Part 3 of Our Plan to Onboard the Masses: Smart Media Tokens
As we explained in Part 2 of Our Plan to Onboard the Masses, we believe the future of blockchain is Communities and you've all probably noticed how “on-trend” the idea of “Community” has become. Every corporation, social media app, and blockchain project is eager to give lip service to their “amazing community” and talk about how they’re “all about community.” But Steem is the only blockchain ecosystem that puts our money where our mouth is. Literally.
Rewarding Community Members
Despite so many crypto projects claiming to be about community, we are the only major blockchain project that has organized their blockchain protocol around the idea that the vast majority of newly created tokens should be distributed, not to miners or block producers, but to community members.
This is not to say that our approach was without its issues. But the majority of the criticisms are not about whether the blockchain distributes the majority of its new tokens to ordinary users, but how it distributes those tokens to to which users.
There Will Be Bugs
As open source developers, we work under the assumption that every release will have bugs, but by releasing the code to the public and working with our community to produce patches, we can also fix any bug. The question is never whether you can release a perfect product, the question is what problems are you willing to fight to solve.
Have a Stake in Your Technologies
We believe in a future where people have a stake in the technologies they use and we believe that Proof-of-Brain is a critical piece of that future, which is why we continue to fight to make Proof-of-Brain better and better. This is precisely why the Economic Improvement Proposal was added to Hardfork 21 which will occur in 2 short weeks!
Finding Like-Minded People
In our last post we talked about how Steem began as one big community of like-minded people who were passionate about the platform. The STEEM token can be thought of as the “currency” of that community. But that is an inherently limited group. Most people aren’t interested in Steem and never will be. They just want to use applications that either entertain them, or help them get their jobs done.
To get those people using Steem, we have to take the lessons we’ve learned from using this technology to give people ownership over their social information and align their incentivizes, and scale these solutions to satisfy the needs of every community.
Community-Based Value Standards
The problem is that different communities have different ideas of value. Right now STEEM stakeholders (Steem Power holders) determine what has value on Steem. These are people who cared enough about Steem to invest their time, energy, and capital, into the platform. But these are not people who even claim to be good judges of beautiful art or mesmerizing poetry.
It is tyrannical to force one community to conform to the standards of another, and it's even worse to force every community to conform to the standards of one community. So, it should come as no surprise that other online communities have not flocked to the Steem blockchain and steemit.com.
That’s why Smart Media Tokens (SMTs) are so important. SMTs will give every community the ability to have their own token which it will use to reward the most valuable contributors based on their own standards.
For these users, the STEEM token will drift into the background. It will be something they might need to power up if they want to perform more activities in their favorite community, or purchase goods inside a game like SteemMonsters.
It will be similar to Gas on Ethereum, except unlike Gas, you will not be paying a fee that you never get back. You will always be able to power down your STEEM and leave the ecosystem if you so choose. This is key to making Steem the best blockchain in the world for powering free-to-use applications.
Why “Smart Media?”
In a way, the name “Smart Media Tokens” is a misnomer. SMTs can be so many things, not the least of which is a “Community Token.” But what is SteemMonsters, if not a Community of like-minded people who all enjoy the same game? What business isn’t also a Community?
Crypto's Killer-App
If the killer-app of cryptocurrencies is their ability to align the incentives of various people within a group (as we believe it is), then SMTs will be the most advanced, easiest to use, and lowest cost tool for delivering that functionality, ever.
Which is why we're so excited about the protocol, and our recent progress toward making it a reality. We have now completed all the ICO issues and have functional delegation pools. If you’d like to learn more about SMTs, check out the SMT Whitepaper, and be sure to follow @steemitblog for more updates.
The Steemit Team
I have an idea I would like to hear feedback on from the community because I have not truly thought through all the pros and cons. We all want Steem to increase in value. I have heard the high inflation rate scares off many investors. This forms the basis for my idea below.
Once SMTs are released, I propose dropping the inflation of Steem to something reasonable. For the sake of argument, let’s just say 1-2%. There would be no steem reward pool. Inflation would go to current Steem Power holders, the SPS, and witnesses. People would still earn crypto by posting, it would now just be in the form of that community’s SMT and their own reward pool.
Since RCs would still be needed, people will need Steem to interact with the blockchain, creating buy pressure (finally). dApp creators could buy the Steem and delegate those RCs to their users and the dApps could earn revenue from ads, etc. ... something like that. Or users with RCs could earn passive income through delegations. Maybe this is how Steemit Inc could keep their Steem and earn the necessary money to stay in business. Rent it out.
I do not have the details worked out obviously but to me something needs to be done about the price of steem. I know I am stating the obvious here. @aggroed wants more ways to burn steem. I say lets consider burning future Steem by reducing inflation. With SMTs, do we need to keep printing Steem at the rate we are? It seems unnecessary and a pain to police.
Going away from the current Steem reward pool also might solve another problem. Starting with a new SMT community would reset the playing field so to speak, decreasing the importance of the premined stake, etc. I know communities are already doing this. This would just be doing it for specifically for Steem as well.
Thoughts on this brainstorm from my phone? I am sure there are major problems, but let’s stsrt the conversation from here.
This makes a lot of sense to me. I would support exploring something along these lines as well. In my opinion, if Steemit.com is really to be 'just another app on steem' it should probably have it's own token just like the others will...
if Steemit.com is really to be 'just another app on steem' it should probably have its own token just like the others will...Totally agree on that.
Also, it might be such a dramatic change that crypto people that have long forgot about steem might reconsider using it. #newsteem
This is the best proposal I've seen here in years.
By keeping small inflation STEEM holders pay for the privilege of liquidity, while SP holders get rewarded for staking.
The inflation for social incentives is then contained to each app/community, and they have to come up with innovative ways to balance it out (ie. ads, sales of goods etc.)
Yep, my thoughts as well. It sounds much more sustainable (and logical) than what we have right now.
Yup, I agree. Getting PoB tuned exactly right is pretty much impossible and it gets harder the larger and more diverse the community gets. IMO a more evolutionary approach is the only way to solve the problem; lots of coins, launched by lots of communities, experimenting with many different implementations of PoB in conjunction with varied business models. The best implementations are the ones that survive. We can then use those implementations to inform the design of the base token, but since that token will be tasked with aligning the incentives of such a large and diverse community, it will almost invariably function sub-optimally, in which case it would make sense to minimize the impact it would have on the economics of the system by reducing its inflation rate to the lowest possible level.
Yep.
I fel like with this + Steem-Engine + Scot + @roelandp 's STEEM DAPP wallet dapp explorer with STEEMWALLEt we can actually settle on a mass on-boarding tool, and get millions of new users and see healthy organic demand for steem to push the price up
Since when has STEEM stopped being a currency and is now demoted to "base token"?
The economy will always be sub-optimal as you are doing nothing at all to even look at the economic model with any seriousness or thought - more tweaking parameters and centralisation.
So, you're telling us that as your team has no idea how to create an economy v2, after some 3 years of experience, you are going to see if someone else can do a better job - except they only have the same tools to play with. Really?
Dropping STEEM's inflation rate is a very good idea. RC economics is the way to go long term.
so you basically offload the workload to your clients ... but in very nice words ... that's pretty smart, yes , if they fall for it :)
Well now, allow me to elaborate a bit on myself as the @rudyardcatling in me has neither the patience or RC to do so ...
Apart from how this sounds (ask not what you country can do for you etc ...), i think, once more you are gravely overestimating both will and ability of said masses towards the desired incentive.
Did you actually, any of you high level titans or steemit itself, actually look around in your own ecosystem here ?
You can count the real entrepreneurs on one or two hands ... There's a very few people running real business directly off of the steemchain like for instance your blocktrades and your Ultimatt the Unbeatable and a few others (but they still seem smart enough to run it in a way where revenue is not directly linked to the steemprice. Other than that you get the bulk posting dailies, small short posts, hoping for a hit, and you also get a lot of people with a fair to decent to a lot , amount of resources who just go about posting and talking about it
Hence, your lovely masses there ? if you draw the line and you are real about it , what you need is partnerships for PAID service and real investors with real money as five paid service partnerships and/or five investors with real money will net you tennex money compared to five million plankton-of-the-masses.
Look around and give it some thought please, the demo is right under your nose here on steemit.com, it's my sincere opinion that you gouge that all wrong, both will AND skill , and also
What will you do if the masses come and start posting like crazy as if this were facebook ? Put a handbrake on steemcleaners ? (lol) ... or maybe have walled-off communities with border-patrol-police who each fight their own holy-content war because bulk brings on average less quality but is much needed for the sales ... the numbers
I'm not mister negative, i'm mister real ... do consider what i say seriously for a moment, please @steemit @steemitblog
Really? @furion ¿no kidding?
@sepracore: I know you just wanted to see some discussion on this subject. And I certainly celebrate this initiative. I did read each and every comment along this post. However, after having done that. Now I can't help but wonder what religious beliefs you or @furion are both of you using to feed and nurture your faith perspectives.
By chance, from which devices are you both more devout?
From those born out of Hinduism? or from those born out of Jewish thinking? :)
This has been proposed many times by myself and others over the past year.
I like the Idea, I proposed a similar vision for STEEM some weeks ago. In my opinion it's the only possible way forward to rise the price of STEEM longterm.
https://steemit.com/steem/@twinner/3-years-on-steem-some-thoughts
I agree at the moment but could be convinced otherwise. Any major change has unforeseen consequences but something along these lines seems necessary to me.
This solves the problem of selling pressure, but takes away a lot from steem. The reward pool and proof-of-brain are used to distribute steem far and wide to anyone. The more people have steem, use steem, the more valuable the currency. This is network effect.
We want communities to have their specific SMT, but we also want steem to be the currency that is everywhere on the internet. It needs to be easy to integrate in any website, and reward its users. Not just witnesses and SP holders.
Eventually, if the steem network manages to grow enough, steem might become accepted in shops, like bitcoin tried (but failed because of scaling).
Removing the reward pool and proof of brain from STEEM also eliminates the potential to be a widely used currency.
The inflation is already going down every year, and it will reach a very acceptable rate in a few years.
Actually, it doesn't take much away from steem. The steem could still be farmed by witnesses and we could make it so node operators also can mine steem and sbd.
Just kill the inflation to below 5% and golden. This doesn't make the token any harder to implement as a currency in sites. It makes it more likely to create buy pressure. As it has on eos and eth.
Especially if people need to buy steem to get smt's and power up for smart contracts.
Proof of brain is much better than mining to distribute a currency to everyone. Not everyone can or wants to mine.
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It would be cheap to mine. A node with mira is like 8-40 dollars to run.
Also proof of brain is easier to abuse. The smt's would still be pob. Also as you said no one want's to mine. Pob is mining, and they could still mine by earning SMT's and trading them for steem.
PoB is a form of human computation where the brain is the mining device.
Steem will still need to be distributed because of the requirement of RCs to use the blockchain. How it gets distributed will need to change though. Honestly, the current method of distribution isn’t the best and with HF21 it is going to get focused on a few top authors anyway, which doesn’t exactly help the situation all that much.
I could make an argument that Steem price stability is what will matter most to venders. A price that fluctuates up and down as much as Steem does is too risky for venders in my option. How do you know how to price items if the next day it drops 10%? Could you imagine if world currencies shifted like that day to day? Steem could be like the “global SMT reserve currency”. It will be trusted more than an individual SMT and therefore will be the currency of choice for traders and merchants, etc
Currency of choice for traders, maybe, for merchants, no. Steem will be hodled by companies who delegate RCs to users. This is the opposite of adoption.
Price stability can be brought to the steem we already have by introducing price sinks, especially using advertising. When the platform is more successful, we can even have a 0% inflation model where the tokens that have been burned go into the reward pool. So there will be a redistribution of steem from advertisers to users, without any inflation.
The solution to our is good sinks, not less inflation at the expense of what makes steem steem.
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I am not so sure about this proposal, the inflation is set to decay at regular block intervals until it reaches 0.95%. Currently BTC's inflation is about 4% and it took 8 years to reach that point. Why the rush? The price of bitcoin was shit at the beginning also.
In my opinion removing the reward pool would entrench the current stakeholders in their position.
They could either buy more or sell, just like any other coin. The great content creators will be rewarded according to their communities, which likely are much better at deciding the value of that content as opposed to everyone all sharing the same reward pool and fighting over where it goes each day.
You are correct that bitcoin’s price suffered for a long time but it suffered during a time where it had no competitors. Today, competitors are forming everyday and companies/apps/developers are currently picking blockchains to call their home. We want them to pick Steem. That is why there should be a rush in my opinion. We need forward momentum. Anything else is bad longterm. We don’t have the luxury of time.
We need to focus on creating demand via organic growth, decreasing the supply doesn't do that. Removing the reward pool from the equation is a major change that would turn the token economics on it's head, at least in the mid term I don't think it's viable. If SMTs are succesful then we can start considering it.
Think about it this way, if we reduce the inflation to 2% at the current prices the witnesses will need to have half of it or 1% in order to have adequate compensation. By witnesses I mean all of them not just the top 20. That leaves another 1% for stakeholders and the SPS.
Basically we would have the current distribution locked since the only way to acquire steem would be to buy it.
EDIT: Maybe accelerating the rate at which the inflation decreases would be a better option.
I agree!!
uhm... nice. This choice also could works smoother. :)
I don’t have the details worked out but making sure witnesses are paid to secure the blockchain is obviously required and the inflation rate chosen would make sure that is the case.
“Locking” the current distribution would reward those who have held through this bear market and believe in this platform. Buying would be required, which is kind of the point since it would create buy pressure.
Let me present it slightly different ... there is a maximum number of bitcoins that will ever be mined. When that happens, those people are “locked in”. Do you think bitcoin dies on that day? I think everyone would say no. So what happens? It gets traded around and a fair market value priced in whatever asset you are talking about is settled upon by traders. I think the same thing happens here. People will trade Steem and a value will be found. Hopefully people hold it and power it up and the price rises. I am sure when it gets to $2 some people will dump (aka distribute) it and others will hold it until it goes back to ATH.
I do like your idea of accelerating the decrease in the inflation schedule. Maybe that would be more palatable to the community.
The original comment had some ideas I very much disagree with, but decreasing the inflation rate at a faster pace is the one decent idea.
It could also be done fairly easily. I would also leave the final steady-state inflation as positive albeit small.
Also, this isn't really inflation, it is the coin-creation rate. The real inflation rate is much higher.
They are not patient people. :) I am not opposed to the idea, but I do think it is too soon. However, I've seen this move coming....
I will not hold if they do it now. It's do soon, with too little distribution and ineffective leaders as Large Stakeholders in a DPOS chain matters.
The bear market has taken an emotional toll on many of our users and stakeholders and they are looking for ANY WAY to stop the bleeding. It's short sighted in my view... But I think we will see a reduction in inflation sooner rather than later.
It's not really an emotional reaction at all. If SMTs are a viable product, it makes sense to go this route. As Andrarchy said above...
You can't remove the current economy before replacing it. Also, who wants to hold or buy a token with no vision or use case?
Don't break what you have before you have a viable replacement.
It would be replaced with an SMT. Steem would be the base layer on which everything else is created.
Better get those out and released before you talk about breaking the only use case we have.
I agree with the future vision and hate the timing.
Yes of course, it would only be done when SMTs are released and functional, that is the whole premise behind the change.
Putting the central back into decentralisation.
How will each community value its tokens with respect to STEEM?
How will a new community fund its token?
Where will new people get the Steem from?
Eliminate reward pool, and only the insiders and investors get paid?
So basically, get rid of the last of the content-creators and just go full spambot?
content creators would get paid with SMTs, such as palnet, where that community is able to best judge the value of their own content. Spambots would be reset in many ways because Steem would only be good for RCs for the most part. If someone wanted to build a community specific bot, they would have to acquire alot of thst SMT through purchases or have it initially setup that way.
The question would be if SMTs had any value if even STEEM has nearly no value anymore ... So would it be a real incentive to post just for getting some worthless SMTs?
Most SMTs will likely be worthless (or should be) just like crypto alts but hopefully some are able to come up with a good business model to make them actually worth something. Maybe through ad revenue sharing, or whatever it is. It needs to be more than just speculation.
Hm ... but most users aren't business men but just 'normal' bloggers - would you suggest STEEM to develop in a way that it won't be interesting anymore for people who just want to blog instead of inventing any genial business ideas? :)
It would still be interesting to normal bloggers but the valuation needs to come from somewhere. That is where people behind the scenes come into play. The normal bloggers don’t need to think about that. They can just blog and comment.
To be honest, currently, for me the future of STEEM looks like a journey into the unknown. There are many interesting ideas (like for example yours, like EIP, like my own one's, ...) but it's nearly impossible to evaluate their long term impact on the whole thing.
At this point I can only hope for the best, and wait and see.
At least I really appreciate that Steemit, Inc. is doing their very best to fix and develop things on many fronts. :)
The "people behind the scenes"... sounds deeper into centralisation. There may be external issues about turning this into a centralised chain.
If steem get some mainstream traction with a couple of millions or tens of millions accounts steem token will be very scarce and expensive despite inflation. I don't see problems in the future regarding inflation.
I agree with you. My worry is getting those millions of users in our current environment of falling prices. I understand a lot of crypto is in a bear market so maybe it will turn around with time. Communities and SMTs should help but right now it is empty around here. Those who have drank the steem koolaid communicate elsewhere on places like discord so to new users it seems like there is not many people here.
After hardfork 21
One thing many people overlooked is we shouldn't have had over a 5% inflation. And with hf22 we have no need for steem mining via content.
Since steemit can have its own smt. This would turn steem into a utility token. We could still have sbd be printed via witnesses and node ops if it's really needed.
The mining of steem should be switched over to node ops, and witnesses. This would strengthen our infrastructure massively and lower our dependence on steemit or any centralized org.
It would also turn this into a centralised chain. The opposite of what you claim.
A utility token should be useful - where is the utility in a coin that only pays its miners?
SMT's will have an internal market which Steem would be the main currency it trades with and the utility from sp allows you to do everything on the chain.
This wouldn't centralize anything, this would just switch how the mining is done. Instead of focusing on content for the main coin it would turn more into something that is used. Steemit can have its own smt just like anyone else that could be traded for other cryptos and Steem.
Yeah, I think something like this is workable and probably the right direction. Great comment.
The main question, would the witnesses approve of this? 🤷🏼♂️
That's 10k of Steem a month. The answer is quite obvious I think.
I think if we really can come up with something that will benefit things in the long run, they will get on board. I mean a small piece of a massive pie is much better than a large piece of a very tiny pie.
People generally prefer to have liquidity (something worthless that has a very small chance to Moon) than to have nothing at all.
This is making me want to become top witness so I could veto these short term, irrational panics from potenially ruining Steem. Inflation gradually goes down, which is why it is such a good long term investment; and they're talking about ruining it all because the price is low right now.
yes, proof-of-panic combined with the eternal drive to control and centralise.
This is one of the best ideas I’ve heard, and I think would go a long way to support the price of Steem. I think this should be seriously considered and implemented shortly after SMTs go live. And Steemit, along with all the other Steem dapps should have their own SMT.
This is where it is heading, but it is likely a little too early to implement it yet, at least by my measure. I have written about these things over the past year or more and it is the logical step that eventually, Steem becomes the enabler coin held by investors. I think for now though, distribution as wide as possible to people who want to hold is still needed to create a more stable base for the future.
I wrote about this too, but in a different way, as steem becoming the central bank and that everyone then has a direct relationship with that source. Not like the rest of the world where central banks only deal with their bankster friends leaving the masses with cake crumbs.
Communities and SMTs are great, but their tokens need a base coin to form a meaningful exchange rate. Otherwise both coin and tokens will be worth nothing.
It might be too early but I just wanted to see some discussion on it to get that ball possibly rolling. I have heard the EIP has been in discussion for at least a year.
Yes, the discussion is good and the more that get involved the better. My "too early" comment wasn't about you bringing it up, just adding my views to the chain :)
And yes, the components of the EIP have been in discussion throughout the community for a long time, but finding concentration as well as spread of discussion is understandably hard here :)
The more I think about this the more I like it. While I am sure some problems are created, removing the Steem reward pool and moving toward individual communities/SMTs addresses the following issues that currently exist on the blockchain depending on who you ask:
What else am I missing? My point being, if we move toward communities and SMTs, it is toxic to the blockchain to keep this stuff happening in the background and this is one way to wipe it clean in one go.
The problem with inflation is not just the reward pool but also the Steem Dollar (SBD) peg / debt, which can cause SBD converted to STEEM and thus additional inflation. We have to do something about SBD too if we want to keep inflation on a reasonable level.
This idea I was proposing for one and half years. I believe many others have also thought and posted about it. Good to see some discussion on it.
@steemitblog @birdinc @elipowell @andrarchy @justinw @roadscape @vandeberg @gerbino @ned, please give a hard thought on it.
https://steemit.com/steem/@riseofth/are-smts-guaranteed-to-succeed-while-smt-s-backbone-currency-steem-is-still-struggling-for-better-governance-solution-limit
You are delegating to a account @mmmmkkkk311 who is downvoting me for nothing! So I will downvote your posts of course!
Best regards!
Are you insane since you are basically spamming and self-voting with @steembasicincome?
I have no delegation to account @mmmmkkkk311 and I don't even know you and him.
i do not know you and i am not interested in your words. spam on!
I'm just happy to read people having an intelligent dialogue about the future of this platform instead of throwing temper tantrums, name calling, and accusations.
Agreed.
While everything said in the article is true, it does not cover the most important element SMTs bring. SMTs will not only be created by companies for their specific community or Dapp, they will also be created as currencies, which don’t have an associated Dapp but can be used in any of them (if implemented by the devs) or outside of them in normal life (like bitcoin or usd).
Additionally these currencies may choose to reward some users for some actions, so it’s a controlled inflation. A creator of an SMT can play the role of a central bank, where he chooses the rules of inflation. Instead of only enriching the government, inflation can become a way to incentivize productive behavior.
Of course it would be extremely hard to create such a currency. But I expect these currencies to be created with all kinds of rules, in a random manner. The bad ones will fail, the good ones will survive and grow in adoption.
Only time can tell what kind of super currency can emerge through that process, and if a proof-of-brain model that helps spread a currency even exists.
If it does, then it’s going to go big, very big.
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Main selling point is to be simple to create / use. As much as I love ETH or even NEO, you need some coding skills to create your token. SMT's creation should be easy, just like filling a Google form.
Well said!
Any official update on how SMT's will affect/co-exist with SCOTs and Steem Tribes?
Go Steem Go!
The name Smart Media Tokens sounds confusing and probably will take a good amount of time for newcomers to wrap their heads around it. The name you mentioned in the article - Community Tokens - sounds so much more descriptive, people will get it right away, and it is more broad. The name has a big importance, so would you consider renaming SMTs to Community Tokens? Maybe run a poll to see how people react to this name?
Good idea!
"Steem began as.. people who were passionate about the platform. But that is an inherently limited group.
The STEEM token can be thought of as the currency of that community. Most people aren’t interested in Steem and never will be."
Wow, whose side are you guy son? Sounds like you've given up on STEEM as a currency. Is that part of the reason it keeps crashing in value, causing devastation to the community? 0.167 USD today.
"To get those people using Steem, we have to take the lessons we’ve learned from using this technology to give people ownership over their social information and align their incentivizes, and scale these solutions to satisfy the needs of every community."
Do you even read your own nonsense? Listen to the corporate bullshit nonsense you're copypasting and asking us to eat up! It has zero meaning, zero purpose, you're just wasting our time with babble.
The owners of Steemit (and those writing these posts) are not listening to the content-creators or other average users of the site. No fake onboarding plans will have any effect until that changes.
Steem or any other crypto are not likely to be used as a currency any time soon. How can you use something that fluctuates 10% on a daily basis? That isn't a currency, it's an investment. The coins that have use cases as currencies are stable coins. Perhaps eventually some coin can be used as a currency but not until the volatility drops significantly. And this doesn't even take into account the tax issues trying to use one as a currency... as they are written now in most places, it makes it very difficult if not impossible to use one as a widely adopted currency. For now, it is best not to focus on the currency aspects, but instead focus on the utility/speculation side.
well said. I had the same impression.
good post, some welcome encouragement
на жаль модерація племен є різновидом ксенофобії. Пошук однодумців робиться дещо інакшим алгоритмом
That's probably why some people are trying to squat as many communities as possible before SMTs become a reality.