What's The Point Of Steemfest? - Community Projects On Steemroids!
Today I want to give more space to the talks and projects that really caught my eye at Steemfest. As I mentioned yesterday in my What's The Point Of Steemfest? post, there was a real focus on what the Steem blockchain is and how it can be leveraged beyond the flagship app, Steemit.com.
So let's take a look at some of the projects that go beyond Steemit, and the people behind them.
Oracle-D by @Starkerz
I was really energised by @starkerz speech, he started off by explaining what Oracle-D is. Essentially it is a platform that can be used to create a community on the Steem blockchain.
The idea is that if you have a subject that you want to create a community around, and you want people to create content for that community, then you use Oracle-D's services to build it up and distribute rewards.
I liked this because it can have so many use cases, from general interest to marketing. I think the full potential of this kind of community building has not yet been realised on the blockchain, so perhaps Oracle-D will be the ones to do it.
They use a consensus system for voting, a multi proof-of-brain, whereby appointed Oracles decide on where the rewards go. Corruption is dealt with by either removing bad actors, or increasing the number of Oracles in order to limit the effect of badly behaving Oracles.
There are quite a few aspects that go along with this, too many to cover properly in a summary such as this, however I will link Oracle-D's website at the bottom of the page.
The second thing that @starkerz talked about really had me buzzing. He has been speaking with key people in Indonesia about blockchain tech and specifically about the Steem blockchain.
He has managed to convince them to create an educational module around blockchain tech. He did so by speaking with (among others) the minister for education who is also dean of over 4,000 universities in Indonesia.
The third thing that he spoke briefly about in his talk, and more to me afterwards, was the idea of creating a commodities market using coffee growers and the Steem blockchain.
This to me is extremely exciting and is just what the Steem blockchain needs.
The reason I say that Steem needs this, is because at the moment, as with pretty much every other cryptocurrency and token out there. The price of Steem is largely speculative. That is to say that regardless of how many people tell you they can predict the price of a crypto by looking at charts, it simply isn't true.
The only solid way to predict the future of anything, is by looking at real world factors. Hence if we can get a market going that is directly linked to Steem, then we can get some stability in the coin, and perhaps a price that ends up being pegged to one of the most popular commodities in the world, coffee.
This not only benefits the Steem blockchain, but also the coffee producers themselves. As @starkerz pointed out to me, a producer generally sells to a middleman at around $0.15/kilo. By the time that coffee gets to the consumer it is sold for around $4.00/kilo.
Hence if they can cut out the middleman and sell directly to the end user, the producer can sell for ten times higher, whilst still giving a lower price to the consumer.
Win-win-win, well apart from the poor middleman of course! Lol.
All in all I think @starkerz has got something going here, if the coffee commodities happens on Steem, it may even lead to a functioning derivatives market, something which my Steemian friend @quillfire is very enthusiastic about.
Steem In The European Union - @sorin.cristescu
This speech had me bouncing up and down in my chair for the simple reason that @sorin.cristescu works for the European Commission leading the Blockchain Competence Center (BLKCC), and he is a champion for the Steem blockchain.
So in other words the EU are not only aware of Steem, but are actively being pushed into using our humble blockchain.
Sorin sees the Steem blockchain as a potential solution for many member countries of the European Union in many areas, from corporate governance to information processing, storing and sharing.
This is big mainly because the BLKCC will have looked at many blockchains including Ethereum, EOS and NEO, yet they are focusing on Steem, which is in no small thanks to @sorin.cristescu.
Along with all this Sorin has introduced us to such corporate powerhouses as the electronics giant Fujitsu.
All in all I think @sorin.cristescu could end up being one of our most important Steemians as, even though he is a supporter and fan of Steemit.com, he is touting the Steem blockchain way beyond Steemit.
Steem In The Community With Sndbox by @hansikhouse & @voronoi
I have been aware of @sndbox for almost all of my time on the Steem block. My friend @voronoi who I was finally glad to meet in person at Steemfest, and his partner @hansikhouse first came up with the excellent idea Steem Park.
Steem Park was a project whereby they identified a scrub of derelict land in Brooklyn New York, and transformed it from a place parents wanted their children to avoid, into a wonderful garden for the community to enjoy.
The reasons I loved this project were not only for the fact that Steem was giving back to the community, but also that, as @voronoi said in the promo video for the park, it represents a physical manifestation of the blockchain.
Another reason to love @sndbox and the projects they do such as Steem Park, is the fact that the money comes straight from the blockchain. Nobody has to put their hand in their pockets to make people's lives better.
All you have to do is vote and suddenly you are contributing to a better community!
Because of the plaques and signs that the guys put up in Steem Park, they still get contacted by various organisations, and film makers wanting to know more about this mysterious Steem, that enabled a beautiful garden to be built.
I spoke with @voronoi and @hansikhouse about how they want to widen their scope and allow others to create projects for their communities as well. They alerted myself and others to Fundition, which is the power behind the @sndbox project.
It is clear that a lot of good can come from this project, and these guys deserve all the recognition and support that the Steem community can muster!
Sources & Links
Andre Gray Football Academy will reward your skills
The Blockchain Competence Center (BLKCC)
The "war for - steem - blockchain talent" has been engaged - Fujitsu allies with EC
Title Image: The pedestrian & cycle art bridge to my Air bnb from the Qubus Hotel, central meeting point at Steemfest
We've also looked at Lisk (not mature enough in our eyes, development community too small), Stellar (good, but not really applicable for the type of business processes we face), Cardano (same comment as for Stellar and Lisk combined), and Cosmos (not mature enough).
In the end there's really not much competition to Steem's "full stack" - from nice end-user application to blockchain back-end - combined with proven track record of more than 2 years in the Internet wilderness sustaining record number of transactions ...
@sorin.cristescu,
Any friend of @cryptogee is a friend of mine.
I will definitely Follow you and if you don't mind, could I contact you via DM? I'd like to pick your brain on a few things.
Quill
Sure. I'm on Discord under the same name on quite a number of servers. Or through Partiko if you follow @sorin.lite
So you love pretty much everything Im involved in on Steem (@sndbox and @oracle-d)...Good choices sir...:D
Haha! Yes I do! Also was looking at a pic of your t-shirt on my phone yesterday thinking, 'why didn't I take a pic of his face as well?' Obviously too drunk! :-D
Cg
@cryptogee,
Great post, Crypt.
I am very interested in learning about @starkerz's coffee exchange. This is exactly the kind of thing that could change STEEEM's future.
Make no mistake, all my misgivings remain about the cheating on Steemit, and the extremely deleterious effects in has on the blockchain as a whole.
Due Diligence is EXTREMELY susceptible to FIRST IMPRESSIONS and SYSTEMIC CHEATING is CYANIDE to institutional investors and government regulators.
BUT this kind of development could have very material consequences.
Crypt, as you seemed to have intuited, coffee growers are real world commodity producers ... precisely the people who require futures contracts for practical, not speculative, reasons. It's not the put/call options that we really need BUT it would be the necessary first step.
Even though Bitcoin currently has futures contracts, the market is thinly traded BECAUSE there are no real world users. They are, therefore, highly susceptible to price manipulation by speculators in general, and by Market Makers in particular.
The coffee exchange idea is, perhaps, a way to obtain derivatives WITHOUT having to first be a Top 10-15 cryptocurrency.
What you wrote about @sorin.cristescu is also very interesting. I'm going to see if I can't pick his brains via DM.
Crypt ... good to have you back in the game.
Quill
I'm glad that my instinct of you being very interested in those two projects was right! I really didn't have any ammo to fire back if you tore them apart. So phew! :-)
I hear what you're saying about systematic cheating, and agree mostly with what you have been saying regarding that. I just wanted to make you see that a possible future whereby Steemit has ebbed away because of said cheating, yet leaves behind a thriving Steem blockchain, is possible.
Hopefully we work out how to make both thrive, it's just for now, we have to concentrate on making Steem the number one, go-to blockchain for large enterprises, and innovative real-world projects.
Good to see some faith has been restored!
Cg
Lovely summary of the projects and people that interested me too. The other person that was great to talk to was @traveller7761 and the work his organisation is doing about using the blockchain (again, steem was the blockchain of choice) to reward social impact of (from/towards?) the UN's 17 sustainable development goals - more at http://impactn.launchrock.com
Also good to meet you, enjoyed our chat on the river cruise :)
It was amazing to finally meet you in person @cryptogee! After all this time and from the early days, hah. I also really enjoyed our chat about all things community + IRL projects with impact. Thank you for the kind words about @sndbox and what we're seeking to accomplish. We're in great company in this post! 2019 is a very big year for blockchain action - - !
Hi @shanibeer Many thanks for mentioning our project. We are making good progress thanks to the incredible steem-community and will start a regular blog-post very soon. Please follow @impactn then.