99 to sell, I must go higher with my price. In the last days, the real difference between selling and buying prices, for some hundreds of PAL token, was mostly 5-7 percent.
I lost 6.4 percent
That’s a lot. Assets with high liquidity have mostly only a margin of 0.1, or maybe 0.01 percent. Here, if you want to buy a decent quantity, you have to push the price up. If you want to sell some more than 10, 20 or 50 PAL, you will push the price down.
Palcoin order book. Difference of the two red-marked prices: 3.2 percent.
By my estimates I loose about 3 percent because of the margin, after 2.4 percent fee of Blocktrades and 1.0 percent of Steem Engine. (And I will lose again when I want to sell my PAL and recover my Steem in the future.) 3+2.4+1=6.4 percent for now. Who the hell said cryptocurrency transactions were cheap? :( :( :(
It’s personal
Anyway, Palnet seems to be a good application and that’s because I invested some money there.
I know I’m a fool, I shouldn’t have bought so much steem. I knew it almost a year before, I wrote about it… (Steem as long time investment? Are you kidding?). But I did it. I bought more. (By approximately 848 Steem/Ether.) I think it’s not a simple investment anymore. “It’s personal, right” – can you hear in movies. Yes, it’s personal. Not a simple investing decision. Yes, Steem Is more than an investment, it is getting an emotional factor if you invest too many times in it.
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Unfortunately... going from one currency to another has never been cheap. I think when people say that they are mostly referring to transactions on the same chain, not converting from one to another. In that sense, it is very cheap, as to send millions of doge to someone, would cost me less than 100 or so. Doge being so cheap, I could send a huge amount for very cheap. Same with steem, as you stated, there are no fees. Sure the witnesses and miners get paid, but they will in every system, so I don’t consider that to be an “extra” cost or drain
I guess the more adoption that comes, the more competition there is to keep prices stable and to provide services at lower cost to the end users. When we have more of that healthy competition when it comes to the business of trading different cryptos, we will see a significant drop in not only the fees they charge from going to one crypto to another, but the volatility of all crypto will drop. Considering this is the Microsoft of my generation, since I wasn’t born to ride that wave, rather, the crypto wave... there is still much adoption to happen by many different places/people/groups. Hopefully with time, we won’t be seeing drains like the 6.4% you speak of. Hopefully with time, we can see that at around 0.2 and below.
I don’t think buying steem at this price was a mistake at all. As more new users come (like myself) they will be looking to invest some, so that they can have more of a say on here about where the new money goes. People will be buying steem as they enter the ecosystem here and begin to interact. Sure, I can earn a few bucks a day maybe, now, if I write a lot of comments and interact a lot... but I still want to boost my votes up so that I can contribute more toward where I think they new steem should be. I see a lot of things not making as much as they should by a lot of people, in comparison to what I see making a lot, that I feel didn’t deserve it. I’m sure there are many others who will join here and see the same thing and then time will go on with us all voting on that value we see, and eventually it will begin to match or surpass that lower quality content.
TLDR:
I think steem is a good investment at this price. I don’t think you’ll regret buying it, when it jumps back up in price in the future! :)
Posted using Partiko iOS
I hope so. Thanks for cheering me up.
I was enjoying buying steemmonster packs at around 5 steem each over the past several days. Now cost over 7 steem :/. Just can not keep up with the steem price deflation.
I would love to know more about Palnet and how it relates to the Steemit blockchain/ecosystem.
I am still a complete noob here and am trying to put the STEEMIT universe together.
I echo your sentiments though, this has become very personal but that is an element I enjoy about the community!
Thanks in advance for all the information.
Posted using Partiko Android
Difficult because all are using the #palnet tag now. I think you should begin on their Discord channel, "Invite link that never expires: http://minnowpond.org/",
then in the Discord room "start-here rules"
Fees fees everywhere a fee fee, Kind of like that old nursery rhyme fee-fi-foe-fum- we gonna getcha just for fun.
Now this important message from our sponsors - Not really a sponsor - but the correct tag for steemleo is #steeemleo if you want your post to show on their new sight, and you should since it does talk about finances. People need to understand that all the talk about middlemen disappearing is just that, talk. There will always be middlemen in life, and especially in business.
Thank you for the tag.
It is good when a person has a hobby or a cause that he loves. You experiment with the crypt, and this movement is in front of new emotions and knowledge. No need to regret buying, where you will lose, and where you will find. Thank you for the interesting and informative article.
Damn funny and true at the same time. Genuine investors are rely taking steem personal. Those that genuinely buy into steem will not chat shit about it
I still think it's cheaper compare to traditional method of exchange it didn't take you lots of time and government regulations with tax cuts also. Steem is facing wat every day business face, mass abuse and loot but I know it will all end in time just hoping to grab lots of steem before the price moons because it's highly undervalued
I pay 0.2.-0.3 percent fees on traditional exchange, far less. Margins are very different, only some of them reach margins of Palnet coin. (Certificates with larger leverage.)
not cheap.. but faaast😊
Except when there are no PAL sellers... I must wait 2 days
Let's Make Steem Great Again... Hehehe 😎😎