The Daily Pen #34, Steem Delisting ?
Unix Epoch: 1565959781
So...
It looks like Poloniex is delisting (mostly) Steem.
Screenshot Source ... Poloniex eth/steem
Does this leave blocktrades as the only exchange for Steem?
After reading through several recent postings by various naysayers of the Steemit platform, I'm not sure what to think. I'm rather new to this whole crypto scene, and was hoping to sit on some Steem once I figure out how the whole network functions and whether or not I want to try my hand at running a node.
However, I did indeed notice that several of the top witnesses are powering down as mentioned by (apparently) unmentionable users. I tried to make some sense out of the various choices people were making by looking at whether or not a witness voting for or against HF 21 was a decision point. It looked like there was a soft correlation... with the HF20 voters powering down more often than HF21 voters. That would make sense to me... and also relieve some of the FUD floating around about purposeful destruction of the Steem blockchain to destroy possible evidence of possible legal import.
Then again... if the Steem platform is in fact dying due to various reasons... and all off ramps will soon be closed...
Then what?
Do I take my few pennies and forget the platform?
Or stick around and try to ignore the bridges collapsing (or being purposefully destroyed) ?
BTW... Steem coin seems to worth about $0.17 at the moment... so the FUD around trading below $0.01 seems unfounded... unless it is?
Someone is bound to get hurt in the drunken throwing darts game of crypto currencies
They are removing trading against ETH. STEEM will still trade against BTC.
True.
But the BTC fees are quite high. So, anyone with a small amount of investment interest or income will avoid buying.
In effect, the off ramp from Steem is being kept open for large investors... and the on-ramp is being closed for small investors.
Withdrawal fees are high, trading fees are low.
It would be cheaper to trade STEEM for BTC and then BTC for ETH and withdraw ETH on Poloniex than to trade STEEM for ETH on Poloniex.
And it says right in your screenshot... the trading pair is being removed because people weren't using it.
Does it matter if an on-ramp is closed if nobody is driving over it anyway?
Two transfer fees are not cheaper than one.
ETH is cheaper to move around than BTC in general, so smaller investors are very likely to have most crypto in ETH rather than BTC. It's clear that Poloniex's actions will at least significantly dent any possible upward momentum in STEEM... And that's not a good sign for some of us who may have some interest in running an small income generating operation on STEEM.
I've written my response three different ways, but it keeps coming down to you have assumed information that hasn't been shared. I didn't advocate two transfer fees, and I don't know where the second one came from without making assumptions about fiat gateways, in/out transactions, etc.
Blocktrades isn't a fiat gateway, so it would be cheaper to trade across two currencies on poloniex than across one on Blocktrades, unless Poloniex's STEEM withdrawal fee is abnormally high (on binance it's 0.01 STEEM). If their withdrawal fee is high, maybe that's why people weren't trading the pair?