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RE: To SBD or not to SBD – Why is That a Question?
A price stable cryptocurrency is important longer term. We don't really have the volume or demand to support it yet. Let's focus on growing STEEM and taking on Bitcoin. I don't care whether they scrap SBD or not in the short term, because I know Dan and his team will want a price stable currency in this system later. When the time comes, it will be a welcome part of this ecosystem. For now, I think we should focus on STEEM.
For now, I don't think we should be focusing on prices at all. We ought to be focusing on development and onboarding new users and investors. If all we do is focus on the price every day and make decisions based on that, then STEEM/Steemit will never go anywhere.
What you don't understand is maintaining SBD is not free. Also it is not cheap. It's quite EXPENSIVE. SBD causes downward pressure on steem price. we have to get rid of it ASAP. I agree with NED. Does it even worked as a bait to lure ordinary ppl into steemit system? no. We have to think like a business man. If we used money to promote steemit on IT magazine instead of SBD, we would have much better result now. We have to be smart.
Yeah - that's what I do. And as a businessman, I would much prefer to work with SBDs than with STEEM. If we want merchants to engage in commerce, then having the SBD option will bring more of them into the mix than having only a volatile cryptocurrency. What most of you fail to realize is that cryptocurrencies are volatile. STEEM is no different, with or without SBDs. Getting rid of SBDs won't auto-magically make the STEEM price more stable. It will only make onboarding merchants more difficult.
If you think like a businessman, then you should think about what benefit SBD brings to Steem price. So simple right? No benefit but serious cost! Let's say SBD lured merchant, what benefit steem get from that? NONE but price collapse. Since SBD is[ steem backed dollar], sbd will collapse too eventually. Sophisticated investors understand this and they don't invest money into steem! this is act of stupidity. We have to be smart.
So you're dismissing network effect as a potentially enormous contribution to STEEM prices? Interesting.
"Sophisticated investors" would likely understand the value or utility of a U.S. Dollar-pegged cryptocurrency and how it could greatly outweigh any pressures on STEEM prices. Also, those "sophisticated investors" would likely not invest in either STEEM or SBDs so long as the development and marketing of STEEM/Steemit is poor. This is a much larger issue than debt loads from SBDs.
As I said - I think like a businessman. I am one. There is much more value in SBDs for me as a potential merchant/investor using STEEM/SBDs for my business. If we want "to be smart," we need to stop confusing causes and effects and we need to stop trying to find reasons to eliminate features that will assist with onboarding users. STEEM/Steemit needs more people using the currency and platform. SBDs help with the onboarding issue, whether you want to believe that or not.
NO, there is NO SBD network effect.
SBD is only another form of DOLLAR. If SBD starting to take fee, merchants will simply change to paypal.
Network effect created when ppl actually use STEEM.
You are confusing two very different things.
If SBDs can actually lure merchants, as you suggested, then there certainly would be a network effect. Right now, there is no network effect, either for STEEM or SBDs. But - once again - this is not because SBDs exist.
Cause and effect. You're confusing or just completely missing them.
Tell me this: how do you scrap SBD without eliminating SBD holders' wealth? Are you advocating taking away the money that I've been saving in my SBD account? How can you be so flippant about my money?
Yeah - the problem here is that, given the choice, many people will simply leave the STEEM ecosystem. If your choices are STEEM/SP or holding something more stable, guess where the money will go.
If they're serious about getting rid of SBDs and actually do it, my prediction is that STEEM fails anyway. This isn't a conversation that should be had right now or any time in the near future. There is no support and little interest for STEEM and there is even less interest in the Steemit social media interface. If SBDs were to be eliminated, there would be very few reasons to care about STEEM/Steemit from an investor/merchant perspective. And bloggers would probably just cash out as quickly as the STEEM came in because there would be no other way to protect their earnings from volatility (which would mostly just be declines).
Yes, the price is low - and yes, we need to start talking about debt loads and ratios. But the problem isn't that serious and can be pretty much resolved by adjusting the holdings of the various @steemit and Steemit, Inc. accounts anyway. There seems to be a lot of fuss and scare tactics about how "bad" SBDs are for STEEM, but nobody seems to want to address the actual issues that have been driving STEEM prices down since July.
The arguments are bad and these people should feel bad.
Haha, perfect. I love it.
Absolutely. I often go for days without checking the price. STEEM is just the underlying currency, so if we keep building the system here and making it better, then eventually that should be reflected in the price.
Before doing away with something in a system we should ask ourselves:
Why was SBD created in the first place? Why are the reasons for its existence any different today than they were when it was first implemented? Why are we even having this discussion at all? What benefits would removing SBD have and to whom?
I agree with @ats-david and @pfunk in keeping it. It's easier to explain to noobs and merchants with SBD pegged to the USD than it is to explain Steem. That IS simplicity.
Ask a business owner considering pricing items in Steem or SBD about simplicity and I'd bet they would find it more simple to price items and do accounting in SBD.
ADDED THIS EDIT: The more I think about it, it doesn't really matter from a merchant perspective. They could continue pricing items as they normally do and POS apps like BlockPay can do the conversion for them at the current Steem price when the purchase was made. They got their price and the bookkeeping wouldn't have to change at all.
Removing SBD would give an author earning Steem two choices.
Yes. They can price the equivalent in fiat currencies pretty easily and even have a running dollar conversion amount printed next to balances if that would help. I agree that a price stable currency is easier to explain to people, but where we are going with this thing, I hope we will get to a point where it's just "click, click, click" and the casual users simply won't know/care that crypto runs the back end.
When I look at the big picture I think you may be right. One thing I don't hear anyone talking about on any of today's posts on the subject is how posts would be paid if we made the change.
Next to a post today, the earnings are expressed in SBD and we know this is pegged to the dollar. If the change was made, would the posts earning now be expressed in Steem? And if so, pegged to what? Dollars or today's Steem price?
I assume that's correct. Most of the time, you get some Steem from posting now anyway, so it would just be more Steem if SBD went away.