MY VERY FIRST TRIP TO SWITZERLAND - one of the most crypto and blockchain friendly place on the planet earth
 | I believe I owe a STRONG apology to all of you, dear readers, who have been trying to contact me lately ... |
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INTRODUCTION
... via email, steemit or chatting apps and did not managed to receive a reply. I'm already aware that some of you felt ignored, which was absolutely not my intention.
Many of you are aware of my recent involvement in the development of @project.hope and also about my recent trip to Switzerland. This particular trip was one of the most important events in my current career and it required weeks of solid preparations. That unfortunately caused unwanted result: I didn't have enough time to carry on with my daily routine on Steemit for the past few weeks.
Today, I would like to share the results of my efforts and ask a few questions, hoping to get some valuable advice from you and others.
INTRODUCING STEEM TO BUSINESSES
 | It had been my very first time to Switzerland .... |
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... and it's quite obvious from the very beginning how crypto and blockchain friendly is this country.
The main reason behind this trip has been to introduce STEEM blockchain, Steemit.com and the concept behind SMTs to a CEO of an existing SWISS company. I've also managed to mention a few words about @project.hope.
I spoke for a number of hours with this company's CEO (When the time comes, I will let you know the name of the company) . Luckily, I went through similar conversations quite a few times in the past and I felt quite well prepared. However, I still found it very challenging to explain the idea behind POWERING UP, delegations, upvotes and curation rewards.
HOW TO EXPLAIN IT ALL?
 | Perhaps it's the best time to ask you, dear reader, to drop a comment .... |
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and share with me how YOU would explain the idea behind upvotes, rewards and delegations? Imagine that you're talking to person with basic knowledge of blockchain and strong crypto believer, however it's also a person with experience mostly in traditional financial markets.
Powering up
I attempted to clarify how it all works by comparing POWERing UP to purchasing and holding some shares on traditional stock market and receiving "dividents". And those "dividents" depends on our contribution to STEEM blockchain as a curator.
Meaning: if we support quality content with our limited upvotes than a STEEM token holder, then we are able to increase received dividents (curation rewards).
Does it make sense?
Delegations
I've kind of struggled when I've tried to explain the idea behind delegating STEEM POWER to other users. It raised several questions about real ownership of delegated SP, reasons why investors would like to proceed with delegations, benefits for users receiving delegations etc.
ANY ADVICE?
 | Perhaps someone here would have any idea how to put in a few words on what delegations are about? Or maybe you came up with a better way of explaining the idea of powering up, upvotes and rewards? |  |
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GREAT NEWS
At this stage I'm not going to reveal the name of this company I visited, since there are still few things to discuss between me and their management. However, I would love to share with you all some great news, that came as a result of this particular trip.
I managed to get them interested with @project.hope and the goals our small community is trying to achieve. As a result, this project will receive financial support for the upcoming half year, which will allow us to continue our growth and should be enough to cover some basic expenses (mostly financial support to a few Venezuelans supported by this project).
I also managed to discuss more important issues: being hired as a project manager and being part of the team responsible for launching a fully legal STO and tokenizing this company's assets.
HOW COOL IS THAT?
I've mentioned a number of times that i see Steemit as a place where one is able to get to know valuable people from the tech industry and create amazing business opportunities :) However, since this post is already very long – I will share more info in my next post (tomorrow!). So stay tuned ! :)
Do not miss it :)
DROP A COMMENT AND RESTEEM
Drop me a comment below and share your thoughts with me. I read all comments and I will upvote most valuable ones with @project.hope account (over 200k SP) to show my appreciation.
I would also appreciate every resteem. Please help me reach wider audience.
Cheers, Piotr
Check out my latest posts:
 | PROJECT HOPE in SWITZERLAND ?!? THAT'S RIGHT! Allow me to share SOME GREAT NEWS with you all! :) |
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 | Finally it's time to INTRODUCE myself and share my VISION AND GOALS |
I set out to read all the comments before commenting myself, but today I am limited in time and your post has generated many comments, so forgive me if my own comment mirrors another.
I think your comparison to stocks is useful to experienced investors with a grasp of how blockchains work.
However, I think it best to start at the beginning of what Steem is, and how it's functions stem from that, as that establishes a logical basis for understanding each.
First, there is a pool of Steem: the money supply. All Steem is owned by legal entities, or what is conceptually comparable to legal persons. Our wallets are actually held pseudonymously, but the individuals holding the keys can be considered the owners of the Steem.
The code inflates the pool of Steem at rates specified by devs, which creates a pool of new Steem that is not owned by anyone yet. This new Steem creates the Rewards Pool that is distributed as rewards to folks that create or curate content with upvotes. One publishes content on Steem apps such as Steemit, Dtube, and other platforms, and vested Steem holders upvote it which produces author rewards for the publisher account. Those that upvote content also receive curation rewards, and in this way the entire pool of inflation is distributed to the market.
In order to cast an upvote on Steem, one must have vested their Steem. Steem is fully liquid, as the market bears. However, vesting one's Steem, called powering up, changes it to Steem Power, abbreviated SP. You cannot sell your powered up Steem before powering it down, which requires 13 weeks to fully revert to liquid Steem. Depending on how much SP you have, or Steem you have powered up, the value of your upvote to creators is larger or smaller, and the curation rewards you receive for upvoting are also. How much reward your upvote provides depends on the percentage of extant Steem Power you possess. 100% of inflation, the Rewards Pool, is distributed daily by the upvotes of SP holders.
Delegations are simply enabling others to vote your SP as proxies, for which they receive the curation rewards. Delegations can be withdrawn at will by the delegator, but take one week to be fully restored to utility to the delegator. Delegates have increased SP to upvote content with, which increases their influence on content creation, and also increases their ability to generate curation rewards for upvoting content. Delegates do not own the delegation, and cannot transfer it, sell it, or otherwise dilute equity of the delegator in any way.
Experienced investors should understand the concept of vesting, which is simply sacrificing liquidity of an asset in exchange for certain benefits. While distributing inflation from a pool of new tokens as rewards via upvotes is novel, the generation of the pool via inflation should be trivially understood by investors.
There are other features that are necessary to a complete understanding of Steem, such as the variables affecting curation rewards, downvotes, payout, resource credits, SBD, votebots, and so forth, but the above is the basis which will provide a baseline of understanding the mechanism of Steem.
For an accurate and refined grasp of those latter aspects of Steem, there are old posts that witnesses and devs have undertaken to explain them in detail, which you should undertake to search out and understand completely before trying to explain them to investors seeking more than an executive summary. I'd recommend providing the executive summary and then taking questions, as necessary to explain downvotes, SBD, and the like.
Hope this was useful. Congrats on securing funding for @project.hope.
Thanks!
Amazing comment @valued-customer.
Solid upvote (270k) on the way :) Thank you for your input.
Thanks Piotr for the invite you gave to me in a comment on a recent @happyvoter article, to comment on this post.
I applaud your courage. To talk Steem to owners of businesses with such aplomb, that deserves my standing ovation! I am used to talking to business owners and I know how to quickly impress on them their need to talk with me.
Firstly, understand your clients. Get to know who does what, where and when, and so on. The research takes time, maybe 20 minutes on Dr Google and elsewhere. Also, always remember to do that one last important search: add "scam" after their business name, and you'll be surprised what pops up!
Next, when making first contact, always assume the person you are speaking with is the primary decision maker. Often, and especially is SMEs, that decision maker is the gatekeeper: the receptionist or similar position. Telemarketing skills are awesome here, if you've ever had the pleasure of spending a few years telemarketing. I tell you, that experience is just so beneficial for generating ice-breaking moments, and the gatekeeper changes from fiend to friend. What helps here is a smile, always telecommunicate with a smile and that happy face often gets magically teleported on to the listener!
Now, you have arrived at the hand or ear of the chief, the owner or owner's representative. Time is critical, so keep greetings short and relevant. If meeting in the chief's office, then a quick look around will tell you the type of person you're dealing with: family photos indicate family values, expensive artwork perhaps a collector and wealthy investor, laptop rather than a PC a person on the go, and so on. Just 2-3 seconds as you're sitting down and getting settled, then quickly shape your thoughts to reflect the priorities of the chief, mirror actions and thoughts, nodding your head, retain eye contact as much as possible. All these actions indicate to the chief that you're a good listener, perhaps someone to be trusted.
Close the deal at the first opportunity. Again, telemarketing skills are useful here. As soon as the chief sounds interested, close. This is when you have the Steem representative's diary handy, so you can refer the chief to a senior official Steem rep. Remember, do not waste the owner's time, your part in this process is as an affiliate or intermediary because that is how you will be paid. Close the deal, say your farewells, then move on to the next one. Oh, and please do remember to talk to the gatekeeper and be real friendly; these people will recommend you to the clients they love dealing with so they change from gatekeeper to door-opener.
I hope these few ideas help you Piotr, in your endeavours to make Steem great (again?).
Thank you for this amazing comment @ianballantine.
Strong upvote on the way :)
Hi,
Thanks for reaching out. Great to hear that you are promoting the Steem blockchain and crypto in general to businesses.
Here are my quick thoughts on explaining Steem Power and delegation (in layman terms) to people that know little about Steem.
Steem Power - is a way for long term Steem holders to (1) receive interest on their Steem (2) have influence (voting power) on the platform. The trade off is that they need to 'lock up' their Steem for a period of time.
Delegation - is a mechanism of donating Steem Power to another person or company. You don't lose control of your Steem, you merely transfer the influence (and interest) to someone else.
Delegation opens up new opportunities for Steem investors to spread their influence and fund projects whilst retaining their principal capital.
For example, delegating Steem could be an alternative way of Crowdfunding that gives a greater level of control to the donator.
E.g. instead of pledging $1,000 to a project as you would on say Kickstarter, I could delegate 10,000 Steem. The project can use the additional influence (and interest) to help it grow. I can make my delegation contingent on the project hitting its milestones and adjust the level of my delegation accordingly. After six months, a year, two years (whatever period I like) I can withdraw the delegation, keep the Steem Power myself or delegate else way.
All the best!
Thank you for this amazing comment @nanzo-scoop
Strong upvote on the way :)
Good morning @nanzo-scoop
I just realized that I never thanked you for your previous comment. BIG THX! :)
ps.
Also - would you mind if I take few minutes of your time? (I hope I'm not asking this question to often ;)
Anyway .... together with few core members of project.hope team - we'te trying to promote our recent publication: an article explaining economy behind our non-profit community project build on STEEM blockchain.
Perhaps I could ask you to spare few minutes and check it out and share your feedback with me.
I would absolutely appreciate it a lot. I read all comments and I drop solid upvote on each valuable one.
Link: https://steemit.com/hive-175254/@project.hope/3-ways-of-joining-our-efforts-project-hope-economy-explained
Yours, Piotr
Hey @crypto.piotr, awesome work there and congratulations! It is certainly a remarkable feat to get external investors to support a project running on Steem. Most projects here are just able to get support internally within the Steem community.
Regarding the explanation of SP delegation, I think it will be better if we can explain the concept of SP first. SP is actually an abstraction of VESTS. When you power up your liquid STEEM, you basically convert your STEEM to VESTS. As the name suggests, having VESTS means you have a vested interest on this platform. VESTS can be thought as stakes on this platform. In traditional finance terms, you can view it as shares of a company.
Why do I say SP is an abstraction of VESTS? It is because there is a STEEM per VEST rate that is inflating over time. You can view the current conversion rate here (the S/V parameter). I think the reason for coining the term SP is to provide familiarity. Many of us do not know (and probably don't care) about VESTS, hence having SP, short for STEEM Power, makes it easier for users to relate to it.
With this understanding, let's move on to the benefit of holding VESTS (again remembering that SP is just an abstraction of VESTS). By holding VESTS, I see 3 key benefits. First, you get to earn from the ongoing inflation. The longer you hold VESTS, the more STEEM you get when you power down. You can view it as a passive income. The inflation rate is around 8.33% per annum right now and will reduce gradually. You can check it here.
Next, holding VESTS allow you to vote. By voting content, you get to earn curation rewards. I consider this active income as you need to make an effort to cast your vote on the content you fancy. Of course, you can do auto-voting, but I do not want to complicate things by discussing auto-voting here. With the recent HF (hard fork), you now also get to vote on proposals. Proposals are submitted by Steemians for projects that they want to start on Steem and require funds. Successful proposals will get funding from the blockchain. All these are done in a decentralized and automated manner. Last but not least, having VESTS allow you to vote for witnesses. The concept of witnesses can be one full article on its own, so I won't touch on that too much. Just remember that witnesses helps to validate transactions on this blockchain.
Finally, holding VESTS also provide you with Resource Credits (RC). Any activity you perform on the blockchain will consume some RC. Your RC will regenerate over time, however, the maximum RC you have is influenced by the amount of VESTS you own. Hence, holding VESTS in turn gives you the right to use the blockchain.
To summarize, VESTS (remember that SP is an abstraction of VESTS) allow you to:
With all these understood, let's talk about delegation and the differences of delegation in traditional companies' shares and Steem VESTS. First, let's explore what ownership of companies' shares give you. Owning shares of companies largely brings 2 benefits. First, the rights to receive dividends, in other words, to share profits of the company. Next, owning shares also allows the individual to vote for resolutions during the companies' general meetings.
For companies shares, you can delegate your voting rights to someone else and have that person represent you in a general meeting. The person can then vote on your behalf. However, when there is a dividend announced, you are still the ultimate beneficiary of the payout.
VESTS on Steem works in a similar way. By delegating VESTS, you allow someone else to use your VESTS to vote on your behalf. However, unlike companies shares (since there is no concept of curation rewards by holding companies shares), the person who helps you to vote gets the curation rewards. The person also gains the RC provided by the delegated VESTS. In other words, the recipient of delegation gains benefits (2) and (3) as mentioned above. However, since the VESTS still belongs to you, you can undelegate anytime and power down to gain the extra STEEM from inflation. So, by delegating VESTS, you won't lose out your benefit (1).
This is quite a long reply, hope it helps :)
Dear @culgin
Thank you buddy for such an awesome and mindblowing feedback.
I've noticed and I've been also seeking mostly support within steem community. However I know that money are elsewhere. I've learned already that most succesful social media marketers end up sooner or later running their own business and teaming up with valuable contacts that they managed to build during their marketing career.
That's also my plan goal and I'm glad that my efforts (supported by efforts so many others) are paying back. My ambition is to build team of people working together and @project.hope is kind of a "recruiting ground" for me. I'm learning to work with so many content creators, developers, investors, marketers etc.
I just need to find a way to monetize my growing network of connections within this industry and many of those who work with me closely will also benefit.
Yep. That's how I see it too. I'm just not sure if bringing up another unknown (VESTS) during similar meating would make it easier or even more complicated to understand ....
One more time: thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts with me. Appreciate it a lot.
Comment already upvoted with some decent upvote strentgh :)
Truly yours, Piotr
You are welcome and thanks!
It's more for your understanding and hopefully with a better understanding you can translate these concepts to something which laymen can understand. Which will then help in your meetings 😁
Thx again. And I just noticed that you posted another publication . This time something about CryptoTwitter ....
going to read it tomorrow morning (with fresh brain) :)
night night buddy
Piotr
@culgin Thank you, it has helped me understand vesting and delegation a little better.
You are welcome! Glad it helps!
I agree almost completely with your explication of how SP, and curation rewards, work. However, I note your discussion doesn't much touch on the rewards pool, and I have understood that vesting does not inflate one's HODLings, but actually and contrarily, reduces their value over time. There is a separate savings mechanism that can provide interest, but SP is not that particular mechanism.
So, in the above quote, the passive income isn't actually coming from SP itself, as the inflation of Steem is actually decreasing the relative value of SP, but is potential from the savings mechanism.
Active income is available both from curation and author rewards.
Otherwise, you have well elucidated my understanding.
Thanks!
You've been missing here at Steemit these days. But we know of your high-level commitments. It is great news that you bring and I congratulate you for that.
On the other hand, explain the whole system and what Steem means with its concepts of power up, delegations, among others. This is a complicated task.
Powering up
Can be understood as the investment you make, so dividends depend. If the investment is considerable, the yield in currencies (steem) will be considerable, besides boosting, we add value to the steem that we will obtain.
Delegations
It is a part of the power that is given to strengthen projects that are considered to be giving value to the blockchain. In other words, it would be a way to strengthen the ecosystem. It is like requesting help from other users to achieve a common objective.
That support can generate a direct return if it is demanded to the one that receives the support and an indirect one that is the strengthening of the same platform.
I hope my lines help.
He sent you a fraternal greeting of congratulations.
Thank you for this amazing comment.
Strong upvote on the way :)
Hi @crypto.piotr,
What you wrote is very interesting stuff. I'm happy to read your trip was a success. Congrats on getting funding for your project and the added job you acquired.
As for how I would explain Steem vs. Steem Power / Curation and delegations to someone who knows very little of such things I would put it as follows.
Steem equals the currency used within the Steem blockchain community. It can be sold and traded for many different things including Fiat.
Steem Power is what gives a person or persons sway within the community. The more you own the more influence one has. You can turn your Steem into Steem Power (This is known as powering up).
Delegation is just another way of saying lending to someone but the great thing about our Delegation system is that the lender (owner) of the Steem Power delegated gets to choose when they take it back. Lending with the use of Delegation comes with 0 risk of losing ones Steem Power.
As for Curation ... this comes back full circle to Steem Power. Curation is something we do when we see value in another persons content on the Steem blockchain. Basically its an upvote we apply to said content which holds real money value paid out in STEEM/Steem Power and SBD (another currency used on the Steem Blockchain).
Upvoting/Curating other members content does not take away our own Steem Power/Rewards it only adds to the content creators that we upvote. As a curator you will earn a share of the rewards the content you just upvoted/curated attains and so will everyone else who decides to curate that same topic.
Dear @rentmoney
I very much appreciate your valuble feedback and your time. Definetly one of the most interesting comments I've read in that topic. Thank you.
The way you explained delegation - you just nailed it.
Enjoy your weekend :)
Yours, Piotr
How interesting it is to talk about these terms that most of us have to handle. But when we face this situation, we see how complicated it can be.
I think anyone who has never heard of blockchain can understand its definitions.
Its certainly interesting ... many people like the comfort of the familiar so getting them to take that first step in learning about crypto or blockchains seems to be always the most difficult as they have so many other options to choose from.
Absolutely amazing comment. Upvoted with 200k SP as a way of showing my appreciation.
Yours, @crypto.Piotr
Thank you for the invite, although I still don't get it fully myself, so I probably can't be a lot of help. However, as a creative, this is how I understand it, and you may draw some useful points from it.
Steem is created -- mined -- by the publication of creative work; that is, people come and bring their writing, their music, their art, and in return, value is created on the blockchain. It is the nearest thing to the "Art Exchange" no less a person than Beethoven said needed to exist 200 years ago that has ever existed, with the caveat that of course, the value getting back to the artist is not exactly guaranteed. The artist does need some human curation -- appreciation -- for their work, which brings us to...
Steem Power, the form of Steem whereby a creative goes from merely bringing their work to the blockchain but also adding value to the work of others through an increasingly powerful upvote, and receiving a dividend for doing so. Through the accumulation of Steem Power -- or by converting Steem to Steem Power in a powerup -- creatives bringing their work to Steem change their position from one form of interacting and adding value to the blockchain to a second form: multiplying the value add by supporting the work of others. Which brings us to ...
Delegation: the act of temporarily sharing Steem Power with someone else in order to enhance their ability to EITHER bring more value to the chain by being able to post more often (that was my story at first), OR to enhance their ability to give support to other's work and reap a dividend, OR BOTH.
Dear @deeanndmathews
Absolutely amazing comment. Upvoted with 200k SP as a way of showing my appreciation.
Yours, @crypto.Piotr
Thank you so much! I was startled by it, it was so huge, but it is gratefully received!
Dear @deeanndmathews
Would you mind if I take few minutes of your time?
Together with few core members of project.hope team - we'te trying to promote our recent publication: an article explaining economy behind our non-profit community project build on STEEM blockchain.
Perhaps I could ask you to spare few minutes and check it out and share your feedback with me.
I would absolutely appreciate it a lot. I read all comments and I drop solid upvote on each valuable one.
Link: https://steemit.com/hive-175254/@project.hope/3-ways-of-joining-our-efforts-project-hope-economy-explained
ps.2.
HAPPY NEW YEAR :) Hopefully 2020 won't be as scary as many expert are predicting.
Cheers,
@crypto.piotr
Sure -- I'll check it out now.
Dear @deeanndmathews
Thank you for dropping by and taking the time to share your thoughts with me.
Your feedback is always appreciated ;)
Yours, Piotr
You're welcome!
Switzerland is really crypto friendly and I'm proud of it. When sitting in the McDonalds in Zürich at the Bahnhofstrasse with you we saw a tramway that was completely recovered in a banner of "Bitcoin Switzerland" ;-).
I think that you choose well to try to explain the steem blockchain with terms that people can understand.
My attempt to give some definitions
I realize it's not that easy to define this stuff ;-)
Best regards,
Achim
I like this example!
Will adopt it to my explanation
do you have simple one for „where does the money come from?“
Hi @detlev
Yeah, it's easy to say "from the thin air, just like money" but people don't seem to like this answer :P
Dear @achim03
yeah, seeing all those advertisements around us (even at the airport) promoting bitcoin/crypto ... it simply blew my mind.
"lend" is not the best word here. I tried to explain it this way and I found myself in dead alley - I was asked what would stop anyone from "dissapearing" with rented SP. It's a bit tricky to explain idea of ownership in that case. And also to explain benefits for those who are "renting" steem power from delegators.
Thank you for your valuable comment. I appreciate it a lot.
Yours, Piotr
If using "rent" or "lend" can be confusing, maybe you could use "commission."
I consider that the expression "delegate" is the most appropriate, but perhaps exemplify saying that the delegator only makes a "concession with a reservation of ownership", where the actions never change of owner, can generate more confidence.
This refers to the fact that the actions (SP) will always remain of the "delegator" and that he can recover them at the time he wishes, with only a 7-day waiting margin.
Yeah, I agree @crypto.piotr that "lend" is the wrong word, as that implies a contractual arrangement when none exists.
When I first joined this awesome Steem community, I had 15 Steem Power delegated to me. Took me a while to realise what that was, and the impact having SP had on my activities here on Steem.
Instead of "lend" let's use this word: "favour". Think of favour as being a conditional pay-it-forward in the sense that, you agree to comply with the rules of common sense and responsible community standards - as in your own local community after all this is a decentralized platform - otherwise that delegation will be relinquished back to the owner. I use the term pay-it-forward as generally you get to keep using that delegation almost as though you own that SP.
In New Zealand, we have a strong "favour" culture through the Polynesian customs we have here. In Maori, we say "tatou tatou" which - when considering the spiritual context as well which is often what we are required to do when translating Maori to another language - loosely translates into English as this: "I scratch your back, you scratch my back".
In line with Polynesian custom, perhaps we should add a spiritual context to that word "delegation", so the meaning could now be this: "a scratch of a favour, more or less".
Thank you for this amazing comment.
Strong upvote on the way :)