That Steem investor and the Steem investment layer

The other day while walking around Helsinki after the Ed Sheeran concert, my wife was talking about what it must be like to be recognizable in the streets for what you do as a job. The conversation then drifted toward reputation, clothing labels, appearances and how someone is more likely to be listened to if they look the part or have some level of wealth.

While my wife thinks the idea of labels meaning something is stupid, she definitely judges people on their looks - because she is human and we all do - and even the blind want their partners to be considered good looking even though they will never see them.

A couple days before this I was talking to @galenkp and he mentioned something about his Steem Power and then I thought I would have look at his ranking. He is currently #1364 of the largest Steem Power holders with about 10700 Steem. For me, I am #377 of the largest holders of Steem Power with 51200 SP. What this means is there are about 1000 accounts between 10,700 and 50,200 SP - which is almost a 5-fold difference. That is not many is it?

My wife still is very skeptical about the future value of Steem, however I was telling her that if it does what it potentially could, not only would we be significantly better off financially (invested for life changing results, not subsistence), it might get to the point that I am recognizable as I am not one of the people who has hidden his face and name.

That is quite a strange concept, but not necessarily so strange if one considers the potential of Steem beyond the price of it. Yes, if prices went insane, my account would be worth a fair bit but, that is actually not the most valuable aspect of Steem Power in my opinion. The power of Steem can be exemplified in this comment:

Have been a premium user for a while, actually 2 years today. Will keep my Steem and use it as well, like giving you an upvote without losing any of my stack. @felander

While he talks about giving a vote without losing his stack, what this actually demonstrates is that he is investing into me, my content and my future. Now, let's say in five years from now the price of Steem is 20 dollars which is a 80x shift from the price today. That would give my current full SP vote a boost from 70 cents to 56 dollars, meaning that I could deliver 560 dollars of vote value per day with my 50,000 SP, I could invest that into projects, it could pay for developers, it could buy my stake in a business - and, I wouldn't lose my stack.

What people might not realise yet is even if they only have a vote of 1 cent today, with no increase in stake they might be able to invest 4 dollars a day when Steem hits 20. That doesn't sound like much does it? Well, that really depends on what you are investing into doesn't it. Imagine if what you invested into was Bitcoin when it was sitting at 1 dollar. 4 BTC a day.

And this is what people have to remember when looking at blockchain industry and tokenization - there are going to be thousands of projects and businesses built that are going to be looking for various kinds of funding and, *the blockchains are able to handle many small amounts by design. Own some stake now might get you a bit of a return, but later it could make you a significant investor in a host of startups.

Potentially, there will be investment funds that will take votes and create portfolios of investments with returns that reflect the amount of shares a person has bought with their votes. This changes the way investing happens and, it changes the types of people who are able to invest as pretty much, anyone will have some capabilities to put something into it. there is of course still risk in what is invested into because a lot of the projects are going to fail -much like most of the shitcoins are going to go to zero at some point because they have nothing propping them up.

What this means is that while there can be plenty of holders, the "inflation pool" becomes the, investment pool, and in many ways, it has already. When those with stake vote, what they are doing is investing their potential into what they vote upon. Some do this for return, some do it for a future position.

For all of those who have voted on me over the last two and a half years, they have now come to the understanding that I am here long-term and willing to participate and, willing to invest. That means that when there are those investment opportunities and funds, they are likely to have an investment partner they can trust and someone they can turn to. As I have said before, the person behind the post is more important than any individual post they may create.

It is also this investment potential through Steem that will eventually lead to earnings of Steem on content as it stands today to disappear and shift to the SMTs and the like. Steem becomes the investment vehicle that powers the development of the ecosystem on and off the platform. Off platform? Absolutely.

In time, Investing with Steem will cross over the digital boundaries and deeper and wider into the real world business models of products and services in ways that continually gather various values onto the Blockchain, as well as connect more and more people and use cases to it. The value of Steem will rise not only because of price, it will become a full ecosystem that crisscrosses through lives and straddles personal and professional interactions.

You might not see it as you might be focusing on your earnings, short-term, the state of the Trending page, bidbots, arguments, the next hardfork, Ned, or something else that keeps your perspective of Steem narrow. But, just because you wear blinders, doesn't mean Steem is confined within your range of view. And while you are focusing your attention on individual points, the ecosystem is expanding outward through people who see the Steem world in a very different way than yourself and are far from your view.

Steem is the most interesting investment opportunity that has been around for a very long time because investing into it opens up a potential plethora of other investment opportunities that can be negotiated in a range of ways without losing the stack.

While an investment might fail, all that gets lost is time and potential.

But, I don't mind that much if people choose not to invest into Steem long-term because as I see it, in time the Steem Power will end up in the hands of those who want to use it to generate value, not to sell to extract it. I envisage that there are going to be an increasing number of potential investment opportunities arising for Steem holders over the next decade and, some of those businesses are going to skyrocket in value and take on unicorn statuses.

Steem can be the kickstart program for thousands of projects where investment ownership potential is open to anyone with a little stake. Partnerships created in a trustless system to empower creators of many kinds around the world and at many levels.

It sounds pretty awesome to me.
Until it gets there, I will keep working toward it, and accumulating along the way.

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]