Now that it’s possible to delegate Steem Power, I’m seeing there’s demand for renting and lending Steem Power (SP). Users are willing to pay a surprising amount of money to rent SP, and it could be a lucrative business for the developer of this marketplace. This post is a call to developers to build what I think is a killer application for Steem.

Marketplace for lending and renting Steem Power

Why we need this:

• Having an easy-to-use marketplace for the delegation of SP will make STEEM more valuable.
  • If we give users an easy way to earn a residual income from lending SP, it will be enough of an incentive to entice some users to lend out their SP instead of powering down. This will put less downward pressure on the price of STEEM.
  • If investors see an opportunity to earn money by lending Steem Power, they may buy SP for that sole purpose. This will put upward pressure on the STEEM price.
• Eliminates the trust problem.
  • Today, if you want to rent Steem Power, the lender will probably require you to prepay. As a renter, there's a potential that the lender never delegates the promised SP and steals your money. And, even if you do get the delegated SP, the lender could pull the delegation before the contract is fulfilled.
  • If you want to lend SP, you also have a potential problem. The renter might agree to rent from you for 2 months, and pay in advance each week. However, the problem comes when the renter fails to make their agreed-upon payment. You now must cancel your delegation and your SP is unusable for a week.
• It's too difficult to delegate SP.
  • No, it's not that difficult. All you have to do is go to this website, click on that, do this calculation, make sure of this and that, and blah blah blah.
    While it might not seem difficult for those of us who are well-informed about the workings of the system, your average user stopped listening already. If we want the typical Steemian to use a marketplace like this, it must be simple!
• Efficiently connects renters and lenders of Steem Power.
  • If you want to lend out Steem Power today, you have to go through a lot of steps: Post about it, respond to user's questions, educate them, ensure you've received payments, and are accounting for them accurately. Once all those steps are done, you have to go through the process of delegating the SP, making sure you receive weekly payments, and removing the delegations when appropriate. You might have to follow all these steps with 10 different users, and go through the process all over again when one of your renters decides to quit. This process is far too cumbersome for the average user.

image source

What's in it for me?

It depends on who's asking:

• Developers - A potentially highly-profitable business.
• Users - Easy residual income from lending your SP to other users.
• Users - An easy way to temporarily purchase more influence.
• Advertisers - Rent influence without being required to purchase SP.
• Investors - You can buy Steem Power and earn passive income by lending it out.
  
  
  
  

I'd like to build this marketplace, how do I make money?

A renter will send their payment to your escrow account. When the contract is fulfilled, you'll send the lender their payment minus a small (1-5%) fee.

Other considerations: If dealing with small quantities of SP ends up costing you more than you make on those transactions, you might want to consider a fixed cost + a small percentage. For instance, lets assume it costs $0.50 to process each transaction, you may want to charge a fixed $0.50 setup fee in addition to a 1-5% variable fee.

Must-have features

• Ability for lenders to customize terms, for example:
  • Start-up fees
  • Price
  • Minimums
  • Maximums
  • Term Length
  • Options for extending contract
  • Payment terms (daily, weekly, monthly)
  • Discounts (ex: Enjoy 10% off after the 4th straight week of renting)
• Escrow
• Notify renters when payment is due. (See "nice-to-have features" below)
• Notify lenders when it's time to delegate SP. (Not necessary if delegation is automatic)
• Easy-to-use SP delegation tool. (See "nice-to-have features" below)
  
  
  
  

Nice-to-have features

• Lender/renter rating system (may be unnessessary if payment is automatic)
  • Did the lender delegate SP in a timely manner and fulfill the contract?
  • Did the renter pay when they were supposed to?
• Automatic payments (if security concerns allow it)
• Automatic delegation of SP (is this possible?)
  
  
  
  

How I see this marketplace working:

1. You want to lend out your Steem Power, so you go to xyzwebsite.
2. You take a look at what other lenders are offering. You enter some information including: your price, start-up charge, amount of Steem Power available to lend, term length, and other customizations.
3. I want to rent Steem Power, so I go onto xyzwebsite. Since price is my biggest concern, I sort the lenders' listings by price. They can also be sorted by start-up cost, term length, amount of Steem Power, and perhaps other options.
4. I choose an offer with acceptable terms and click "Rent Now."
5. xyzwebsite instructs me to send 100 Steem Dollars to @xyzescrow for the first week of rent. Note: it's better if these payments are automatic, but I'm not sure if that's possible given the security concerns of handling users' "active" keys.
6. xyzwebsite then instructs the lender to delegate 15,000 SP to my account.
7. When the contract is complete, one week after delegation, xyzwebsite takes their 2% fee (2 Steem Dollars), and sends the other 98 SDs to the lender.
8. Both parties have the option to renew the contract. This can be done in advance and could be done automatically.
   
   
   
   
   If you want to increase the demand for Steem Power, and empower newbies with a stronger vote, let's build this marketplace! If you're interested it developing this application and want to bounce some ideas off of me, feel free to message me on Steemit Chat.
   
   
   
   

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