Variable Power Down May Be Included In The Next Version Of Steemit - Update
A few weeks ago I opened an issue on GitHub for a crowdsourced enhancement proposal: the ability to power down a variable amount, not bigger than 1/13 of the entire available amount.
Turned out there was a similar proposal about a year ago (which I wasn't aware of, obviously), and, which is more important, turned out that this feature is actually in progress, as you can see from the screenshot below.
Thanks to @everittdmickey for pushing me to do this and let's hope this will be included in the next hardfork.
I think it will have a significant impact on the price analysis. As of now, power downs are an important indicator in the technical analysis of the STEEM price, but the amount powered down could actually be way smaller if people will have the option to power down only the desired amount.
I'll keep you posted on this if there will be further developments.
Later edit: minutes after I posted it, the issue was closed as duplicate on Github and @sneak confirmed it will be live in about 2-3 weeks, as you can see from the screenshot below:
I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.
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This would be a very valuable alternative and definitely help stabilize the price of Steem more.
So good information, Thanks
This comment has received a 0.11 % upvote from @booster thanks to: @hamzaoui.
Yes this feature is being developed now and should be rolled out soon. It does not require a hardfork, the blockchain already supports powering down any amount.
Thanks for the comment, appreciate it. So it's just a UI feature? If so, it means that using cli_wallet / piston / steemjs you can power down whatever amount you want (within the 1/13 limit, that is)?
I will look into the API, didn't know about that.
@dragosroua correct - It's just a UI feature, you can absolutely already do this with the cli_wallet and any of the available steem libraries
Thanks!
I appreciate the idea but I feel Steemit is already too complicated for many people. I'd like to see us focus on simplifying it before we add more complex features.
I think the powerdown as of right now is a good tactic to help keep the Steempower here(instead of cashing out and crashing price). People loan their steempower out and help others. Some smaller minnows may withdraw and sell it or even some dolphins, which doesn't hurt it much.
But say a whale has 100k steempower, they don't want to withdraw 1/13th of that, maybe that only want to withdraw 1/25 or 1/50 of that, withdrawing 1/50th of that is 2k steem. Maybe they just need a few hundred dollars or few thousand dollars for something.
Ithink it would be a good idea to let them power down at a lower rate. Especially people who have 1 million steem, they likely don't want to convert 80,000 steem to be withdrawn, may just want a little.
:)
Anyways, having the option doesn't hurt anyone. Steem isn't that hard to understand if you use it over a period of a month. I think facebook is way more complicated, have you seen how many differen menus and buttons and pages they have on facebook?if you go through each thing you can do I think you go through a few hundred different pages, and on each page there is like 20 settings.
This would probably only apply to power users who are pretty well versed in Steemit... I don't see a problem.
I can't figure the Quackulation .. to many downers, not enough uppers...
awesome... thanks for the update!
Just what I was going to post. You've become my go-to for Steemit news and updates, @dragosroua - thanks for the continued effort in distilling this complex subject into more easily comprehendible chunks.
Can we expect this HF 20?
Have no idea now. Will follow up if there's more info. Later edit: apparently yes, I updated the post.
Great.. thanks for the updates...always useful.
This feature has been in the blockchain since launch. The issue is to expose it on steemit.com
i am wondering why the decision was made to go for 13 weeks instead of 2 years.
I made a couple of post about why the 13 weeks could be a ticking timebomb for Steemit and although I might be missing some fundamental info my main worry is that there is no protection in terms of how much liquid steem enters the market through power down in the 13 weeks.
A powerdown should have minimum effect on the price of steem yet we have no safeguards, literally anyone at anytime can press that powerdown button.
So right now there seems to be enough buying power to cope with the amount of powerdown, but what will happen if 20/30/40 or more powers down in periods that buying power is also decreased.
Is there anything to stop Steem value from collapsing?
Maybe a very pessimistic view, but going from 2 years to 13 weeks is a massive change and whilst steemit's economy is not anywhere near to being matured it needs all the help it can get, to keep the reward/ curation system working.
So why not make the 13 weeks variable as well, based on the health of the economy.
The counterargument I hear is that price drop of steem is no issue, people will buy it up. I think this is a very shortsighted view as there will be times of reduced buying power and this could easily take months. If powerdowns are then continously happening steem might never recover from it as once people see the reward system fail for weeks/ months what is the point of curating. Anyway this seems like a very risky unnecesary choice that could be fixed by coupling the payout in terms of health of the economy.
13 weeks seems to be grasped from the air, there is no explanation to this on the hardfork 19 description.
For instance if currently the price stays stable at a particular daily/ weekly buying rate then we know that the power down doesn't collapse the price. But if the powerdown rate doubles, the effect would be logically that the price will go down unless we change 13 weeks to 26 weeks for instance or unless people buy up more when price drops (that last part is no guarantee and leaves steemit open to collapse on itself)
At least this way the system buffers a bit and if the health of the system is shown on the ui, whales might rethink powering down.
Right now nobody seems to know what influence power down has on the price, this is not good.
Also wonder why when a hardfork comes out the changes are not directly reflected in the whitepaper.
I invested and powered up my money thinking steem had an inflation rate of 100% and steem power would be stuck for 2 years (giving me feeling of comfort) as whales can't power down all their millions in a short period.
All new investors that take the time to get their head around the whitepaper..... and spent hours to understand it to then find out the system doesn't work like that anymore. I struggle to see why nothing has done for months on this area.
I am just hoping someone can give me a proper reply on this feedback because this is what worries me and stops me from investing more.
Or put my mind to ease that the 13 week power down can't possibly create an implosion.
that will be great!
Love the idea. Makes perfect sense.
As for me, it's all powering up till it actually pays to power down without significantly weakening my account. So - some months ahead. :)
Thanks for sharing!
ch @globocop