The Worth Of STEEM
There's been a lot of posting in recent weeks about how newbies are complaining too much about not making anything on their posts, as well as those with higher Steem Power proposing roll backs in hard fork changes—linear curve, 75/25 creator/curator payout and change the ten upvote maximum to 20—so those who have been sacrificing earnings on behalf of the community as well as those who have been full bore with leasing delegations and providing bidbots can return to manual curation and flagging (provided there's incentives to do that).
While some of this is ongoing, the last few weeks of these kinds of posts have coincided with the drop in STEEM and SBD prices. It's not like price drops are anything new, but the vast majority of people who are currently here (those with less than six months), did so as prices went up, so when prices plummet, it can seem like the end of the world, especially if any investments in STEEM were made at the higher price points.
Many people have the tendency to slow down or stop their activity on Steemit all together when the prices go down. I've seen that happening more than once. I suppose it's harder to justify to a spouse or even yourself when the work isn't penciling out very high in whatever fiat currency you normally transact in. It's hard to look at fractions of SBD and SP and consider it worthwhile.
The problem with that kind of thinking, barring fundamental structural flaws in STEEM or some other catastrophic event, is eventually, the price of STEEM rises. The amounts of STEEM garnered now will be worth more when that happens.
Let's say you get 0.07 SBD and 0.04 SP on a post. Pretty small, right? Right now, the SBD portion would be worth 0.07 x $1.36 or $0.095 USD, and SP powered down into STEEM would be $0.07 USD (0.04 x $1.75), for a combined total of $0.165.
Fine. Not a whole lot. And it could get worse. The price of STEEM could continue down and SBD could get stuck, like it was originally intended, at $1 USD. But let's say the price of STEEM rises, like it's expected to, to $2.50. The value of your 0.04 STEEM is no longer $.07 USD, but $0.10 USD! I know big whoop. Three whole cents.
Yes, but if STEEM gets to $5 USD, that $0.10 is now $0.20, and at $10 USD it's $0.40 and at $20 USD it's $0.80, and so on. Does anyone think the price of STEEM can't reach $20 in the next couple of years? I think it can, especially if any of the upgrades we keep hearing about come to be and actually perform to expectations. $20 USD STEEM could be a gross understatement.
Obviously, all of this is speculation on my part. STEEM could drop to under a $1. If it does, what a golden opportunity to buy, especially for those like me who just barely signed on as the prices took off. We could all get a lot more STEEM. Why would we do that? With the hope that STEEM goes back up, that the downward pressure on STEEM eventually hits a greater wall of upward pressure, and prices rise again.
This isn't like a 9 to 5 job where you go, put in your time, and get paid for it. It's better than that. You can put whatever time, talents, and work ethic you have, and probably earn the pennies of today that we hope to see grow into the dimes and dollars of tomorrow. I guarantee if that happens, $0.01 of STEEM becomes worth $1 USD, we're all going to be kicking ourselves that we didn't do more. If older slower, blockchains can hit $500 or more USD, a new, faster, and battle tested blockchain like STEEM can surely do better.
When it does, we can all celebrate. Until then, business as usual, and full speed ahead.
I studied the crap out of what crypt markets involved before actually plunging in with my pocket change to invest. All of this is a huge gamble, based on speculation. One thing that helped me was seeing how if done right, one could minimize their out of pocket and within a year withdraw the initial investment while probably having a lot of "free" coins left in their wallets. So then it became a matter of weighing out the projects.
I do believe Steem is superior to many of the projects out there, many which are valued for whatever reason higher. Invest a little (I earned mine free through trading) and watch it grow as you post and comment. Then the gamble. If the SMT's I was worried about do what they think, these small payouts could be the equivalent of huge payouts.
One factor many are overlooking I feel is the fact that with upcoming regulations, big money is going to be flooding the markets. It is possible that what we have seen with the smart contracts and Ethereum could pale in comparison to what is coming.
Glad to see a positive write up (to help balance some of those I write up, haha).
Well, I'm balancing out my own from when I was on a rant or two myself, and for any future rants, because they come and they go. Right now I have one brewing for the way they're distributing the STEEM/SBD/SP.
At any rate, there are those of you who come through the crypto side of things, and then there's those of us who come from a social media perspective and have not only a learning curve to the STEEM blockchain and how to use its portals, but then at least crypto 101 speed course for the investment side of things.
At any rate, I'd like people who are thinking about giving up just because of where STEEM is at to think about what it's like when STEEM is twice what it is now and how they feel, and then think about how they'll feel when it's twice that and so on. There is a lot to like, as you say, about STEEM. Why it's not taking off could be due to a myriad of things, or none of them, I guess. Trying to pinpoint investor sentiment is like holding onto smoke tendrils.
I for one like a more reasoned, practical, logical approach, but that's virtually impossible when things are driven by whims, wishes, what someone ate for lunch, or whatever else. Yeah, that's me being critical and cynical. What do you think? :)
Hah, that isn't me. I thought Bitcoin and crypto was a scam until I got my Steemit account. I figured to give it a try since I was going to get free crypto (and lots of it, Jerry Banfield showed me I was going to the damn moon). I learned all I know after joining Steemit, cautiously putting small amounts on the exchange afterwards. And then studying my ass off, losing money at first as in total ignorance I bought so much bullshit I learned in my usual methods, messing up and knowing what not to do.
lol, a smart approach and true. There is no rhyme or reason to any of this other than for right now it is safe to buy on the dips like the whales and sell on the travel to the moon, once again like the whales. One day I hope to become mini me whale.
Okay. Sorry, I might have already known that, but I read way too many things around here. Plenty of people came in on the Jerry Banfield wagon, it sounds like. He gets an A for something, I guess.
Yeah, I figured that out the moment things started to move in the late 80s from more of a steady growth to bouts of delusions of grandeur to 2009 or 2010 when everything went totally and completely out of their minds insane.
I guess this last round kind of coincided with the birth of crypto, come to think of it. 🤔
As you've probably seen I'm travelling a bit right now, so not only am I not making my knives I'm also not at my PC much, so I'm not posting or checking Steem.
I just got on this morning and what do I see - Steem is under $2! I've immediately bought some, not much but some - don't tell my wife ;)
I do believe it will go up in the future, $20 could be a far fetch anytime soon, but hopefully, we'll get to two-digits numbers in the future.
If it keeps dropping I'll try to buy some more, unfortunately, I don't have that much extra $ seeing how I've invested most in rail estate, but a few candies will be on the table.
As for post rewards - that really wasn't the prime idea for joining Steem(it) - so I don't really care that much.
If I told your wife, it would be like you telling my wife, and there are times where being discreet is the better way. So, now that this is all on the blockchain...
I've come pretty close to getting some more. I probably should. It's that trying to buy the dip deal and knowing that I probably will miss the biggest dip because it happens while I'm sleeping or something.
Regarding post rewards. The sell has been come to Steemit and get paid, when it really needs to be something more like, invest in Steem without money, because too many people come here thinking they're going to make money like they would at a job. And the reason they do is because it's being sold that way by prominent members here who may or may not be witnesses.
So, while everyone needs to realize if it sounds to good to be true, it probably is, folks already here don't need to feed into human nature, either.
Hey @glenalbrethsen
I bought a bunch of Steem today at 1.71 after our chat the other day. I used the calculator that you recommended and topped up the required amount to get me to a 3 cent vote! Yipee 😁 I've actually purchased a bit extra because my sister in law is signing up and I want to give her a good start.
I kind of understand why people stop being active but that is a pretty short term view. Why miss out now when every cent is going to increase over time. I guess you need to be long term bullish or you won't agree. If Steem ever hits a dollar, I'm buying!!
The proposals you've read about are interesting. I like the thought of 20 full votes per day. Spread the love. As for linear curve. I've heard the term a few times now but don't really understand it. I think it's something to do with voting values but what does it mean?
I'm glad you're happy with the STEEM purchase, and I hope it serves you well.
I don't think most of us are looking at things in terms of potential gains or losses instead of present value. We're used to things being reasonably fixed—our wages, the cost of living, etc.—where there's not wild fluctuations in them.
In the case of STEEM, cryptocurrency, and markets in general, that's how life is. And the quicker we all figure out how we can deal with it and fit into it, the better. At some point a more stable STEEM price arises, but it's not now.
re: proposals
Well, the vote limit is a double edged sword. In speaking with the friend that introduced me to STEEM, the limit used to be 40, but the votes were really small, so you might be spreading the love, but running afoul of the dust payment threshold. So, basically, all such lower votes were returning right back to the reward pool.
However, when they changed it to 10, it upped the amount per upvote, but then the love couldn't get spread as far. So, 20 seems like a good idea, but it won't be like you'll be able to give $0.03 to 20 posts or comments. The math will work out differently.
As far as the linear curve is concerned, it used to be exponential, a n2 curve. I wish I knew exactly how to describe the difference between the two, but I don't. I guess in simplest terms, the linear curve allows for more payouts but at lower amounts, while the n2 curve allowed for much smaller payouts but then maybe a great big one. So, it was like winning the lottery.
Instead of reverting back to the n2, though, they're proposing something in between, like a n1.5, or whatever might be deemed best. As it is, there's been no acknowledgement that I'm aware of from Steemit Inc that they even know of any of these proposals, though they probably do because it's coming from higher SP users, let alone any update saying they will act on these requests.
So, who knows where any of this will go.
I'm not sure what changing any of that is really going to do, but in my mind, if they were to start rolling back things, it should be done incrementally, because not everyone looks back on the way things were so fondly. And while there's the potential for it helping higher SP to manually curate, there's no guarantee that they won't just keep doing what they're doing. And, for all I know, the changes don't even help low SP in and of themselves, unless higher SP actually follows through.
In the meantime, until something changes, and either makes things better or worse, I'm not sure what else to do but keep working at building stake.
As with anything in life, you need to enjoy what you do here it is about posting, commenting, and voting. If you do so, your account value will keep rising and that's all it counts.
Steem value fluctuates just as any other crypto does. We all love when prices go up as we earn more money but what really brings value to our account are reputation and SP.
When I started trading in the futures market, there was a sentence most expert traders where saying: "you become a real trader when you forget you are dealing with money". My advice is to focus on engaging and enjoying the game and forget about Steem fluctuations, eventually, you will always win.
Agreed. People need to be focusing in on the reasons for staying with it, seek them out and then, as you say, forget the price of STEEM. As it is, the idea is not to see STEEM in terms of its value in fiat anyway, but in how a global digital economy can spring up from it—meaning business transactions for goods and services on the blockchain in STEEM. I think the sooner we can wrap our heads around that, the better.
I am with you
You are very correct boss
Sounds like you have it covered however the payout mechanism is broken. Steem is designed in a way that prevents you from selling or trys to make it difficult.
In order to earn more steem you need more steem. Thus impacting curators ability to actually earn from theit posts.
YouTube pays people cash and it doesn't impact their accounts.
If someone cashes out on Steemit it takes 13 weeks and then their earning capacity is diminished.
Currently Steemit is only good to build wealth, hope prices moon and then sell.
Not a very good business model for the platform.
I don't know that Steemit was ever meant to be more than an investment platform, that unfortunately has been sold as something else. But you're right, as a business or a job, it doesn't work.
The power down period used to be two years. I can't imagine that, because 13 weeks still seems like a long time. A lot can happen in 13 weeks. A lot has happened in less time than that.
If I sound like I'm cheerleading, I'm not really trying to do that as I am trying to give anyone who sees this post a chance to consider things as they are—an opportunity, not a guarantee.
YouTube does what YouTube does, and it's something to consider. There are the up and downsides to any endeavor. Maybe that means keeping a foot in more than one door for the time being. In my mind, there's enough going on with YouTube now that unless you're still in their good graces with an established following, you won't be making anything, even if they do cash payouts.
For me, summer is here. I'm going to spend less time potato-ing about; hence, less activity on Steemit. It's a coincidence for me, but I totally understand what you are getting at.
Hey, @enforcer48. Potato-ing about. That's a new one!
Well, summer is definitely impacting all of our time here, and we all need to do what we need to do, or what we think we should do. Steemit should only be one aspect of our lives, right?
I'm hoping to reach those that are thinking that what they're doing will never be worth anything under any circumstances, and provide some ideas where it may very well be worth it.
In the end, the time we spend here is going to be dictated by all kinds of things, but hopefully, the present price of STEEM isnt the dominant one. Because, if it is, there's an opportunity to build stake that's being missed. Family, work, and other responsibilities, plus just enjoying getting out and doing things is at least as important, but is usually more so, than what happens here. Unless STEEM hits $100. Then, I'm cancelling all vacations. :)
Just kidding.
Thanks for your notification national words of advice I was about slowing down with my daily content creation and engagement due to the fallen price of steem, but now I realize that what matters most the the future of the steem block chain moving forward. And why I need to invest in steem and power-up in other to increase my influence in the platform, by doing more to earn more steem now will go a great way to help me in the future when the price of steem increases massively @glenalbrethsen
That's what I've been doing and plan to continue to do. However, I will add this:
We each need to figure out what's best for us, and I'm sure there are other opinions beyond mine that would be worth considering. There are plenty of people who have been here much longer who seem to be pretty down on STEEM and its future. What they might know that we don't, I don't know.
However, prices have been here before and gone up a few times in the last five months I've been on Steemit, and it's all been more closely connected to Bitcoin and the other more established cryptos than it's been STEEM specific. So, while different scenarios can always play out, the one that's been establishing itself is that as Bitcoin goes, so does the rest of the coins, which includes STEEM.
My guess is, and that's all it is, a guess, until there's something for STEEM to show off, like all the upgrades we're being promised, there isn't enough yet to distinguish STEEM from the rest. But institutional cash is supposed to be ready to enter the market, and when that happens, there will be a paring down of cryptos and massive infusions of investments. As long as STEEM survives the culling, we'll be looking at those happier times.
As I said, though, those kinds of decisions, stay in or out, are ones we need to think about and make on our own, because we'll each have to live with the consequences, good or bad, of those decisions.
I definitely am one of those that joined steemit recently but the recent downturn in price doesn't concern me overly much. I joined to reach new audiences for my photography and meet new people as much as I did to make money. I'd never intended to invest money in steemit, just time, effort, and content,( although sub $1 STEEM prices may tempt me) so that all continues regardless of price.
Sooner or later the price will go back up and all those little bits of SBD and STEEM will add up to something. Unless my expectations for the platform are badly off, even newbies like me will soon be part of the 'Old Guard' and reaping the benefits of sticking with it. Until then, let's just keep on steemin' on!
With something in the neighborhood of 10% retention, and with a recent trend of more people leaving than are coming in, we could already be the old guard, just too young in experience on Steemit to know it. :)
It's sounds like to me that you've got a great attitude about how to go about doing things here. More of us could stand to have a similar attitude.
I think there will be a lot of people snatching up $1 USD STEEM it if comes to that. Right now, though it seems to be moving laterally again, but slightly upwards, so who knows. I guess we just plan for the worst and hope for the best. :)
That's all we can do I reckon. I joined Facebook in its infancy (back when your university had to opt in and you needed a university email address to create a profile) and its growing pains and difficulties remind me of what steemit is going through now. "It's like myspace but better" has changed to "It's like facebook but better" but the problems with recruitment and retention are much the same. I just wish my facebook account was worth what some of these older steemit accounts are worth...
With as much time and effort as many people have put into their FB accounts, they should be. That's the thing, though. Everything anyone of us has put up there has done nothing for us financially, while it's turned college students into multi-billionaires. And it's served as a major breach in privacy at the same time. So a double whammy. We give away our information for free, so that they can turn around and sell it, so that companies can come in and hit us with ads that they know (or think they know) we're interested in, so we end up spending money because of information we gave away for free.
True, although the blockchain is even less private. How long til the ones that pay facebook have bots that just crawl the blockchain logging data (if they don't already)? Privacy is rapidly becoming something you have to work very hard to maintain, but that's a whole other can of worms.
That's true. It is, but it's a can of worms that needs to be opened and stay open until it's properly resolved. Safety and the public interest should end far earlier than it currently does when it comes to privacy. I suppose that without some sort of closed group or network it's a lot to expect, but I don't know that our enforcement agencies have the greatest of track records, certainly not lately, of taking the intel they do have and using it for the public good. It's starting to form a very disturbing pattern.
Most definitely. Law enforcement here has never had a good track record (COINTELPRO anyone?) and since 9/11 it has only gotten progressively worse. What gets me is that people not only passively go along with this (through ignorance, indifference, or naivete, I'm not sure which) but actively contribute to their loss of privacy with things like facebook, in home wiretaps (Google Home, Alexa, etc), smartphones and 'smart' IoT devices, etc. A feller about has to act like a drug dealer to have any semblance of privacy nowadays it seems. What really disturbs me is the seeming lack of interest in or political will for curbing this. What does one do beyond attempting to preserve what little of their privacy they can?
I don't know. You can only get off the grid so far. Until they have an up and running decentralized way to get on the internet, you can do everything but that, as far as I know. And then you'd need some kind of encrypted software so they couldn't track you as you surf. Unless you flat out decide not to use the internet, which I can't see most of us doing, even if we're running solar panels and eating off the land.
My problem is, I love technology that works. I've been dreaming of home automation in since at least the late 80s when I found out Tony Stark's home existed (aka Bill Gates's home). So, I have an Echo or two running lights, TV, playing music, answering trivia questions, etc. I also have a couple of motion detecting garbage cans and various other things because I find them to be cool, useful and convenient. Just like a remote, or a radio or electricity before all of it.
Unfortunately, there's the privacy issue with all of the new things whereas there wasn't much of a problem with the previous iterations of advancement. It really frustrates me. Things that are meant to be useful should not usher in Big Brother.
I agree Glen and no matter how low Steem can get it is still more than what you would get it you just post in Facebook.
Although I have not been feeling too well but I have still consistently posted in Steemit, the commenting and replying though has really slowed down but I am trying to get there!
So yes let us keep Steeming on!
What else can we do but continue to plug away? Feeling good, feeling not so good—resting on our laurels or throwing a pity party don't really get the job done, and if other things are going on in our lives, we could probably use the distraction, right?
You've managed to work through a lot of things. I'm truly amazed by it, even if it doesn't feel like much, it is. Chocolate, light therapy, happy songs, moving to Arizona—whatever it takes, man. Okay, maybe not the Arizona part. I don't even want to move to Arizona. :)
In the 80's they called it dollar cost averaging, you just keep buying for a set time on schedule and at the end of 5, 10, 20 years or however long you invested, you make money. 200 steem pennies today= not much in 2 years 200 steem pennies, who knows it could be a lot it could be a little but you have had 2 years to keep adding into those 200 pennies, so now you have 500-2000 steem pennies. Hopefully they are worth more than what your original 200 steem pennies were 2 years ago.
Yep, which is more than I can say for real pennies, although I understand that copper prices are such that some of the dang things are worth twice their face value. That amazes me. You go to copper from silver or whatever metal and 50, 70, 100 years, whatever it is, later you can't print a penny for less than a penny anymore. :)
It sounds like the way to go, except in the 80s, things were creeping along until everything started to take off in the latter half of it, and then within the last 10 years it's just been insane. And cryptocurrencies have brought it all to a video game on easy level. Just pump in the fiat and watch it blow up 3000%. Of course, then you get to watch it fall 2000%, but hey, who's counting. :)
Of course you could still make 1000% profit or more if you start to sell at the 2000 drop point. But nope all that percent above is lost money even though no one ever touched it. It is a paper loss, you still have a shit load more than you invested 2000% ago.
That's exactly right, but somehow people tend to count what they could of had rather than what they ended up with. Well, if you could have it, why don't you have it?
I know investing is different in some ways, but I come from a small business background, where you would try to forecast potential income for the year or quarter so you could determine what you wanted to do when you could do it, but it wasn't surefire, and the numbers never turned out the way they were on paper.
So, considering anything a loss when it wasn't in your pocket in the first place makes little sense to me. I notice, though, that the government does exactly the same thing. Counting money it never had like it was theirs. Like all money is theirs.