SMT Testnet is LIVE
We are excited to announce that the Smart Media Token (SMT) testnet is now live!
You can connect to the testnet by listing testnet.steemitdev.com:2001 as a seed node and by setting your chain id with option --chain-id=46d82ab7d8db682eb1959aed0ada039a6d49afa1602491f93dde9cac3e8e6c32
Entrepreneurs & Developers
This is an especially exciting moment because it means that once the testnet hardforks in SMTs, developers and entrepreneurs will be able to begin playing with Smart Media Tokens in a test environment! This has been 2 years in the making, but the development phase of SMTs is finally complete, and testing has begun.
Testing Philosophy
Testing SMTs is going to be a bit different than testing previous hardforks. The features being added are the most extensive feature set we have ever added to Steem. Most of the preexisting systems in Steem had to be extended to support SMTs. Due to the magnitude of this update, we are planning on an extended testing period to ensure we catch all critical bugs, catch as many minor issues as possible, and to give our developer community as much time as they need to integrate their applications with SMTs.
In the first month or two, we will be liberal with relaunching the testnet when bugs are caught and fixed. The first few of these testnets will have a hardfork date a few days after launch to test the hardfork block. When we feel comfortable with that code path, we will launch testnets with SMTs enabled. Once we feel we have caught the low hanging fruit, we will leave the testnet up for an extended period to give developers some stability in their testing and development.
Hardfork Date
We are not announcing a hardfork date for SMTs because we want to allow for as much testing as needed to ensure a smooth launch for SMTs.
Testing SMTs
SMTs have a number of customizable parameters which enable countless potential configurations. Once SMTs are enabled, and our client libraries updated, we strongly suggest that developers begin experimenting with these different options and testing them in their applications so that they can observe the impact on user behavior. Of course, these will not be “real” SMTs in the sense that none of them will be running on mainnet and all the information will be reset once the code is hardforked in.
Testnet v. Mainnet
SMTs on mainnet will be full-fledged cryptocurrencies with industry-leading features like 3-second fee-less transfers. But they will also feature unrivaled features like Proof-of-Brain which, if tuned properly, can be a powerful mechanism for bootstrapping token usage by turbocharging engagement. But bear in mind that once cryptocurrencies become tradeable and acquire real utility, the way that people interact with them changes and becomes highly unpredictable.
That is precisely why it is so important to test one’s SMT as thoroughly as possible before it is released, because like any cryptocurrency, once an SMT is released, its economic properties cannot be altered without a hardfork.
#newsteem
The added benefit of all this testing will be helping the Steem ecosystem by ensuring that these changes do not negatively impact the Steem blockchain. SMTs represent the single biggest change to the Steem blockchain since the original release! Steem will be changing from a platform for sharing and rewarding content, to a platform for releasing state-of-the-art cryptocurrencies that “just work.”
Onboarding the Masses
We have long said that our mission is to onboard the masses to the blockchain by tokenizing the web. After SMTs, every website and web application will be able to have their own powerful cryptocurrency customized to meet their own needs and maximize their own business and social objectives.
Steem will be the critical computational layer supporting all of these different tokens, while STEEM is the critical financial layer providing transferability, liquidity, and access to exchanges.
So go forth and test the SMT hardfork! We’ll be presenting about SMTs at SteemFest, so if you’re going to be there, be sure to attend our presentations.
The Steemit Team
Individuals/companies with known Steem-Engine tokens, aka STEM, AFIT, LEO, PAL, etc should have first dibs at creating those SMTs in my opinion. Otherwise it will just be a huge clusterf%$k at the beginning with people staking claims to all the known coins just to hold the names hostage and cause massive confusion.
Along these lines, are certain coin names on a blacklist? Like Bitcoin, etc. I remember someone made a Steem-engine bitcoin and it caused some issues if I remember correctly. Avoiding these issues should be a huge discussion otherwise everyone is going to try to steal grandma’s savings. I am not sure what the fee to create an SMT will be but I vote that it should be relatively high to avoid just a boat load of Shitcoins and behavior that we really don’t want to see. For instance, COKE and PEPSI coin should not be one of the first two coins created if you get my drift.
Yeah there should be rules, like if you try to register COKE you need to be the company! What has to happen is steemit needs to register the lot of them and work with the companies later and make a killing selling them their coin! Or they could be nice and hold the names for the real companies if/when they do decide to need a coin! OMG this is going to drive STEEM to the MOON one more time! lol
As I understand there is no name squatting risk, as all SMT's are uniquely represented by hexidecimal codes and not a ticker symbol.
I am glad that reduces squatting rights, but how will the internal market work? Will trades be based on these numbers? Because that seems not very user friendly. What happens if I make SMTs with the same short name (e.g. HUNT, PAL) and place them on the open exchange. Will people have to know that my PAL is a different string of numbers vs the real PAL. Do you see where that gets very confusing and would turn people off? I am assuming this is not how this will work, so I more bring it up so I can get some clarity on how the system will work in real life. If this is how it will be designed, then I think opening up the discussion is important.
Waves uses a two-tier system where approved tokens can be found by the ticker name in the DEX, and other tokens by the long ID. That works pretty well. I think that's a reasonable compromise between reserving names and the freedom to create any token.
Awesome! Totally agree with something like this.
Totally agree.
Will set up and give it a go.
Excited to see how all this plays out! w00t!
ow yes this good
Is this the real life?
Is this just fantasy?
SMTs are finally seeing the light of day after years of development. Good job team! Test them good!
Oooh, I read your comment in Freddy's singing voice and the last 2 lines didnt fit :(
Make them fit!
Is this the real life?
Is this just fantasy?
Stuck in a beartrap, no sight of the next pump spree.
Open your thighs. Look up to my eyes and SCREAM!
"I'm just a whore, boy! Don't need your psychopathy!"
Upvotes are easy come, easy go, little high, little low
any way the value shows, doesn't really matter til payout to me, to me
Blah blah! Can't hear you, man!
Posting's fun but now I'm dead. Can't afford a f^ckin' bed!
@acidyo and @nonameslefttouse this cracked me up
It's not working =(
Do what Cookie Monster does. He makes it fit.
You just need to turn it.
Damn you
im with ya
I am so happy to see this update. This is indeed good news.
Question: For token owners who might want to switch from Steem-Engine token to the Main SMT or simply just want a token name reserved, would Steem inc give room to reserve a token name before an HF?
As I understand there is no name squatting risk, as all SMT's are uniquely represented by hexidecimal codes and not a ticker symbol.
it is a good news since 2017
Boom!!
Use it as collateral for a Steem stable token.
I don't know about anyone else, but this line in particular fills me with dread.
"We couldn't actually make money by being a place where people create and share interesting things in exchange for rewards, so we're going to put that aside and focus on selling the mechanisms to make coins which don't even have arbitrary backing."
That is a terrible place to be.
Shitcoins for everyone!
I totally get why you feel this way, but it's not at all what we mean. Content sharing and rewarding is still going to be a huge part of Steem. But in order to make content rewarding work even better, different communities and organizations need to be able to determine for themselves what is valuable and what is not. In order to do this, they need their own token which symbolizes their unique subjective valuations. Another benefit of this is that the added experimentation can help inform the base token and layer.
But while we were thinking about these solutions, we realized that there was no technical reason to limit these tokens to the use case of content sharing and rewarding. That would be an arbitrary limit on what Steem can be used to do. An SMT can be used to solve any of the problems people have been claiming blockchain can be used to solve, but which are limited by long/variable transaction times and transaction fees.
In short, I wouldn't say that the role of content sharing and rewarding is in any way diminishing. In fact, it will be getting a huge upgrade. But at the same time the role of Steem as a financial layer that can add tremendous value to the global economy is increasing as well. Since this wasn't something Steem was used for in the past, the delta is larger.
Hi
Does this statement from the above news release mean a major change in the platform is coming?
Thank you
Thank you for clarifying the statement.
Thank you for clarifying the statement.
I have another question. How are SMTs different from SE Tokens?
Thank you.
SMTs are part of the chain. SE relies on independent software.
The marketing-speak is strong with this one.
Steem needs a derivatives platform built from SMTs. Start with a stable token at least as good as multi collateral Dai. Figure out how to do what Compound is doing, and add compound interest on top of that stable token. Let the stable token be used for rewards and for people to store their life savings. This would be a start to saving Steem.
How can we expect anyone to put their life savings in Steem Power or Steem when the price isn't stable? If I earn wealth on Steem and don't immediately take it off before the whales sell then I lose it all. I know this from experience already which is why I'm one of the people saying we need a stable token and derivatives.
That stable token is SBD. It sucks at what it does, but Steem did try. Is it possible to make SBD stable by using STEEM as collateral to create it the way MakerDAO does? Possibly, but you have to understand that even though ETH is not stable, its way more stable than STEEM is.
Asset valuations matter, because if ETH went up and down in price a lot, you would have many CDPs (collateriazed debt positions) get dropped. So, the way this would work is that you would have to mint more STEEM as people ditched their debt and you could have hyperinflation.
Part of why it works with Ethereum is that it is the second biggest blockchain in value and status. As far as cryptoassets go, ETH is stable, and it is also essential to the functionality of dapps built on Ethereum. Ergo, it has an underlying value, while STEEM's only current purpose really is to beget more STEEM. Slap a MakerDAO system on it, especially with its current inflation rate, and you'll probably only create a hyperinflating currency that loses momentum faster than the Roseanne show without Roseanne.
This is an amazing comment. Thank you.
I like especially how this comment shows how silly it would be to split the econominncs of Steem power with the Resource Credits of Steem Power. They are both valuable, viable and important uses, and I do believe STEEM would be poorer for a split if it ever happened.
#STEEM is the SPINAL COLUMN of an entire world of possibilities!
I completely disagree and also find it worrisome that you seem to assume this to be taken for granted or obvious.
It is only true if you assume that proof of brain is going to be used in a community, or that it is a good idea to begin with (fewer and fewer seem to accept this notion). Communities only need to be able to determine their own distribution rules. This does not require a new token, and imo it would benefit everyone more if it instead used STEEM.
Exactly. Useless coins and nothing backing them? Its one thing if SMTs are backed by securities or if we have just one working stable token as a proof of concept but we don't even have that so it's hard to know what they'll do with SMTs. You can do derivatives with SMTs but I don't see any proposal planning to offer derivatives on Steem.
Not really. Content (also art) have always been philanthropic in their survival.
Add to that the inflationary downpressure factors.
Proof-of-Brain is still an integral part of SMTs, and always was ever since first SMT white paper. Even if in itself it isn't part of the Steem white paper (only of the bluepaper).
That's not even true and I'm mildly insulted that you tried to pull that one on me. We literally have 4000 years of human history, several hundred with growing experience of how people in capitalist economies with free markets engage with creators who make content, which says just the opposite. We have a massively thriving music industry, we have a massively thriving entertainment industry, and it's not because they have depended on philanthropy for their survival.
It's because they sold something other people wanted and were allowed to do that selling and buying.
Steemit apparently hasn't been selling something that people wanted to buy, and that's not a failure of the philanthropic urge ? it's a problem of not having something that people want to buy, and then creating more pressure on creators to do something else other than create and share that content.
So that's just wrong.
And to continue the theme, that just doesn't work. Proof of Brain does not work. We know this because we've looked at the reward patterns on the Steem blockchain over the last several years and POB just was not and is not part of the way that rewards occur. As an element of the way the system works, POB doesn't.
We have widespread market interaction by bots, and while they have taken a little bit of a hit lately ? it's more of the nature of a minor ecological shift that will rapidly be overcome once more by the next generation of bots. It is still far more valuable to play bot games than it is to make content. It is still far more valuable to engage in a gambling minigame than it is to make content.
That's not proof of brain. It never has been.
Which is an orthogonal issue, unfortunately.
The upfront issue is that Steemit Inc. couldn't make a solid living even when they had all the advantages of the world in courting content creators with messages which centered on "come make big bucks!" Now the idea is "come pay us big bucks for the opportunity to build your own alt.coin which neither you nor anyone else will actually understand how to tune or make do what you want to to build a Community so that you may can make big bucks!"
There is a deep and painful logical abyss lying right at the middle of that. It would be nice to see more people address it.
how dares he?
Dude, stay insulted but content is needs to be made transactional. Otherwise, you’re philanthropy. In fac5t... you are. And that should insult you so you can come out of your delusion.
Get over it.
Thousands of issues but overestimating the financial traction of creation is definitely among the main ones. Once you actually understand that, then you will be able to start looking for “oh shit, no... we just can’t keep hoping that this cool community with peace and war length novels keep churning out revenue for our beautiful eyes and words. Or proof-of-brain because I am yet to see much brain here. (I only read your first paragraph)
Your words are useless until someone sees value in them. Attacking Steemit Inc for their failure... yeah sure, why not. Don’t forget to read the SMT WP tho.
I agree, when you get down to the value of Steem, if it has any value at all, none of those values relate to the current direction.
Steem has a value in immutability, which is true only for text. This means that authors cannot be muted in the written form, however, de-monetization is still possible on the Steem blockchain via whale flagging, downvote tools/trails.
So, what is the key value? If it is the immutability of text, well, SMTs do not help with that. So, if a team wishes to make their own token they might as well clone Steem rather than make an SMT.
Now, if the value is monetization, or protection from de-monetization an SMT could theoretically work. However, what is the value of that token? Why not just buy a t-shirt from the content producer or look at an ad rather than buy a Joe Rogan Token?
Steem's value as I see it was that it had the potential to be a universal tipping protocol. Like a decentralized patreon where you could upvote or delegate to your favorite folk online. In the concept the value of Steem was its universal-ness, including the universal application of its currency as the primary means of reward. Split that up into thousands of no-name tokens and people are really going to begin not giving a damn.
SMTs can let people do clever stuff, so they should exist. But I expect no big pump due to them.
Who told you that? Journalism? Books? Movies? When has this been the case? Confusing your post.
Salvador Dali and Van Gogh -> dependent on maecenas
Stephen King -> his “rejections nail” is legendary which merely means the publisher didn’t see any opportunity in the content attracting. Same with every book ever rejected by a publisher (didn’t believe it would sell sufficient).
This has always been the case about creation. That particularly you never knew that baffles me.
That isn't how it works in the US. I don't know what you are citing. Do you have some sources?
Can you please elaborate on “it”, because that’s how publishing [words] works.
If you’re a journalist, you are whether employed/assigned[transaction!] to write a piece about a topic the publication wants covered or you pitch a story and the editor will assess whether they think it has value [if you pitch a movie to Amazon or Netflix, value can possibly also be whether it will sell more subscriptions, like the recent “El Camino” may have resulted in Breaking Bad fans returning to Netflix or any movie/series released by Amazon is yet one more reason to subscribe to Amazon Prime).
If you’re a book author, you pitch and the publishing house will assess on whether they think it will generate revenue [yes, some publishing houses also assess based on snobbery first].
If you’re a (self-publishing) blogger, you have a toolkit available nowadays which has democratized access to [transactions] ads. The topic often defines the eCPM. If you’re a hired gun, your employer [hopefully] makes the content transactional (ads, services, products).
If you run a popular tech blog you will have a higher eCPM than with a blog about... writing. But with the latter you can sell consulting services [making content transactional].
Please elaborate “it” in “how it works” because I have a background in publishing. The words you publish are not worth more than when they are written on a piece of paper and stuck on a lantern pole unless... a mechanic makes them transactional. Sales, services, signups are all possible methods to make the words worth something financially.
In the context of crypto... failing transactional token utility content is the same as the wealthy owner family. Philanthropy.
The WAPo was loss making but family owned until recent acquisition. Little more than a century ago, Hearst expanded his “yellow journalism empire” and could thus sell more display units [making content transactional]. Initially, his expansion was backed by family capital though. But it made his publications less dependent on local advertisers only, because he could sell display units in multiple publications interstate. At the same time, he also owned a large part of the “life cycle” of publishing being a large scale forester. Thus he could purchase paper cheaper than others, the combination of all which allowed him to hire away Pulitzer winners and some of the best authors in modern literature.
Because he sold.... ads on cheaper paper.
All of that is making content “transactional”. Without that it’s philanthropy or the maecenas story. Or maybe I don’t know what US you are referring too because there’s capital flow behind every word published. At least targeted.
Bonus edit: Perfect modern times example is Medium and its struggles to become break even, let alone profitable. Interestingly enough, that struggle is a red wire through Ev Williams’ internet career (blogger sold web space and domains yet wasn’t profitable, twitter wasn’t profitable in his time, Odeo most even don’t know he had a venture between Twitter and Blogger, and Medium’s struggles despite $132m VC funding are well documented.
The three examples I briefly replied to above, all have reference examples merely a keystroke away.
You can sell directly to the reader or consumer.
You can sell directly to the reader or consumer. Crypto makes it even more sophisticated because you can sell content in a different way. We just haven't seen these platforms become innovative yet with derivatives which is what I'm suggesting in my posts.
That’s still making your craft [words] transactional. You sell.
But we agree, as I saw in another comment of yours: shitcoins backed by nothing.
Could you give me some examples or tutorial?
I don't want to setup testnet node. I just want to try smt token creation.
Without running testnet node, can I test smt??
Good news. After SMTs launch we need need need to fix and upgrade the Steem Dollar. We need a stable token which pays interest on Steem.
https://steemit.com/steem/@dana-edwards/will-steem-developers-fix-upgrade-the-steem-dollar