I'd add one more important feature which makes Steem stand out: Steem dollars.
If you aim to launch digital cash for mass adoption (as Dash claims), doing so with a volatile currency looks quite absurd to me. Of course, you can always convert to fiat on both ends - but then how is it better than PayPal, if you always need to rely on some third-party company doing the conversion and volatility hedging? (Yeah, you can do it yourself but then forget about mass adoption.)
Besides, constant fiat conversion & hedging costs money - who is going to pay for this? The end-user?
For me Dash without a pegged sub-token (and without any plans for one), is no better than PayPal. And it will probably end up being more expensive than PayPal, if we consider all costs involved.
Right now I can use SBD as a payment option, no matter what my views are about future Steem price. With pure cryptocurrency like Dash, to use it I'm required to be a Dash believer (or pay hefty fees) - and that's a big requirement.
And here we have another paradox: if I were a Dash believer, would I want to exchange my precious Dash for a pizza? Even if my beliefs are right, one day I'm going to feel stupid about this pizza. Bottom line, confusing an investment token with everyday payment token is a bad idea.
The steem dollar is only an evaluation of the legacy based fiat. It's only as stable as the world it is attached to. If and when Steem goes main stream then of what use will that be? Souvenirs?
That's the fallacy most of the crypto-enthusiasts make: that the outside world is going to jump straight in and use their currency. It's not going to happen.
Steem (or BTC or ETH) is not a currency, it's a speculative asset. You keep it in your wallet not because you want to spend it but because you believe its value is going to rise (which means you don't want to spend it).
So we have this concept of "currency" which people either don't want to hold (because it's volatile) or don't want to spend (because it's going to appreciate - otherwise why would they hold it?). A perfect illusion.
You are half right in theory and almost right in practice. Why? Because many coins are built on two theories. One is consensus as measured and manifested in the network. This is the side most people see and think of when they think of crypto coins. In this world the only thing that matters is opinion/belief. Fiat also runs on a sort of contract/algorithm as Ayn Rand showed in Atlas Shrugged. But most of it is only implicit and is not directly tied to any commodity like gold. The world would see thing more clearly if we still used gold coins. But anyway the other side of crypto is that the contract represents the free will of the individual. Every crypto has a list of standards that is like a bill of rights that it has to confirm to. These are encoded in an increasingly large body of code, when the code reaches a certain level of sophistication then believe me. Fiat will go straight out the window.
Ug...i love the steem dollar so much. Just like i love market pegged assets...just too sexy.
The way you get mom and dad using it is to have cryotographically secured currencies that LOOK and ACT like the currencies the masses are used to.
Good points, usage is another barrier for crypto currencies and I think with Steem we have higher chances to achieve that...
I agree totally ...