Travel log - African Nights
## Jo-burg, night 1
After a quick 15 hour flight to Johannesburg, I seem to have arrived in a Steem haven. I have met some amazing people here tonight, most of whom I am finally putting a face to a Steem account name. Here are a some pictures of us at Chiefs Boma for dinner and the Indaba hotel:
imgsafe really letting me down with those upside down photos!
Use SteemImg - our very own @blueorgy created it and it even gives you markdown formatted links.
Can someone get this man a tutorial on how to post images into Steemit?
My neck hurts badly :-)
Had to laugh at this, because my Trezor unboxing post had the same thing. Trezor still tweeted it, though. ;)
Wow you went to South Africa. We'd better have a STEEM up in Australia so you can visit here as well. You can eat kangaroo , crocodile and Emu but the only Koala you can eat is a caramello 🐨
Yeah, hoping we could have the next Steem Saturday in Melbourne, Australia. I've already suggested that to @jacor. Hoping ned will be able to come.
Anywhere in Australia would be Cool but Sydney might be a bit more central...of course the Sunshine Coast would be even better...lol
Looks like fun. Please talk about how to raise the price of steem.
1/ Build a great social network with sticky features that stands on its own
2/ Possibly write a software upgrade that would allow the SP inflation rates to be adjustable by witnesses so that they can be adjusted down. (Essentially make the environment attractive for short term speculators.)
3/ Get people outside of Steemit selling Steem/SP to investors & market makers
I am focused on 1/ and 2/. Unfortunately I am traveling and on speaking circuit, which is taking my time from responding to questions on the forum. I will elaborate on the outlook for Steemit's roadmap and my thoughts on Steem this coming week once I am back from Africa and before going to Amsterdam
yeah inflation is a beast in the current mode where the top 100 accounts have 85% of the steem. The simple inflation on your account is more than I could earn in a year of posting...
Agree the whales hold the masses of steempower but I always figured it was like that until the whales all came to the same realization as the minnows did. Technology has obviously pushed us all towards the same objectives on different routes. Interestingly enough we all agree that steemit is the end-game platform but the need for knowledge must grow. In efforts of every human being I still believe a life4alife will link us all back together, synching our frequencies to those of interstellar light.!
OR
Code the Universe
I think you're focusing on the wrong thing, it's more long term investors that we need. If enough people are buying Steem to power up, then the market makers will provide liquidity as a profit making service. Particularly we need lots of smaller investors as this also solves the 'distribution of power' problem. In other words the goal should be to make holding Steem Power more attractive without reducing the long term commitment. Especially more attractive to buy/own in small amounts, which is borderline pointless at the moment. This can be done by taking a different perspective on Steem Power.
I like where this is going!
Check this link for further explanation on how it could work.
https://steemit.com/steemit/@beanz/increasing-demand-for-steem-power-with-status
I have been suggesting something along these lines. Though I am not sure that a mandated value (voted on by witnesses) is the best approach. I have proposed throttling the conversion rate that results in SP inflation/interest based on the percentage of steem in the vesting fund.
Right now, the overall money supply is increasing far too rapidly. This is due to too much of the money supply held in a form earning the highest possible interest. If we can throttle that interest and promote a more stable relationship between SP and liquid Steem, we can achieve the goal of SP balances which are immune to the dilation effects of an inflationary monetary policy. As of now, the money supply is growing at a rate which can't be compensated for by SP interest (which is ostensibly a buffer against inflation/dilution).
Your statement implies that the interest rate should be adjusted down. And that is clearly necessary. But I don't think it should be up to a vote, based on the preferences of witnesses. For better or worse, witness behavior is the result of political considerations, and pressure can be placed on witnesses by SP holders. Monetary policy should be insulated to some extent from political manipulation. I'd prefer to see the vest to steem conversion rate respond to the market and user habits in such a way as to enforce a determinate rate of inflation.
In the short term, this means that a lot of the Steem that is held in SP balances needs to be liquidated. That might result in some overselling, which is unfortunate. But it is an important step towards stability.
I heard you speak about the need to have outside money coming in in your talk from Vegas. I was very excited. I think this is key. Changing the inflation rate i dont think is going to be the solution. The market will adjust to the real price eventually. What we need to focus on is creating value and creating reasons for people to invest.
I think bounties on post can be a solution to this. Please check it out:
https://steemit.com/bounty/@knircky/wanted-how-to-bring-value-into-the-steemit-ecosystem-usd200-sbd-bounty
To make my point in a simpler way, can you answer a basic question about Steem Power?
Why should a regular user buy $10 worth? $100 worth? $1000 worth? None of those will make your vote capable of either worthwhile curation or supporting content creators. Yet Steem NEEDS power distributed like that.
It is indeed possible to make holding such small amounts attractive to users beyond pure speculation.
This is very great that you are supporting people in africa to participate in Steemit - Steem on!
The Price of Steem is already UP quite a bit in the last 2 hours, from today's big announcements of new User Interface improvements and new infrastructure. https://bittrex.com/Market/Index?MarketName=BTC-STEEM
It was closer to $1=1SD when I got here.
A lot has happened, in price movement and in features added, since I got here. But check the price of steem in the last few hours; who knows what will happen in another hour or week or year, but it sure looks nice this afternoon!
Great post my friend @ned makes a bit of my distraction, not everything can be job.Thank to interact with members of the community, that speaks well of the quality of person you simplicity's Congratulations
Wow, I think your translator has been drinking :)
upside down photos tells me that can we flip the picture. All are waiting to see that we grow up in price. One thing we all have to be patient and hold to what we have and try to get more. Hope to see you @ned that you can give us your feed back to your visit to Africa.
one would think so :) it's a bug!
It seems that you were enjoying the moments :-) cheers
I'm turning my neck to see the pictures, but it's OK.
Looks like fun! Thanks for the updates today, the natives were getting restless :)
Would adjusting the inflation rate by itself be enough to halt the current downward spiral we presently find ourselves in regarding the price of steem?
There are two types of speculators - long run and short run. Currently Steem only supports long run speculators while most cryptos are driven by short-to-medium run speculators and market makers. Lowering the inflation allows these critical ecosystem participants to get involved in a meaningful way.
On another hand, shortening the SP hold period would hasten the rate at which the price finds legs. This could be parameterized to if the witnesses/community accepts it. I will relay my thoughts this coming week.
Shortening the SP hold period is a dangerous proposition. There has been an inordinate amount of attention given to the debt load that SDB represents, in my opinion... And little regard for the debt load the SP represents.
Concerns about the debt load represented by SBD are driven by the impact of additional liquid Steem that would be sold on the market if all SBD were converted in short order. The overwhelming demand would drive the price down dangerously fast. Yet in practice, more liquid Steem is produced and sold on the market as a result of SP balances powering down than SBD conversion...
Shortening the SP hold period will drastically increase the amount of Steem put on the market, an drive the price down to dangerous lows. I think we can find better ways to achieve stability.
The focus should be on increasing incentives to hold SP. Once we take this route of lowering the amount of time to power down, there will be no going back! A better solution is to look at the 10s of thousands of current account and how to incentivise THEM to hold or buy SP.
I disagree... I think SP levels are too high. The focus should be on achieving stability.
Can you explain why you think that? What is the issue with SP levels being high?
These are good points but I think that it is possible to explain it in more accessible way to ordinary user so it doesn't resemble market prediction astrology :-)
That sounds to me like panic talking... Like when somebody sells all their bitcoin when the price drops...
We don't want short term speculators! We want long term investors. And that could come from the 10s of thousands of users you have already on the website if you were to introduce more incentives to buy steem.
With the new features coming I think you and Dan should seriously talk about the use of PERKS to incentivise without forcing users to buy.
https://steemit.com/steemit/@beanz/increasing-demand-for-steem-power-with-status
Short term speculators = quick buck = baling out with SP power down
Long term speculators = believing in the future of invention = holding up SP regardless of SP and SBD price decrease
Looks like a great meetup with the folks in JHB, all the best @ned!
Looks like fun! I'd love to taste warthog meat :)