Firstly a word on “the experiment”

Whale Free Zone

Like many I’ve noticed that there is an experiment to give the ‘dolphins’ and the ‘minnows’ more influence on how rewards are allocated. This initiative attempts to neutralise "Whale" accounts by self-abstaining and downvoting other Whales that vote.

Whilst I understand the sentiment I cannot help feel that we’re slipping down the rabbit hole of insanity. What might make sense to the ardent “Steemian” will seem like madness to the newcomer trying to understand how this platform works. "So today we have people downvoting to counter-act the upvoting of people that have too much influence which some feel they should not be exercising, this is temporary action for an indeterminate period, introduced randomly yesterday with no prior notice...."

You almost need a PHD in “Steemism” to follow what is happening on this platform!

Elementary my dear Watson

I think the effects of “no whale voting”, is self-evident. Smaller accounts will have more influence, will reward larger amounts and the rewards will be more evenly (as there are more smaller accounts that vote on more stuff). It isn’t rocket science.

What is alarming is the disregard for the feelings of regular users. As I stated elsewhere "most authors won't get the memo nor care [about the rationale], they'll just see the downvotes and the zapping of rewards that could have been." Way to kill morale for the sake of an experiment.

Passive investors

I invest, I don’t work!

As much as I love the existing userbase, I’ve had my fill of navel gazing recently. I want to spend a bit of time contemplating ways STEEM can on-board new investors.

The world is awash with passive investors. Most investors simply want their money to work for them. They want to get in on a good thing early and see returns on their investments two to five years down the road. Hopefully their passive investment will make them a mint in that time. The last thing most investors want to do is to spend every waking moment micro-managing an investment.

Nightmare on STEEM Street

STEEM is currently a passive investors worse nightmare. The larger the passive investor the worse the nightmare it seems. For investors need to curate in order to maximise their profit. And heaven forbid a large “passive” investor fall in love with the platform. They could very easily find themselves center of a shitstorm should they exercise their SP in the wrong way!

"Investing in STEEM" too little like “investing” and too much like “hard work”.

There is light in the tunnel

A fantastic change coming up in the next hard for (HF17) is the ability to delegate STEEM power. This will be a godsend for the passive investor. They will only need to find a Guild or someone to delegate their SP to, and reap the rewards. This is the level of involvement an investor can get used. Decision on how to maximise their gains (by choosing the best performing Guild) is much more up an investors alley.

Forking make real change!

I believe that STEEM can go one better in making an even more compelling case for investors. And that is to go forward with the concept of “investor class” accounts, along the lines of what @timcliff in his post last month:

• All accounts with more than 250 MV of SP would be "investor class" accounts.
• All accounts with 250 MV or less would be "regular users".
• Users with "investor class" accounts would only use a maximum of 250 MV worth of their voting power.

While most will see this measure as a means of appeasing the discontent of the “regular user. I see this as also a means of helping ‘sell’ the platform to new investors.

STEEM is scarce, no really it is

In December STEEM went from hyper-inflationary to super scarce overnight. However I don’t think the rest of the crypto world cotton on to that fact. Within the STEEM bubble it’s easy to think that everyone understands the implications of HF16. However most people hear the FUD, see the charts, think the charts reinforce the FUD and just steer clear of STEEM. I wonder how many people actually know that the inflation of STEEM is restricted to just 9.5% pa and decreasing?

What I like about the investor class account concept is it allows us to tell the story of the scarcity of STEEM more easily to potential investors.

Storytime

Let us say 250MV equates to roughly 100K STEEM. With less than 250m STEEM there will likely be under 2500 “investor accounts”. With so many STEEM locked up (e.g in the @steemit account) it likely to be a maximum of around 1000.

With STEEM at around $0.08, it will currently cost $8,000 to become an investor class account holder. Should STEEM slip to $0.01 that would likely cost under a bitcoin for a STEEM investor account.

All of a sudden new small to medium sized investors looking to diversify their crypto portfolio have a target amount of STEEM to shoot for. Rather than this nebulas "the more SP the better." approach.

100K SP. 100K SP will make your account an investor class account. This will give you the maximum voting power and other benefits.

100K SP and an “investor class” account for a STEEM investor can be the equivalent of having 1000 Dash and a masternode for a Dash enthusiast.

The fact that others may hold millions of SP is less important when everyone over 100k SP has the same voting power.

So… what are the other benefits

The question then becomes what should be the “other benefits” of an investor account?

@timcliff suggests

• In exchange for not voting with the SP beyond 250 MV, all SP above 250 MV would earn additional interest.
• The additional interest would be paid by eliminating curation rewards.
• The "investor class" users would also be given a "moderator" ability, which would allow them to use their SP beyond 250 MV for downvoting abusive posts or canceling out the downvotes made by other moderators.

This is where I disagree.

All accounts should get curation rewards

Firstly all accounts should be entitled to curation rewards. I’ve stated the case elsewhere, however I strongly believe that curation rewards are one of STEEM’s USPs.

Only investor accounts should get SP interest

Secondly, I believe the interest payments on holding SP (15% of 9.5%) should be reserved for SP over 250MV on an account. This would be fair to existing large investors. It would also incentivise others not just become investor class account but to store more SP in their investor account. Thus locking up even more STEEM.

Take from rewards if needs be

I’m not sure whether an exclusive share of the existing SP interest will be enticing enough. If it isn’t I’d also consider reducing the author/ curation reward for 75% to 50% in order to fund additional interest for SP over 250MV.

To my mind, there is no point in authors/ curators getting 75% of the pie, if the pie is constantly depleting because no investor is willing to get involved and buy STEEM.

Fork unwritten rules

To summarise, I’d suggest

• In exchange for not voting with the SP beyond 250 MV, all SP above 250 MV would earn interest. SP below 250MV on any account will not earn interest.
• All account earn curation rewards. With the ability for people to earn ‘passive’ rewards by delegating SP to guilds

NB: The issue of moderation, I think is a separate debate, I personally favour some kind of Flag Review Council, however I don’t think that debate should be conflated with this one.

In conclusion, rather than introducing ‘unwritten rules’ about how and when Whales should vote, we should fork changes where there is consensus. If we’re going to have an experiment, let’s have a real experiment. Let’s fork a change that will not only give more influence to minnows and dophins but will also give a compelling story to introduce new investors into the platform.

Please note I'm no expert in economics, human psychology nor game theory... I'm just another inmate in the asylum (otherwise know as Steemit), staring at that fly and wondering whether it will come down off that wall and play