My perspective on the value of Steem Power
Why does anyone want Steem Power? What gives Steem Power it's value?
I'm going to list all the reasons I can think of;
Capital appreciation - over time, the value of Steem may rise.
Security - Steem Power can only be divested over three months. If your account is compromised, it takes time to plunder your Steem Power holdings, time for you to notice and take steps.
Social capital - the more Steem Power you have, the more opportunities you have for growing social capital (building trust and a network among people.)
Delegation of economic potential - holdings of Steem Power can be used to fuel the activities of others connected to the Steem network/economy. Steem Power is literally capable of building anything you can think of and influencing the world around you in a direction you want.
Protection from Steem inflation - there is a small amount of inflation currently built into the steem economy which provides the reward pool. Steem Power holders are collectively awarded some of the supply inflation in order to protect them over Steem holders. Steem holders pay the price for liquidity.
Author & curation reward influence - the more Steem Power an account has, the greater the influence over the distribution of the Steem reward pool, content choices of authors, content visibility and the ability to self-reward.
Steem community culture development influence - the economic incentive system within steem grants Steem Power holders the influence required to craft culture, though abusive cultures can only go so far without push back.
All of the reasons listed have the potential to make or save money but there are only a couple that are likely to be considered by investors when calculating return on investment. These are;
Capital appreciation
Author & curation reward influence
Waiting for capital appreciation is a big risk. If there is a means to utilise investment holdings during the wait by taking from the reward pool that are a part of the rules of the system and potentially a reason for investment in the first place, it's going to happen. It reduces risk, it's only sensible. However, Steemit (the flagship Steem app which is most closely tied to the success of Steem) is in beta and the overall goal is mass adoption. I believe it is in the interests of Steem Power holders to re-examine the Steem Power value proposition entirely.
For instance, if the other reasons for holding Steem Power are given precedence over author & curation reward influence, certainly where self voting is concerned, ultimately ROI will be far greater. The question is, are there people out there prepared to hold Steem Power for reasons other than self-voting rewards? I believe there are. I do not self -vote and haven't been for some time. I would love to build a Steem Power stake into the millions, but why?
The capital appreciation is a great enough financial incentive alone. All the other reason are very compelling too, but I consider the most important, the absolute jewel in the crown to be the delegation of economic potential. That is the one that has the potential to change everything and all other reasons beside capital appreciation, pale in comparison.
Ok, providing money for people and projects and things, that's nothing new. Correct. But Steem is new, very new and with the utility, scope and potential to transform everything. Steem Power is the power to transform anything and everything at a global level. Very, very valuable stuff indeed.
So all I'm saying is that the value of Steem Power is a matter of perspective, there are plenty of visionaries out there who will crave Steem Power and we should never stop the debates and innovation around the economic incentives.....particularly at this stage. The structure must incentivise everyone and perception matters a great deal. Please consider that when you consider your Steem Power.
Happy Steeming
I want to accumulate SteemPower more and more and just power down little by little when pays me enough to keep posting content, helping some people that have needs like in Africa, Venezuela and others poor countries. I love Steemit, think is a Disruptive technology that will change people lives for better, is already doing this :-)
I read the current annual inflation for steem is between 9-10% per year.
There seems to be an extreme myopic perspective regarding self upvoting.
First, anytime anyone votes on one of my posts or comments, I increase their payout when I return and upvote my own post or comment. By doing this manually, just before voting closes, I forfeit all or most of the curation payout because of built-in payout curves.
Secondly, because I actively vote, I need more SP. The system allows me to build SP via a self-upvote. It works against the community for me to be negligent in building SP.
I'm also looking forward to the day when I have enough SP to delegate to community members.
Equally important, when anyone powers down SP and then uses Steem to make a purchase (of goods or services) or makes a Steem donation within the Steemit community, it increases the value of Steem.
Steem that is moved from community member to community member has a better chance of staying inside the Steem economy if it has benefits to the new holder as SP. Removing the stigma of the self-upvote would increase the value of Steem as SP and keep Steem in a strong internal economy.
Basically, anything that removes STEEM's dependence on the USD, or other currencies of any type, to provide value to the community is a good thing.
Markets whereby we can buy and sell real world goods and services with Steem is one way to give Steem real world value. The markets give people incentive to trade Steem within the Steem economy.
Providing extra incentive via the self-upvote can keep Steem in the Steemit economy and community even longer.
All of these community benefits and personal incentives increase as a member's SP increases.
The community benefits much more when we have more dolphins handing out more nice-sized votes but as the dolphin grows, they reach a point of personal negligence if that are not investing wisely.
The self-upvote is one way to keep Steem in their investment portfolio. This improves the likelihood that they will keep engaging in the community, keep handing out upvotes, and keep allotting delegated SP.
I feel like it should be obvious that self-upvoting is an incredible benefit to the community.
I'm sorry but I disagree completely. Self upvoting changes the nature of perception to those without Steem power, the majority. The holders of Steem power are absolutely tiny in comparison to the population of the planet.....the target for adoption. Self upvoting drains the precious reward pool when instead it could be going to excellent minnow authors or commentators. The best mechanism for distributing Steem is through rewards for quality posting. That is the purpose of Steemit.
It should be like this, but in the current situation, it's not. I would encourage self voting for 2 reasons.
Now in a related subject: People are against self-voting, but in the same time they have no problem with paid voting bots like @randowhale @booster @bellyrub etc. I think that all these bots are kind of self voting. Instead of upvoting their own accounts, they get paid to upvote other accounts. So they are draining the rewards pool for their benefit of getting paid.
What's a difference if I upvote my account to get paid from the pool, or to upvote someone else's account and get paid from that person and I use the public pool rewards to get rewarded?
I already wrote a post how a fixed Steemit should look like: https://steemit.com/steemit/@emble/will-steem-succeed-or-commit-suicide
I'm selling my STEEM because many people are against self-voting. I bought STEEM (with real money) just for that and all I got is endless flags. Now it's a little different because my voting power is not that big anymore. Anyway I'm leaving STEEM for all hypocrites who did not buy any STEEM.
Are you talking about demand for Steem in the short or long term. In the short term, I couldn't care less if weaker hands distributed their Steem, in fact it would speed up the process and make for a better distribution! ;)
I've got nothing against minnowbooster at all but it exists to profit doesn't it. If it does and the situation changes for the better for the majority and that happens to close an exploit or means of support, well that's what innovation is for.
I don't use bot self upvoting. If they were a service without profit, that would be better but there is no relation to quality in the use obviously. I see these initiatives as a search for ROI. Have some Minnows been helped? I think so.
Unless this is corrected, self-upvoting should not be eliminated.
I agree only stacking for appreciation can be risky for investors. Due to sheer nature of cryptocurreny, they fluctuates a lot on tiny incidents. Investors/traders who are in for short-term, powering up STEEM can be painful since they cannot play along with Market. However, in long term it can be a different issue.
In Recent BTC's up-trending and ascending to $3500, STEEM seems to be lagging in big way or, having some negative perspective issue with investors since it is actually down to $1.16 while most of the top cryptos are ascending with BTC. I wonder if it is due to @dan powerdowning big number of STEEMs, concern on scalability, STEEM fork- calibrae, or recent downvoting and in-fighting among whales. I hope STEEM come back from this SLACK and have a positive correction i.e. at BTC $3500, STEEM could be $3.
For self-vote, I would put the discretion to the owner. It takes precious time to read article and create intelligent comment. Just waiting on gracious peers to vote up or, sheer luck of visibility can be discouraging. If the writer thinks that he have put quite significant effort on writing or commenting, I don't see guilt in upvoting. However, self-upvoting in the purpose of self-voting with silly or generic comment should be deal with loathing. However, we can't stop people from manipulating the system in a decentralized world , we can make the system better to discourage or stop such behaviors.
meep
Agreed.
It's 13 weeks to fully power down ;0)
I agree with the above, there are many good reasons you have outlined to gain steempower particularly if you are invested in steemit.
Steem itself is an incredibly versatile currency and the wallet onsite a very safe option to hold it in. I think steem will gain in value over time as people are made more aware of the platform and the no cost aspect of steem transactions
I totally agree with you about steem's versatility. It certainly seems capable of underpinning an economy.
steemit will evolve into something powerful because it's got such a awesome community
The community forming around Steem is definitely where the value lies.
This is a very good post about steem power and its importance in our steem ecosystem. Thanks a lot for this.
Due to your hardwork here and top quality posts which are undervalued, I hereby add you in my steemvoter.com (after reaching a mile stone) in order to better send in my support to your good work and quality posts...keep it up and more success.
Ok I am trying to digest all of this. The comments, too. I am confused why self voting is an issue. Yes I read all the dialog here, maybe I need like an explination like I was 4 years old.... I currently get half my payout in steem power and half in sbd. Is this the best method? Also, I thought it took 2 years to power down. Is there a place to go to get info like that easily?
Well done your post is very interesting i like your blog thank for sharing
My pleasure, thank you.