SBD WTF?
Taken from the Steemit whitepaper:
Stability is an important feature of successful global economies. Without stability, individuals across the world could not have low cognitive costs while engaging in commerce and savings. Because stability is an important feature of successful economies, Steem Dollars were designed as an attempt to bring stability to the world of cryptocurrency and to the individuals who use the Steem network. - page 9 of the Steemit whitepaper.
Make your own conclusions about how "stable" SBD is. It was supposed to be as close in price to the USD as possible. This gave people the incentive to trade Steem Dollars as a stable currency, knowing it will not increase exponentially in the future. Platforms like peerhub.com emerged where you can buy and sell goods and services for Steem Dollars. In fact, we have many services that operate under SBD right now, like the voting services run by the whales.
Tether is supposed to be pegged to the USD but it's even more centralized than Steemit, so my advice is not to use their service at all. What we have left as a relatively stable currency right now is bitUSD by Bitshares. Although its real price is around 90 cents, by far it has proven to be the least prone to market crashes. But for how long?
Having a stable cryptocurrency was a lucrative idea, that many people fell for, including me. After the recent spike in SBD price, it all became clear to me that there is no way for the whales who control most of the money to allow the small fish to prosper alongside. The fact remains, the crypto world is still a very risky field, and it will take much more effort to decentralize it. There are many factors why we still struggle for trust and stability but the human factor is again the weakest link. As usual the rich become richer and the poor poorer. What a great job the whales are doing to decentralize the market! This reminds me of a regime where the "equality" was guaranteed by the ruling class. I guess history is repeating.
Idealism is what gets people killed. Whales will be whales no matter what denomination. Work with greed as a factor and now you are playing in the real world.
True.
I have a mindset that SBD should always be a (one) U.S. dollar based on the system in place. Obviously I don't control these things, but when I see that SBD is more than a dollar, I am getting rid of it the second it hits my wallet, have been for the past month I guess. I prefer it to have the stability than pretending to be all ecstatic when it hit over ten dollars recently.
Your post is the first time I have seen the mention of BitUSD/Bitshares and it not being someone spamming it without giving any technical information as to why it even exists. No joke I have been on Steemit for over a year and my only thoughts on Bitshares is scamcoin that somehow got tied to Steemit users. This is only because even when I have asked about it, I would not get replies. I could probably do a search and find comments with me asking about it and getting no replies which only added to me thinking it is a shitty altcoin people on Steemit are just trying to make a buck with.
I like you have been using Steemit for some time now and I also got used to the mindset that 1 SBD should be around 1 USD. Unfortunately, it's no longer the case. I also dump all my SBD when I get a payout because I know sooner or later it will fall, and I will not be surprised if one day SBD will be worth just a couple of cents.
With Bitshares I still can't make my mind. Dan Larimer is one of the architects of the platform, he also helped build Steem. After he left both Bitshares and Steem he now works on EOS. Why he quit these platforms I have no idea. Bitshares has a nice idea just like Steemt, the way its run is a different topic. Basically having an exchange on a blockchain is a wonderful thing. I've been using Bitshares for a while and sometimes I have trouble with the gateways, so deposits and withdraws are not available 24/7. Is it a scamcoin? Maybe yes, maybe no, time will tell. Looking at the price action of bitUSD we can see that it's not really affected much by the market, but again this may be a sign that the coin is controlled.
https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitusd/
Decentralization is necessary, but is it possible? I can't truly tell, as centralization is formed through power of the few individuals that make all the decisions. I maybe act as an utopian, but harsh reality strikes me every time I look at the cryptocurrencies. Something that is made to be a breakthrough in the world economics uses the so proclaimed economical dogmas that brought us here in the first place. (centralized banking system for starters) It started as a great idea (like most of the old systems did) but execution is not proving to be so great. We are just to hope that this isn't another pump and dump scheme, because the only ones that are going to profit from it are the pumpers themselves. Have a nice day!
Very well put!
Upvoted and resteemed. All the Libertarians and anarchists think crypto will change the world, but the fundamental problem with the world is the weaknesses in the human psyche.
The crypto market might be the most manipulated market i've ever invested in. The amount of parabolic price increases in a vast array of cryptos is scary. I agree that it is a very, very risky market to invest in as well. However of course on the other end of the spectrum the rewards can be unbelievable!
I view the idea that the STEEM blockchain is truly decentralized as a fallacy. It's obvious that it is indeed being controlled and the the fact that there is only one authority to develop and implement hardforks is a clear testament to that. If hardforks are top-down, than the whole platform certainly has clear top-down elements. In other words, it is being governed in a centralized way at least to an extent.
I too fell for the SBD thing and I was actually citing it as one of the things that are making the Steem blockchain more competitive - a token that is more stable and less volotile to be used in commerce (with no fees and super fast transactions).
If SBDs can be pumped so easily, you can safely assume the same can be done to bitUSD. Why wouldn't that be possible?
Agreed.
I am not sure what to think about the fluctuating price of steem dollars 😐 On one hand, I like the fact that I can trade my SBD for good amounts of Steem... On the other hand, as you said, is the lack of stability.
We have an advantage over new users because we had more time to accumulate SBD when it was cheap. It just became another altcoin to speculate on, instead of solving a real-world problem.
It's a very complicated matter as I see it, I think it's a volatile thing just like the dollar.
From the last month the value of SBD had been pretty consistent not going down more than $8.
Nice lines dear
Nice wording friend god bles you