RE: Let’s talk investors: The fly on the wall... of the padded cell of Steemit
I really like the development of this idea between yourself and @timcliff. I'm strongly in favour of incentivizing more passive investment and the 'investor account' idea. However I've an issue with a threshold system for it.
If an individual with sufficient wealth wants to get around the threshold system, they can. It's just a matter of having multiple accounts and powering up each one to/near the threshold. So it doesn't prevent a single individual from having disproportionate influence, it only discourages it by virtue of the lack of 'investor interest' by taking that approach.
The threshold system is also a needless barrier to entry, and a barrier which we may find fluctuates to an extreme degree if Steem actually takes off. One of the best things about crypto is the low barrier to entry for investing. It means that people of all income ranges, from anywhere in the world, can invest in a potentially high return asset. This isn't true in the world of traditional finance where investing in anything but a generic savings account (low returns) isn't cost effective until you have a certain amount saved. That amount is far too much for most people. Today 250MV is almost $11,000. The range of a small investor, but only around 100 people have invested that much in Steem at this point. Unless Steem is a flop, the price of 250MV is going to rise. If Steem reaches $1 again, we're talking $120,000. That's in the range of a middle class investor if they have a high risk tolerance (it's not going to be a small part of their portfolio). At $100-$1000, 250MV is the domain of the super rich ($12 million to $120 million).
An alternative approach would be to separate VESTS into 'Influence Shares' and 'Interest Shares'. Anyone can turn their Steem into either of the two. Influence Shares would be voting power, which gives curation rewards but no access to the investor reward pool. Interest Shares would give access to the investor reward pool but no voting influence and no curation rewards. Once we have a fixed pool for each, all users can decide how much they want of each. A more passive investor can buy interest shares exclusively. An active curator would buy influence. And you could choose anywhere in between.
Correct. I think incentiving people down the "investor interest" route is the best approach.
I'm not wholly against individuals having multiple accounts. I just think people should be incentived against it. Right now the opposite is the case and it's proving detrimental to the platform.
I don't see the threshold as a barrier to entry. People can still purchase SP and curate at any level. I'd argue the lack of a threshold acts as a barrier to those wishing to purchase modest amounts of SP as their upvotes have little or no power.
It's worth noting that most POW coins offer nothing in terms of incentives for holding, besides speculation that value might increase in the future. That is still the case with STEEM. Someone can purchase at these prices, hold and hope for the value to increase.
I'm not wedded to 250MV, the right threshold could be much less. Also the threshold could decrease as the value and adoption increases... I'd leave that to the general consensus.
I think there is some merit in this. I would guess that some people are curating badly purely as a means of squeaking out more rewards. If forced to choose between the two they'd remain passive. However I still think this approach is still vulnerable to people "having disproportionate influence", so no further forward on that score.