Steem Broke 4 $ - This Is Why You Should Show Some Fucking Trust To The Platform And Fucking HODL
Disclaimer: This post is gonna be 50 % rant and 50 % shilling
Today's post is inspired by recent online and real life discussions I have had with some people and also by taking a peek to the wallets of some steemians (I have a lot of free time!) I have been curating as part of my "job" over @SteemStem.
So, what I have noticed is that a good percentage of small fish here on the platform send the little sbd/steem they make on bittrex or other exchanges right away to sell them or trade. Some do that to buy everyday stuff like shoes, some to buy other shitty coins hoping to make millions, some to day trade or whatever. I have even noticed some people powering down to squeeze even the last penny out of their accounts. Often, these are the same people that complain of not buying BTC back in 2010 because they would be millionaires today, although their actions clearly show they would be among the first to sell when BTC hit the price of 1 $.
Look, don't get me wrong. It's your money, feel free to do whatever you want. But if you have an every day job and cover all your daily expenses, will cashing out the 20 $ you made last week make any real difference to your everyday life? I understand somebody who makes hundreds of dollars every week on the platform to cash a small %, or even a whale that has invested thousands and thousands to take a profit (or cut back down losses).
But if you are a small fish, I don't really see the point. Steemit has the potential to moon and what you just sold for 20$ to get some crap you don't really need could easily be 200$ and maybe even thousands in a couple of years. Congratulations, you just missed a very good chance to have HUGE profits in the future AND ACTUALLY CHANGE YOUR LIFE while putting downwards pressure on the price.
And no, daytrading the 50 $ you just cashed (if you are one of those guys) will probably lead you nowhere. Statistically speaking, you might make 1-2 % in gains, after spending hours and hours in front of a monitor looking at boring numbers and stupid graphs and having one mini heart attack after the other. Alternatively, you could engage in the platform, write some good posts or even leave a 3 second comment to one of those generous whales that upvote everything (I am guilty) and get SOME guaranteed profits that will probably be A LOT more than the shitty 1-2 % you make by day trading.
So, I said before there is a good chance STEEM will moon in the months and years to come. Why? Let me give you some reasons like the good little shiller I am. You can decide for yourselves if I talk BS or not:
1# Steem Is One of the Few Coins With an Actual Product That Works TODAY And Can Be Used By Anyone With Access To A Computer With Internet
Please first go over https://coinmarketcap.com and tell me out of the TOP-100 coins, how many actually have a real product, that ALREADY works. Not speculation mumbo jumbo of things to come. Something that works NOW. I doubt you will find more than 10 coins.
In case you don't know which product I am talking about, the product is Steemit.com. And what is so great about this product is that it can be used by everyone, even your grandpa that barely knows how to operate a pc. A product that has the potential to reach millions and millions of users just from mouth to mouth marketing.
As we speak, Steemit.com is the 876 most visited site in the USA. Last month it was 1010 or something. This number is not taken out of my ass but based on Alexa, the most respectable source when it comes to traffic statistics. Here's a graph showing the growth of Steemit.com over time:
As you can see there was a period of huge traffic growth, things stabilized for a while and it appears we are getting ready for another traffic explosion. When steemit.com becomes a top-100 site shit will get REALLY REALLY serious and all shorts of investors will start pouring money to buy their share of STEEM.
2 # Steemit.com Isn't the Only Site Using The Steem Blockchain
There are so many others platforms currently running or about to be launched based on STEEM. The most promising one I think is Utopian-IO, which rewards Open Source contributors for their hard work.
In simple words, somebody who has made an open source application or whatever can make easy money just by submitting his work on Utopian-IO. And guess what? This guy (or gal) will most probably tell his other geeky programming friends about Utopian-IO and so on and so forth. This project has the potential to bring thousands if not millions of users to Utopian-IO and essentially STEEM. Don't believe me? Here's a graph, again from Alexa Rank:
Utopian-IO isn't of course the only promising project based on the steem block-chain. Others you may have heard include DTUBE, Zapple and DLive. I need at least 2-3 posts to talk about all these projects in full detail so I will move to the next reason. I think you got the main idea..
3 # Youtubers Finally Start To Take Notice And Will Soon Start Using Steemit.com To Raise Funds
In the past months, youtube has started to censor all kinds of things. By censoring, I mean excluding people from the YouTube Partner Program or shutting their channels all-together. People who used to make hundreds or thousands of $ per month have suddenly found themselves making a big fat 0. And this number increases by the day.
Actually, one of my youtube channels got de-monetized like a week ago and it was not related in no-way to politics or other "sensitive" subjects. And yeah, my content was original!
This is why you may have noticed more and more youtubers start asking for direct donations, to subscribe on their Patreon, kickstarters or whatever shit they come up like t-shirts or whatever.
Imagine now, a big youtuber with millions of subscribers giving a shoutout to Steemit.com, asking their subscribers to register on the platform and upvote their shit here! Most youtubers already have accounts on tumblr, facebook, twitter and other places where they make 0 money from the likes they get so they have every reason to also make an account on STEEMIT where they can actually make some easy money And if one big youtuber embraces steemit, it's just a matter of time for the rest to follow. The only reason this hasn't happened yet is because they haven't noticed.
If I was to take a bet, this will happen sometime in 2018. Already small youtubers like @mes have started to take notice and recently I learned from @fredrikaa how steemit and dtube where featured on AnswersWithJoe a youtube channel with 82k subscribers. Nothing super-huge, but it shows things are slowly but steadily starting to roll.
4# A paradise of un-censorship
Speaking of censorship, steemit is a paradise of free speech. Every day that passes the mainstream media restricts free speech more and more. Twitter, Youtube, Facebook, Reddit have turned into censorship shitholes and even posts that are even only remotely "questionable" (like trump memes) get deleted for the stupidest of reasons like hate speech or whatever. Soon, only cute kittens will be allowed...Hmm.. Actuallly that wouldn't be so bad!
None of this applies to steemit. Take for example @berniesanders. He is probably the account with the biggest negative reputation but still his posts are visible and among those that get the most readership here on steemit. And I am sure many of his posts have a big impact ;) Now, imagine if someone like Julian Assange joins the platform how many thousands people would come storming to steemit just to read his stuff!
5# Communities
Let's be honest, steemit is often advertised as a social media site but in reality it's more like a blogging platform. A platform that makes it very difficult to find the stuff you enjoy! But sometime in 2018 the Communities feature is expected to come and EVERYTHING will change. Steemit will probably become more like reddit, increasing the engagement and the final experience for the visitor. Did I mention by the way how many redditors look for a new place to come since reddit has turned into a censorship shithole? I am actually one of them!
6# Steemit Is The Easiest Way To Enter The Crypto World
Cryptos get more popular by the day. 5 years ago almost nobody knew about bitcoin. Today, even my grandma on the mountain with no TV has heard about bitcoin and a good percentage of the population even knows about Etherium.
It won't be long till the average joe starts to get interested in cryptos and want to have his share of the pie. When that happens, Steemit is and will be the easiest way to enter the crypto world. Heck, they won't even have to spend money, just register an account, write a good post, get a few likes and kaboom, they have their share of crypto! And if they decide to spend some money, rumors say that in the coming forks an added feature will be to buy steem directly with your credit card. Fuck exchanges ;)
7# All The CryptoGurus/ICO Starters/CryptoCompanies/Whatever Will Want To Have A Voice On Steemit
Doesn't matter if you are a newbie or an old timer. Once you register on steemit, you get an idea of cryptocurrencies and you start to get more interested in them, looking into stuff like icos, alt-coins, daytrading, long term-holding etc
This means that a good part of Steemit's demographics are interested in cryptos. And once Steemit grows huge all these crypto-gurus, ico-starters, companies offering crypto-related products (e.g. TenX debit card) will want to have a strong voice here on Steemit to sell their "wisdom", products, or just to show off. And if you want to have a strong voice you need to buy and power-up Steem. :)
8 # Tech: Fast Transactions, Zero Fees
I left the best for the last. Steemit simply has one of the best and most efficient techs. Let's be honest, BTC is getting old and as is, it's slow and fees are high. Minor improvements like Bcash are definitely not the solution (don't get me started on this) and would face the exact same problems (just on a lesser degree) while sacrificing decentralization if they had the adoption of BTC. BTC is only good for storing wealth imo. Things like segwit and lighting network help but still don't solve the problem at its...core. As for ETH, let's just remember how it was brought to it's knees by cryptokitties. Same is true for litecoin and many other big cryptto names.
Meanwhile, STEEMIT offers TODAY 3 seconds transaction with zero-fees and minimal load on the network. From a technological aspect, for everyday zero-cost transactions Steemit is light years ahead of most of the competion:
One of those was the Steem blockchain which processed 1,022,251 transactions. The other was Ethereum which also broke the 1 million barrier, but struggled to handle the load, using over 60% of its network capacity. Meanwhile, Steem didn’t even come close to cracking a sweat, using only 1% of its overall capacity. [source]
In other words, steemit is already ready for mainstream mass- adoption and if not ready, definitely more ready than other coins ;)
The End
So, that's pretty much all the stuff I felt like writing today about Steem. There are many other benefits to mention but you probably got my message if you read the wall of text above.
And for those that were expecting a strange animal post, my apologies. Here, have an alien-like caterpillar:
(credit)
TL;DR; If you are a minnow or a small fish selling the little money you make probably won't make a substantial change to your life. But HODLING and being patient for a few years probably will. Remember, all those BTC millionaires weren't always millionaires. There was a time when 10.000 BTC could barely get you a pizza. Now you need 10.000 pizzas to get a BTC. Prices will go up, prices will go down, daytraders and whales will play their games, but if all things go the way they go now, STEEM will sooner or later reach the moon and become mainstream for the reasons I mentioned in the post (although I excluded some because I was getting tired, like SMART tokens). The question is... Will you be part of the mission?
Dtube, Steemit, SMT, Strong community: BULISH HODL
Hi there! As you said, it is the users own money, but people from Nigeria, South Africa and smaller countries where the value of money is so low, should take advantage. At this stage for South Africans 5 dollars is a huge deal. For a mere 5 dollars you can buy enough to feed a family for a week. There are plenty of people that sells sbd and buys bitcoin. To use South Africa as an example. For one bitcoin at the current price you can buy or build a small house that will have you stay free for a lifetime. Either way for now the money stress is gone for a while which also makes life much easier. For some this is pure survival money. Every time I go to a shopping mall to go and spend some of my steemit money I feel so sorry for the car guards standing in the sun the whole day for a very low salary. Some earn less than twenty rand per day, which is equivalent to 1,58 American dollar. With that they can buy a loaf of bread and a two liter of milk, which can feed their four or five kids at home and no one will go sleep hungry. For most people here, it is a godsend and I am trying to spread the word as far as possible but you know how people are about crypto...
Hi thanks for the comment. Yes, I guess I should have cleared this part a bit more.. "But if you have an every day job and cover all your daily expenses, will cashing out the 20 $ you made last week make any real difference to your everyday life? "
Obviously, 20 $ a week is a big deal for somee countries and these are definitely not the people I am talking for. I am happy STEEM has changed your life(ves) to the better! :)
I think your advice is applicable regardless. It's true the exchange makes the money more substantial in most part of Africa but Its about instant gratification and long term survival. Although I must say some people are in more desperate conditions but Im sure people without severe money problems still cash out and spend on trivial things even when they know powering up leads to more returns and a greater share.
All I can say is that I'm a happy holder!
I like your post
Plis up vote me
Nice post matey, and some very well made points.
I am also of the view that altcoins, and Steemit in particular, will increase in value quite a lot in the new year as exchanges like Coinbase make altcoins easier to buy and the need to "go through" Bitcoin and Ether as a funding currency will start to be removed.
If if gets easier to do something, more people will do it... The human animal is a simple creature - especially where money's involved.
You said it all. I really don't have anything else to say except that as you said to ( but i wanna say it one more time :P ) you can join steemit FOR FREE and get into the cryptoworld you don't have to pay 1 single dollar like with bitcoin and every other crypto out there. You invest time, as with everything you do in life and what do you prefer to watch videos on youtube and movies all the time? just watch 1 episode and then write a review on steemit and here you go you do the things you love while you are making money out of your comfort chair or bed.
i need to resteem this @trumpman
Thanks for the support :D
I predict that the STEEM price will rise until begin of january, then we will have a correction in the whole market since the christmas-money is gone. The correction wont hit STEEM that hard because of SMTs coming out late january, so STEEM is a pretty safe bet I guess!
I agree with you @trumpman. One should absolutely HODL as much as possible. When I was just getting started in the crypto world I was out here to make a quick million, pretty much! Very unlikely! As I grew to learn more about the space, I saw that blockchain is not just about getting money.... This will change how the world operates. Literally.
And STEEM really is the leader in the field. It surely has the potential to catch up to facebook, twitter and reddit and it might even surpass them. That being said I can understand some people from poor countries who cash out what they get. But I dont agree with them. It is never wise to sell your whole position, because then, you are screwed when STEEM skyrockets which is bound to happen.
Of course you get 50/50 in SP and SBD, and minnows probably dont cash out their SP by powering down, because there is not enough worth in their SP. For the people who need the money, I think it would be the wisest to leave their SP be but also invest 25% of the earned SBD into SP additionally to the already default invested 50%! In this way you get some money for your life, but also continue to invest in this platform that is going to the moon for sure!
Indeed, if you have a steady income from a dayjob or whatnot, why the hell cash out pennies when they possibly could be quintillions worth later on. I did do some SBD transfers to make myself acquainted with exchanges, and buy other tokens I believe in, like GRC and BTS. (also don't put all your eggs in one basket). But the rest is here to stay and hopefully multiply like little cute rabbits!
Something I forgot to mention is when I first registered I used to be one of those guys, selling my steem for other coins (mainly GRC like you). But once I saw where steem is heading I decided to hodl everything. I have a diversified portfolio so I am good I think. The post is mainly for people making 5-10 $ or less per week and cashing out everything, even their steem power. Ok, I get it if you are jobless and from a country where 5 $ are actually a big deal, but if you are from EU or USA and do have a job I don't really see the point :/ :O
legit points.
but maybe to some people, selling off a little bit of steem may be a choice they simply had to make. for practical reasons.
i also think it's a great new chance for indie content creators and artists to gain some cash whereas in the past their only source of revenue was from ads (with very little transparency).
in most cases they would probably be smart enough to stash some crypto for the future.
if someone's using it to buy stupid shit then yea.. you're 100% right. AND they're probably losing money elsewhere too.
yep purely talking for people spending it on stupid shit they don't need :)