Is Proof of Stake the main issue behind Steem?
The words "proof of stake" don't appear anywhere in the Steem Whitepaper. Instead, you see the words "Proof of Work", or, more specifically, "Subjective Proof of Work"
Something caught my eye in an article I was reading this morning, that immediately made me think of the problems we have with Steem today.
It was an article interviewing CryptoPlankton, the newest developer to join the Vertcoin Team (and also a Melbournian which is why the article had more of my attention than the average article). The discussion was mainly focused around Vertcoin, ASIC resistance, etc.
There was one section that discussed the recent issue around Etherium, ASIC, and the proposal to move etherium to a partial proof of stake implementation.
Proof of Stake is quite an illogical system. The more you hold, the more you earn. This sounds more like an investment than a currency, as it does not encourage spending at all.
Does not ring true to describe pretty much all of the issues we have with Steem today?
The more you hold, the more you earn. And the people that hold large amounts have figured out a way to launch businesses by allowing the earnings from "stakes" to essentially be sold to anybody who wants to pay. The brilliance of it is that it isn't even about selling the earnings from their own stake, it is about providing a platform allowing anybody to sell earnings from their stakes.
I've made clear before my opinion that whilst this is a problem, it's also a symptom of a larger problem in that it is very difficult to get any sort of exposure to your work, regardless of how much effort and brilliance is put in.
I'm now thinking though that there might be another issue, in that the proof of stake nature of how votes grow with SP is another problem, in that it encourages the innate human behaviour of seeking to maximise personal standings, in this case by maximising profit. It would also contribute to a lack of equality as the blockchain grows, because those that have been here longer have more of a chance to grow their stakes and are therefore at an advantage against those that come in later without the means to purchase a large stake.
There is undoubtedly a community aspect to the blockchain, in that there are many that use their stake to share profits and encourage the growth of the platform by including others in their share of rewards, but it seems to almost be in the minority.
There are no doubt opportunities on Steem regardless, as it's a fairly new concept, though I'd be interested to hear some opinions on this.
I keep hearing my subconscious say, "you are part of the problem, or the solution." Sure the wild west that is block-chain (this block-chain is not different) is populated and governed by people and there are different levels of greed and selflessness.
I am looking toward being that change I seek and finding the ways that the community can find the constructive souls and lift them up....rather than grab my slice and have some higher power (government?) take care of those who need it.
In essence, get my nose above water, build myself an island and help people duplicate what I have done and the lessons I have learned (most of them not learned yet for certain.) Then, support those islands with the community we will build.
Sure there are schools of bots and people with 100 fake accounts spamming and hoarding and exploiting. I guess I would like to think we will evolve and snuff that out on our journey to where this platform will be.
Then we will most likely have a new host of evolved problems to solve I suppose but the sun comes up every day. It is going to take some critical conversations and strong wills but I am willing to give it a shot. I am just inspired by the like-minded folk I have met and will continue to meet that won't stop working at becoming the solution.
Fantastic post and great food for thought.
well yeah, I agree in the sense that you try to do the right thing (though I'm not going to pretend I never use bots), and try to build your stake in the way that really represents the opportunity that Steem provides us, but the issue is that for 99 people that try do it the right way, there's that 1 guy that can just pump in $100k and use that stake to guarantee themselves a return in the "non-community centric" way.
Also the other thing I don't like is that you could be here for 10 years, build yourself a massive stake organically, but then one day you power down because you need the money, and then your stake is worthless and you start from scratch again. Of course, it's a decision we all have to make every day - keep the stake or cash it in.
Regardless, I'm still here, and I still put time and effort in Steem because I still do think it's worthwhile.
And I'm certainly not one to advocate a centralised authority of any sort - though I do believe the framework needs to act as an authority in itself and it needs to be tightened to the extent that it doesn't promote spam/bots/misuse, whilst at the same time not stymieing progressive and quality content creators. It'll likely be an ever evolving process with forever shifting goal posts.
Yah I read my post again and it came off as preachy rather than positive.
Imagine what it will do to the value of STEEM for the rest of us when we attract that outside FIAT investment. All the minnows stakes will go up as well as the larger folks.
You can't fault people for cashing out on their hard work to buy some lifestyle.....that is why I am here.
I guess the focus should be put now on helping police the abuse, and what you will do with your influence when it is big enough.
I will definitely find and feed the minnows kinda like this @gentlebot comment upvoter who shows up from time to time and rewards good comments. I have no idea where it comes from but I feel inspired when it happens to pay it forward in some way. Just an example.
Your sentiment is reflected in MANY of the conversations I see and participate in. People are getting vocal and we will mobilize ourselves here to find and solve the problems.
I think that all the systems are flawed and what it comes down to is the human will to be part of a community or not. The stake growing is not a problem if it is used to spread toward the flourishing of others as patrons. At this stage, the best case scenario would be very community interested whales looking to widen their patronage.
Incentive to do so is limited by the gluttony of humanity though. It is a problam that goes to the beginning of time I think.
hey @farq. I missed this piece of yours...we've got to wait for the launch of Sapien this 30th. It's an interesting platform and it goes by reputation rather than how much you can invest. About steemit: I think we are still early birds and the time here should pay off someday. But I wouldn't put all eggs in one basket. This should be just one of the platforms. Sapien looks promising and is not just about blogging. It's got a real world social media touch to it according to the developers. It's more like facebook rather than a reddit ....let's wait and see.I haven't bought any tokens yet but Ive heard that you need minimum amount of tokens to participate in the beta version being launched on 30th....
looks interesting - the beta seems to already be live - i've joined the waitlist for it so we'll see how we go.
My eggs aren't all in one basket - Steem isn't my biggest crypto holding - though all of my "time" eggs might be in the steem basket at the moment.
Their telegram group says 30th...let's see. Will surely see an exodus in the short term.
I hope you are buying ETC now? Looks like there's an imminent breakout
i'm not really much of a day trader - i tend to pick my couple of coins and stick to those - more of a hodler.
STEEM, VTC, NEO is where i'm at these days.