Where does the initial steem power for new Steemit users come from?
The white paper specifies how the newly generated steem is allocated amongst holders of steem power (~90%) and content producers/curators/service providers (~10%), but as far as I can tell it doesn't indicate where the steem power that's allocated to new users during signup comes from. It says that new users will start with 10x the minimum required balance to transact weekly. I assume this is also funded via the inflation, but it doesn't seem to be captured by a documented curation award or steem power interest payment. In fact it goes so far as to say "Any initial account balance would have to come from the user creating the account and not from token creation due to the potential for sybil attacks."
Any insight into where this is generated from, and how an attack is prevented in which new user accounts essentially power down their Steem over two years without ever contributing any value?
Whenever an account is created, the creator pays the signup fee. If you register through the steemit website, the fee is paid by Steemit, Inc.
Thank you. This makes sense. I assume Steemit Inc is using Facebook/Reddit auth as a defense against countless spam attacks, and they're just weighing the presumed value a new user will add to the network vs the investment in paying for the new user.
Thanks for good question. I was confused with the same issue. It seems that account creators(like Steemit, Inc) are investing on new users for the long term growth of steemit. I have few more follow-up questions:
Why do they keep talking about minimum balance required to 'transact' weekly? Transaction fee on steemit is totally free. I don't understand why.
also in the white paper it says the fee is gonna be around $1, but for me i got 14.522 STEEM delegated, which is too much. and it says that delegation amount fluctuates in accordance with market situation
in the white paper, it says user may remove the delegation at any time(page 23). Here, the user refers to Steem, Inc?!
Is Steemit, Inc sacrificing their interest(via SP) when creating new accounts? (if so, I feel so thankful)
Thanks for reading, God Bless you.