RE: STEEM As Money? STEEM Has Something No Other Cryptocurrency Has....
Yes, of course. But the automatization of this process (you pay today with your SDB because I am sure they will arrive in 3 days) means that you have to wait 3 days, then exchange them for STEEM, then exchange STEEM for fiat value or other crypto unless you don'have a STEEM-100%backed system.
This means that you have to do 2 trades SBD --> STEEM; STEEM --> SOMETHING ELSE that creates more devaluation risks for users. You have two operations that are a source of risks, not only one.
Also considering that waiting 3 days in a so volatile world like SDB market is very dangerous, even more than wait for the average Crypto transaction.
This doesn't mean that I am bearish about this project, but in my opinion SP is not money and SBD is even more dangerous for sellers than Bitcoin or STEEM. Because you have greater devaluation risks (another trade to exchange SDB in STEEM and, before of this, 3 days to wait).
This problem could be at least in part solved by creating a free market for SDB similar to STEEM or other crypto markets, with crosses to FIAT or other crypto...
One major point you bring up is the desperate need for steem/fiat pairings. The fact that you have to go from STEEM to something else before going to fiat is a major drawback. Like you said, it increases the risk.
As for the volatility, we will see if/when that settles down. In general, that is one attack on crypto that cannot be disputed...the volatility of the tokens makes it difficult to conduct commerce. Over time, it should lessen a bit but it might not. That is why Bitshares created the pairs that are held at a dollar so that merchants can price stuff accurately.
For this entire arena, we are so early that it is hard to tell what will unfold.
Yes, of course we still are in the early phase. We don'k know what kind of regulamentation we will have, we don't know how will crypto-markets evolve in the future, and we don't know what kind of developement will affect crypo protocols and token management.
Here we hare having some theoric talks, we are triyng to predict the
unpredictable...