Once Again Steem Ahead Of The Curve

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It is easy to overlook the innovations that we have on Steem.

About a month ago, I wrote about the growth in decentralized finance. Over the past 6 months, we saw a sharp increase in the number of offerings that provided hodlers a return on their cryptocurrency. This is something that the industry took as novel yet, on Steem, it was something from the beginning. There are a number of ways for people to get a return on their STEEM.

@khaleelkazi wrote an interesting article yesterday that discussed an idea that I always felt separated Steem from most of the other blockchains out there. In it, he cited a video that Andreas Antonopolous talked about earning cryptocurrency.

The main point is that people do not "buy" dollars or euros. Sure, if one is traveling then we exchange into the currency that is accepted in that country. At the same time, if one is a Forex trader, then buying a particular currency is something that is done.

However, for the most part, the money we have is not "bought" with another currency (although one could make the case it is bought with our time). That aside, the money that people have usually was earned. This is what Andreas' point is.

https://www.steemleo.com/steemleo/@khaleelkazi/don-t-buy-crypto-earn-crypto

When I look at the rest of the cryptosphere, I wonder where this is happening. There are certainly other projects around that has this as part of the application. However, with Steem, it is part of the base layer. It is coded right into the essential part of the blockchain.

Everything built on top of Steem that uses the reward system provided people with the opportunity to earn tokens. This is a powerful distribution system. People can show up to Steem with little to no money and start earning.

Bitcoin is seeing this idea implemented a bit. Nevertheless, it is safe to say the vast percentage of Bitcoin out there is still be acquired via swap from another currency (miners aside who could be considered to be earning). This holds true for most blockchains.

With Steem, this is only going to get more expansive, and very quickly in my opinion. The implementation of Communities along with SMTs means that we are going to see a massive explosion of tokens created. Since the SMT protocol is a base layer addition, all tokens will mirror what we see with STEEM. Thus, those tokens will be able to leverage the content/reward system that we are all familiar with.

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How many different tokens can you presently earn on Steem right now? There are hundreds that are listed on Steem-Engine. A vast percentage of them can be earned for particular activities. The most obvious are the ones related to the Tribes which best mirror Steem.

A few months back, BlockOne had a major announcement about their latest social media applications. Voice was going to bring the idea of earning tokens via social media to the masses. Since that time, I have not heard much about it. I do not say that negatively since it is not uncommon for a project to focus upon development after a MVP is introduced.

However, the point here is we have a variety of applications on Steem that are updating periodically. They have been working on the project for a year or two, expanding their offering each time. This is a key. While others are entering the space, Steem-based projects are not introducing but updating. There is a big difference.

For example, how long would it take a project to catch up to Splinterlands and all that surrounds it? This is not something that was an overnight process.

Each day, dozens of spigots are open on Steem, doling out tokens to a variety of users. This is still a rather novel concept in the crypto-sphere. I would be curious to know how many tokens are distributed each day, it has to be in the millions. Certainly, it is easy to state that most have little value. At this time, that is true. However, that does not mean that projects will not increase as they add to their platform.

Now, let us fast-forward a year, where SMTs are a bit over 6 months old. There are thousands of different communities on Steem, many which have their own token. Each day, tens of millions of people have the opportunity to get rewarded simply by signing up for an account and getting active.

How many other blockchains, by that time, will be able to say the same thing?

I do not believe many.

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