The Steem Light Account

We need quick and fast user onboarding.

A Steem account is a scare resource. It is a "premium" account, and to onboard millions of people for free, we need a light version of the premium account to scale.

What is a light account?

Light accounts would be like accounts that are created on blockchains like Bitcoin or Ethereum. These accounts would be simple wallet addresses (not usernames) that would not have any of the valuable rights that the current Steem accounts have, thus the term "light account."

A light account will not be able to vote on consensus witnesses or make comments, but it will be able to do all things that do not cost resource credits. Having a base light account that can send and receive Steem/SMTs allows developers to become more creative with the onboarding process. Light accounts themselves don't necessarily need to have the ability to comment, obviously commenting is a critical aspect of a social media platform. Second layer solutions can be built on top of light accounts that allow people to essentially make comments and even earn rewards.

On 3Speak, currently, someone can sign up instantly and for free using other social media accounts (Facebook, Google, etc.), and make a comment, EARN Steem via upvotes and unlock a premium Steem account with no financial cost to the user. Completely frictionless. Without a proper Steem light account, however, users on 3Speak cannot send Steem or Steem tokens to their favorite content creator unless they have a premium account first. This is a significant hindrance.

The reason this is an issue is when we bring prominent content creators that have millions of followers, those followers will want to be able to send tips to their favorite creator. This adds buy pressure for Steem. But, without the ability to send and receive Steem with light accounts, projects are forced to move off the chain and create their own tokens that enable instant, free sign-ups with the ability to transfer value from the get-go. However, with light accounts, there is no need to move off-chain because they will give people the power to buy up some Steem/SMTs and tip the creators seamlessly with free, instant accounts. This will allow projects to stay on Steem and scale how they choose.

Keep in mind, Bitcoin's simple use case is to transfer value, I don't think this feature is appreciated enough, and I believe it should always be free and easy to send Steem without the need to buy/wait for a premium account. Steem has feeless 3-second block times, that is far superior to Bitcoin.

When branching off from the idea of a light wallet and getting creative with how far we can really take these light accounts. For example, an obstacle we face on 3Speak is, even though people can comment and earn Steem without having an actual Steem account, due to limits on the number of custom JSONs included per block, we can only scale this so far. Talking to high-end developers on Steem, resource credits account for custom JSONs, and the more demand for custom JSONs translates for more demand for resource credits. Unlocking the amount of custom JSON included in each block would help to scale platforms built on Steem in many ways by giving more power and allowing more creativity when working with the Steem blockchain.

The goal is to have an account where it feels like a full-fledged account until you go to withdraw the Steem you earned; there you will need to upgrade to a premium Steem account. Hook, line, and sinker. People will get the Steem account because why not? It will either be free due to rewards earned or discounted. This also gives people the feeling of being able to go on a test drive with Steem.

TLDR: Having the ability to create light accounts on Steem that can send and receive Steem & Steem tokens would give projects more power to build second layer onboarding solutions for non-premium account users. Unlocking the amount of custom JSON included in each block will allow projects to become much more creative when building second layer onboarding solutions.