Can We Change The UI to Display Rewards in USD?

in #steemit6 years ago (edited)

Can We Change The UI to Display Rewards in USD?


Currently, the UI displays rewards in Steem Backed Dollar (SBD), which is deceptively low as the currency, which is meant to be pegged to the USD, is currently trading at over 7x that amount.

What this means in practice is that all posts that have selected to receive their payout as 50%/50% are getting roughly 5x the amount advertised!

One of the most appealing traits of the Steem blockchain is its ability to convert higher prices quickly into greater value by attracting more users through effectively displaying higher rewards on Steemit. But this doesn't work if the rewards displayed grossly under advertise their real value to the average person who stumbles onto the site thinking it's USD.

Right now, we're basically advertising for job openings at a salary that's only 1/5 of what we're actually going to pay them. Unless these new content creators are also going to help us smuggle heroin across the border, this is stupid.

Simple Solution


Let's just change the front end display to reflect rewards in terms of their USD value rather than SBD.

Now, my guess is some devs are going to point out that this isn't as trivial as it sounds because in order to do that they'll need to rewrite the source code of the blockchain and reboot the internet and build a flux capacitor etc. I do want to stress that this is fairly important in terms of onboarding and really helps the long term value of Steem.

I realize that there are some concerns around SBD and its viability in the future, but in the meantime coming up with a way of clearly displaying a relatively up to date USD value on rewards shouldn't be too difficult. Right now, the displayed reward is deceptive and misleading to our combined detriment!

If we display rewards in terms of USD, it will reflect their higher value and the entire ecosystem will stand to benefit whenever SBD gets pumped and dumped harder than a broken condom.

Tell Everyone About Steem


The bottom line is Steem pays well, and it's very much in everyone's interests to not under represent that by 5 fold. In the meantime, tell everyone about it.

You know those posts on trending? Well they're actually getting $1000-$3000! And those posts on hot? Well they're getting $100-$500! People should know this and spread the word so more will join Steemit.

Hell, you can tell them that every new sign up gets a free hand job from Dan, subject to his consent, for all I give a shit. Now I know that's a little redundant as 'a free hand job from Dan, subject to his consent' is technically implied in every moment of life, so while not insightful, it has the benefit of being true.

Anyway, tell everyone that Steem is better than you think!


If you enjoyed this piece, please Upvote, Resteem and follow me @trafalgar. Also, check out my new account @traf for short one liners and memes. I think good original short content is far more engaging, very difficult to create and should be rewarded accordingly, so please contribute to and support high quality short content on the platform.

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No need to change it. Soon SBD gets back to ~$1. We've seen how a couple months ago SBD was trading at premium and then stabilized after price of Steem is increased and covered the demand for SBD.

The rule is simple. Have some SBD - sell it! The community should keep SBD from rising above $1, protocol keeps it from falling below $1.

Yes No need to change it. but better We Can remove The UI to Display "NO Rewards" at all.. this Money-centric $ Pending Payouts distort the community and the purpose of all posts ....kill the $..

yes, it will be good idea, if we can to hide the rewards

I agree, the important thing is make networking, read good post and share.

You have a point but I would even say they should do it anyway even if the current SBD price wasn't so stratospheric.

And yes, the rule is simple 👍😊

Just look at the chart one more time. Do you notice we're even higher up this time? This volatility is not what the peg was for.

Steem is hard enough to learn and economically shaky enough without an extra pegged asset to consider. When it doesn't even work as intended, it introduces risk to users that were trying to and likely think they are avoiding it.

Get rid of SBD and focus on promoting and making the STEEM currency as good as we can instead. Posts only need to be valued in STEEM and display a conversion into USD or whichever currency the user themselves wants to display it in.

I wish SBD was never invented, but it exists and it is a fact. Removing it now is not an easy task. How would you approach it?

Would you bet on an event that SBD price will not reach $1 during next 3 months?

It could be faced out. How hard or if near impossible this is however, I do not know.

1 First of all we would need to stop giving rewards in SBD.
2 Next step would be to let the price of SBD stand completely on its own.
3 Then, as per our previousy designed automation, the transactions would be dropped or relabeled and transfered onto a new chain if that was considered preferable.

The order and execution could be very important, or else some might become tempted to keep it on chain in hopes that the price will keep rising.

Prior to doing any of the above an announcement would have to be made of course.

No, I have no idea where the SBD price is going. There's a lot of drift upwards, I'm sure, but it can also return to $1 and less very fast.

But the problems discussed here stem from volatility itself. Not that it is currently trading above or below USD.

Steem Dollars is one of the top transacted cryptocurrencies. There are twice as many SBD transfers per day as there are Steem transfers. There are more Steem Dollar transfers than there are total Dash and Monero transactions. Removing something which is proven to be in demand, both in terms of use and exchange buys, would be shooting ourselves in the foot.

https://steemit.com/steem/@demotruk/lifetime-steem-and-sbd-transfers-per-day-graph

I've already read a few of your posts on it, but I still think it ought to be removed. Demand alone is not reason to keep a product.

Think of the Steem economy as a business. The flight to SBD over Steem will tend to hurt the primary factor (the Steem price) in our economic bottom line, more than it helps. Primarily under certain market conditions that is, but enough of the time that harm will be the sum outcome of its influence.

It is of course perfectly reasonable to expect a lot of this harm to be hidden under price speculation and increased interest in both instruments, but it will still be there.

A lot of people have been asking for price predictions and I obviously can't give that. But I can tell you that if it wasn't for the risk of a very drastic counterinflation of the SBD supply or the risk of a sell off expecting it, I'd almost be more tempted to hold SBD than STEEM as things stand right now. Not at all for any sort of stability, but precisely because of the opportunities that the volatility gives to traders. Not for the short term in which it could drop below $1 even, but for the next 1-2 years or so. The upwards drift is very real.

The flight to SBD over Steem will tend to hurt the primary factor (the Steem price) in our economic bottom line, more than it helps.

I don't how you got to this point, which seems to be the basis for removing it. It seems clear to me that the SBD surge is bringing in capital and improving the bottom line.

SBD peg breaking above $1 essentially gives free capital for the network to spend on projects, content etc., while the burden of debt remains at $1 per 1 SBD.

Again, it's a comparison to "what could be". The fact that new money enters the system merely obscures the fact.

If this wasn't an issue and newbies didn't benefit from having a stable token, I guess we could just stop calling it a peg and treat it like any regular cryptocurrency.

The broken peg undermines the utility of Steem Dollars as a stable currency. It doesn't necessarily follow that Steem as a whole is undermined by this.

If we were to remove SBD we would remove one of the top transacted cryptocurrencies period from our system, one which does twice as many transactions as Steem. That's clear empirical usage (and thus utility) being eliminated. The currently broken peg is a double edged sword, it has negative and positive consequences. There's no clear positive consequence of eliminating SBD which couldn't be gained with front end changes instead.

The three blockchain-level options available are fix it, remove it or leave it. For you it seems 'leave it' is the worst option, but I haven't seen that it's doing enough harm to justify that, it is certainly doing good in drawing in capital. For me 'remove it' is plainly the worst option, I see no real upside to that and enormous downside.

If the peg can't be made stronger, yes perhaps we should stop calling it a 'stable' token. It wouldn't be a free floating crypto though even in that case, it's just a weakly pegged cryptocurrency with a stronger minimum value. It is a unique value proposition in the market, although failing the social contract.

I remember reading a post from the great @dantheman - https://steemit.com/steemit/@dantheman/boost-steem-value-by-backing-steem-dollar

a comment he made on the above post caught my attention:

"I think we as a community can move Steem Dollar to a Steem Silver backing when the time comes. I think it would be worthwhile starting a discussion on when the Steem Dollar would switch its peg so that investors and speculators can factor in this added benefit.

It is clear that hyperinflation of the U.S. dollar is something that we should consider and any kind of "protection" that we can offer would probably help boost the value of Steem Dollars relative to bank dollars."

  • dantheman

We for sure need to open a discussion regarding the SBD. Not sure about changing the front end UI to display USD...interesting thought. Great post @trafalgar

I see no reason to change it.

The SBD generally never goes less than 95 cents. But it sometimes go to the moon because of moron speculators who have no idea of what it is for.

The problem is that the dollar is loosing its complete value when the cryptocurrencies are Skyrocking and people are leaving the dollar finally in the next 2 or 3 years.
I found a nice article, where the problem of the dollar is described very shortly but adequate:
https://steemit.com/dollar/@mathsinnature/for-those-who-are-interested-in-the-middle-east-and-the-dollar

Concordo! Tem muitos curiosos..que mal conhecem o SBD!

Actually this is an interesting and reasonable idea of dantheman! I think at the moment the term Steem Dollar has the advantage to win people who are new to the cryptomarket/cryptocurrencies , so it is better not changed.
But we have this (to my mind useless) Savings column, which could be substituted by a Steem Silver (participation). So we interconnect the value of this part of fortune to silver. As a result everybody on the steemit network can decide how he wants to story his Steem (in Steem Power, Steem Dollar or Steem Silver).

I think many people on Steemit anyway have other currencies so the fast tradeable steem dollar gives them enough to survive...

I agree did you see my previous response..

Lol it's nice, and I have been posting about this when it passed $4, $5, and even $7, but after getting paid out for a $15 payout.. I received $12.87 TOTAL as a payout..

Screen Shot 2017-12-07 at 10.35.25 PM.png

Which was 6.433 SBD and 4.445 STEEM POWER..

Screen Shot 2017-12-07 at 10.49.46 PM.png

The confusing part is how we only get "50% STEEM POWER" at 4.44 STEEM, but the other "50% of the payout" that is paid in Steem Dollars is worth approx 28 STEEM?

Screen Shot 2017-12-07 at 10.49.52 PM.png

So yes it would be nice to get 28 STEEM POWER also, but then again I'm thankful I turned 5.387SBD to 28 STEEM!!

However I do fear that this will cause a problem or a spike in STEEM soon.. Since SBD is programmed to equal $1.00 of STEEM..

Screen Shot 2017-12-07 at 10.43.20 PM.png

Sbd is only"programmed" that way on one direction, meaning it will always be able to be exchanged for $1 of steem. But not the other way around.

how could be brother will you tell me that ? its sames to be nice help me follow me follow you tell me

thanks a lot, yes I do think there are problems with fiat in the long term
but in the short term changing it display will help us attract more users as it'll show a much higher payout $
most new users think SBD = USD anyway, so they think the rewards are 20% of what they truly are right now
imagine how much new interest can be generated during times of these pumps if posts like this are showing $1000 instead of $250, much more users will join the platform, and investors like you and I can benefit greatly in the long run

thanks for your input thejohalfiles

I'm also a bit dubious about the three trading mechanisms presented to a new user. When you press "Convert to Steem" you'd assume it'd go at market rate. It actually goes around 1 = 1, meaning you're doing a cut price sale on your conversion.

Click Buy or Sell, and you're presented with Blocktrades. Click Market and you're presented with the currently best but also most baffling trading mechanism.

It's not that hot for the new user, like myself, and nothing really presents itself in terms of education. Only by poking around and asking questions can you get an answer. These answers should really be in tool, flagging visibly.

Anybody who finds steemit, is interested by the blockchain and wants to make high quality posts, should be able to find out what this stuff means...
Of course you have to search it...

My suggestions is to eradicate this saving category to install some kind of valuable metal or just eradicate it...

Does the savings account portion actually do anything? Anytime I've seen anybody with money in it the percentage is always 0..

I really do not know ;)
It's really useless...

Yep, and that’s what I did. But to a new person, there is little indication that there is anything to search for. Nothing in terms of native guidance. I’m thinking for your average mainstream adoption user.

Yeah a short information page would definitely help...

Saya benar-benar sangat menyukai postingan anda, follow me @tjunaidi.

I'd like to suggest that rather than attempting to fix the SBD and its related issues, we remove it and have all our valuable attention focused on making STEEM the best that it can be.

While I do see the value in providing SBD as an "easy in" to the world of cryptocurrency, this value is rapidly diminishing. Not only because of the peg not working properly, but because of how rapidly knowledge of crypto in general is spreading coupled with the fact that new users still have to deal with both currencies + Steem Power.

There is also a at least one potential economic backside to having a pegged currency dependant on STEEM, which could end up with us driving users towards using SBD as their primary means of exchange. This means - under certain market conditions at least - that there is less demand for STEEM than there otherwise would have been.

Fixing all of this would seem to require only one swift change: Stop issuing SBD. Something we could all live without.

Prices could then easily be displayed in STEEM and USD side by side.

I agree with your point that there is no use for a currency to make trading between dollars and Euros easier, because almost everyone exchanges Steem to Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash if he/she is smart IOTA or to the at the moment because of this cryptokiddies-madness blocked/handicapped Ethereum.
So there is no reason to keep so mandy different categories.

But I disagree that it should be the Steem Dollar that should be omitted, because although the value is higher than the dollar many people trust this "term" that it has value because the are used/conditioned to it... This term definitely makes it easier to start steeming...

I even got a new idea while writing this: Instead of real silver, diamonds or platin the Steem(it) society/admins could also collect some Bitcoins and keep it the savings connected to the Bitcoin. So let's eradicate the savings column and make "Save as Bitcoin" -category...
But we almost have to keep the dollar to attract newbies to cryptocurrencies.

I also read many at steemit before I bought some Bitcoins because i wanted to understand this "crypto-trend"...

That's a interesting concept if I understood @dantheman's post correctly. SBD price gets driven up, plow it into Steem and Steem Power as a force-multiplier. This is awesome, such a great time to be on Steemit!

I think that there is always a discussion going on if something after a long time has been the same suddenly takes a different turn. In my opinion, it is always good to keep your eyes open and to see if the ideas that have ever been conceived are still applicable. On the other hand, you do not have to suddenly change a properly functioning system based on a one-time event to the system. Just my 2 cents on this

This isn't really a one time thing though. I predicted something like this would happen, maybe a few days ago or so. We have gone way over the $1 pegg before.

Pretty sure we should just go full force and present the number in Zimbabwe dollars.

haha...... this is not just utopia.io worthy.....this is a special kind of keynesian genius, this is the new Spirit of teemgreed that we all need to deploy immidiately.

But to properly execut this, we need @ned to up the inflation to 1,000,000% so we rain down Steem until we out-mime Dogecoin, and out count all crypto (added together) in the process. When crypto hits 100 Trillion, we'll be 100 Trillion Steem as well.....and 1Billion in Zim-SBD.

:D

@trafalga I appreciate @dj123 his speech,,,

dang it @mohsin01 ..... now you did it, you made me go upvote myself

haha.... I'm such a pushover.

go see my reply to @rolams below if you like the idea of pushing the limits of Steem being used as large national currencies!

Actually, the whole Zimbabwe could run on SBD because it will be much better than what they are currently using. The dollar is crap. Bitcoin is a shitcoin now considering its fees.

Important note: People in Zimbabwe largely don't use their own currency and use dollars instead because of inflation.

Shoot I didn't see this reply until now..... agreed @littleboy, I just wish I did not have to buy bitshitcoin whenI transfer my moolah to buy Steem, also EtherSnailToken takes like half a day to clear, and the stress of endless waiting and wondering if my funds have disappeared into the Ether makes me constipate.

When bittrex or poloneix comes up with a great Cash to Steem solution I will rejoice.

Maybe we need to ask @TeamNigeria and @TeamZimbabwe to come up with an exchange to go from cash to Steem & SBD first neh?

:D

good suggestion ! it will be ok in Nigeria Naira (#) too

heh..... So let me understand the proposal SBD - Zimbabwe dollars, Steem - Nigeria Naira correct, that's an unbeatable combination.

haha!

On a side thought:

Note: Nigeria Annual GDP is about 500 Billion.....to support it they need a multi-Trillion dollar crypto! So would Zimbabwe :D

Actually theoretically this may work.....if Zimbabwe and Nigeria adopted SBD and Steem as their national currency, we'll clean up 2 countries financial ledgers as well and bring Steem within striking distance of the Trillion range...haha.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Nigeria

This was the comment - I was looking for

Are Z dollars worth less than a single IOTA now?

Would you think over my proposal in these comments to remove the SBD entirely. Do you see any economical holes in it? Is there something I did not consider?

I value your opinion and think that this might be something for PAL and MSP to ask its new users about and discuss amongst the more senior users as well.

Yeah, this is an amazing time to be on Steemit.com and be able to post blog, vlog and so on and get 5X the rewards! This is insanely good!!!

The rise of cryptocurrencies, especially the ones relating to the Bitshares platform, Steem, EOS and Hero and the likes are slowly but surely getting the exposure they madly deserve.

Great article, as always, and want to thank you for your usual positive enthusiasm, the platform and everyone here gets to grow and gain from that.

Namaste :)

thanks
I think if we can make it really apparent that you can actually get 5x the amount advertised on the platform with a simple UI fix, many more users will flock to Steem, further increasing its value

I think there was once a chrome extension that shows the usd value of post and votes. I just forget the name, if im not mistaken, it was created by penguinpablo.

I think what should also be considered is the curation system on contents... because there are really newbies out there with bombastic contents and who voted for big whales as their witnesses, use hashtags like original-content, etc and yet they are not curated properly by the chosen witnesses and just get 0.10 SBD from other users.
To change the UI into USD might help..but when witnesses failed to curate great newbie contents then noobs will be reluctant to spend so much time to create posts.

Absolutely. The whole idea of marketing Steemit as a place to create your content is a sales pitch. If you're giving a value proposition in SBD it's okay provided people actually know what that represents, but they don't. Not if they're unfamiliar with the site. It certainly doesn't help that the amounts are represented by a dollar sign. If you're offering someone a value proposition, make your numbers look as good as possible while staying honest. I'm 100% with you.

wow. great information and well explained. superb writing. you giving price of steem and SBD But now values increased and now rate of Sbd is 7.73$ on coincapmarket.

I already tell everyone to don't sell SBD. Because its time to hold SBD and i also said that buy steem and SBD in my cryptonews post. That time rate of SBD was 5.59$.

steem is either decreasing or increasing graph. but value of steem will increase and now value of steem is 1.84 $ on coincapmarket.

LOL. SBD will go back to $1, sooner or later. I am selling every SBD which I am earning.

Only a moron would disagree with you.

This is a bounty

In fact a Nice incentive to buy a cryptokitty :D

Yep , got to get myself a cryptokitty. 🐱

Yeah, I think it will as well. This is a great time to get rid off any spare SBD in our wallets!

you are right about wrong numbers, but here is another question: if post show in sbd then why we receive 50% of it lets say 40 steem power and other amount 50 sbd ( from post of 100$ ) , because as i know in internal market steem now is like 1 sbd =5-7 steem, so we should receive from post 200 steem and 50 sbd this will be right, but somehow steempower is fixed on usd dollar ? any idea why its so?

The way I understand the situation, Steem and SBD are 2 different tokens tradeable in the crypto market..so they have different values. Some months ago when I joined steemit.com 1 SBD is almost equal to 1 Steem so that when you sell your SBD you know how much you will get in the terms of the exchange rate in the platform. Now, the market shows that steem´s value suffered a loss as SBD is up.

nice what you siad but could you help me how can be ? really it's nice dear

ys question is from post rewards we receive not the numbers of internal markets in terms of steem power. We should receive much more.

50% of the value shown is paid out in SBD and 50% in Steem.
For every dollar shown you receive one SBD, the Steem you receive is determined by the blockchain.

An example (curation rewards are not considered here: Your post is upvoted by someone with that much Steem Power, that you would get 1 Steem. 1 Steem is currently worth $1.92, so Steemit shows that your post is worth 1.92$.
After payout you get 50% in Steem, that means 0.5 Steem and 50% in SBD that means 0.96 SBD. It doesn't matter how much SBD is now worth in the markets.

ye before i thought that in your example 1 Steem is currently worth $1.92, i thought they show in SBD worth not in US dollar. And because sbd is always in system 1$ then its 1.92 sbd

1SBD =5 USD to 7 USD. That does not mean it is equal to the same in steem. This is not how it works. These currencies are independent of each other. One is tied to USD whereas the other is not. For one SBD, you would get 3 steem if steem/USD =3

Help ful artical i always use 100%
Upvote earning
Thanks bro its great profitable stretigy

That would be great, but not quite sure how to get more engagemnt to a good contant that one creates :) ?

I am new here pls teach me how to tobe among the top earners too.

My brain could not comprehend the serious business-like nature of your helpful suggestion without any humor, until the relief came when you brought it home with a Dan handjob joke.

It was like sitting down on a nice Sunday with breakfast and a newspaper to read the comics, only to find the local business section in its place, ending with the "massage" ads.

haha
well I guess the wall street journal's reputation has taken a hit if they're mostly covering heroin smuggling and broken condoms these days

Disagree. The point is to go away from fiat.

Wait wait wait, You wanna tell me that if i get rewarded by 10 SBD i can trade it for 50 STEEM ?

I don't understand how can SBD be higher than the US dollar if it's designed to be around the US dollar price.

It's so weird can someone please explain it to me, I have no idea how all this system works.
I really enjoy the platform, But i have basically zero idea how the whole system works.
I know that STEEM is the main token.
STEEM POWER is your influence.
But what is SBD for and why it's higher than the US dollar if it's designed to be at the same price ?

Should i just keep my money in SBD, Rather than STEEM ?

Thank you for your help!
Roma,

yes, right now you get maybe 7 Steem for 1 SBD because SBD is trading at over $14 at the time of writing
so yeah, this blockchain is very generous with its rewards
lets advertise it and grow its user base

Wow that is so good to know!
Basically SBD is more valuable than STEEM at the moment.
But i don't understand how it's so high, i mean i'm not complaining. I just want to understand how all this system works.

Thanks.

It depends on the external markets and not on the internal markets. For example, SBD is traded lower on the internal markets because of less demand or trade volume. On Bittrex and hitbtc for example, it is traded at much higher volumes with more demand and so the price is higher there.

If you convert on the internal market, you will not get this same value for by your SBD.

This is why, although SBD has increased by much, the average value in USD on my account has not really changed.

20171209_083902.png

@trafalgar - this is definitely true and where else to look other than this post itself - while even 314 SBD (at the time I'm writing this) is fantastic reward for a post, when you think that same amount is equal to over $2190 - it's mind boggling! (damn I don't get that much from my fulltime job in a month) :)

Darn, can't think of anywhere else in the world you can get paid this much for a 500 word post ... Writers/Bloggers, are you listening?

Steemit rocks and rolls! :)

it's not quite that high as some of the rewards are in Steem and some are in SBD
but it is at $1500
of course things might change 7 days from now at payout, but it is true that currently this post is at about that value, and that posts made 7 days ago are also enjoying this surge in SBD

We should really try to advertise this more clearly to get more interest onto the platform. Steem is a very lucrative place to be, and it can easily convert higher prices into more users which in turn lead to even higher prices.

@trafalgar, yes, what you said is correct. Neverthless, this is the most lucrative platform ever for somebody who can write and post articles.

What is really confusing is that it shows the $ sign. Which let's you think it's USD

yes, that's definitely an issue
it was the idea in the first place to have a pegged currency so everyone can know roughly how much rewards are worth in USD, but that's been undermined by SBD getting pumped

So I think we should display rewards more clearly as this would certain attract more onboarders

Free hand jobs!

Have you got stickers?

hahahaha I like how that's the one takeaway you got from this piece
I guess I should've known my follower base better

Takeaway handjobs? - this is getting better!

Ah, if only my bus driver were that cheap.

没错,显示成USD无疑会更吸引人,翻了好多倍。

但是这里边有些难题
帖子内部核算是按STEEM算的
假设一篇帖子显示的是100SBD,但是实际上,系统内是 68.823STEEM(当前喂价1.453)

那么按市场价格,约等于138USD,显示成138USD,没比显示成100SBD差多少:)

而到发奖时,为了方便,忽略点赞者分成
那么有两种情况:

一是100% POWER UP:

作者得到68.823STEEM POWER,不过是138USD

另外一种是50%/50%

则作者得到

  • Steem Power: 34.412
  • SBD: 50.000

那么就是 342 + 507 = 418 USD,这倒是比100多了好几倍:)


以上为粗略估算,仅供参考

对,我指的完全是50/50
理想中其实选100或50/50应该最终一样,可惜现在不是
最好是sbd高时你选择100系统自己内部先变成sbd再转换成steem给你
当然这以后再说吧
现在把高奖励用usd显示出来应该会对整体来说很有利

It's amazing how many people that have been here for a while that aren't aware of the pricing of SBD. It's the first time I've seen anyone posting these facts so kudos to you Traf.
Funnily enough I convinced two of my friends to invest heavily in Steem just a few days ago so they are very happy right now. I might try the 'hand job from Dan' approach with others and see what result I get. 😂😂 hopefully not too many!!!

haha hopefully for dan's sake :)
but yeah we actually have very generous rewards here, over 5x the advertised rate when SBD is as high as it is now
there's no reason why that shouldn't be displayed as it'll go a long way to attracting more users

Not really a good idea. It's likely that the SBD will trend back to $1, and soon.

If we displayed a post worth, for example, instead of $10 (5steem@$1 + 5 SBD) as $55 (5steem@$1 + 5SBD@$10), the poster would believe that their post is worth the full $55. If SBD fell back in line to $1 the next day, their post would change to $10.

This would exacerbate the negative effect that many people have when their post loses value, like they do now when they get downvoted. People have this (wrong) assumption that the $ sign on their post is what they are going to get. They "price it in" so to speak. They believe they've already earned and deserved it. People would think they are losing their money and would not know why, when SBD goes back to what it is worth. So, I say, let them discover the "bonus" rather than expect it.

Of course, this leads into two other discussions:

  1. Should we even display post $ at all until it's payed out, to avoid the negative feelings that occur when the $ goes down (e.g. due to downvotes, or falling price of steem), and,
  2. Should we include conversion from STEEM -> SBD to enable market makers to convert and sell SBD to keep the peg (but also opening a can of worms on unbounded SBD creation).

Neither of which I have answers to, but both are worth thinking about.

true, but it doesn't change the fact that it currently would be worth $55
or that posts that were made 7 days ago nearing payout showing $10 are worth $55

The display should be accurate to the moment with no promise about the future

Your second point about downvotes is true but quite niche. It would happen if Steem price is high anyway. Basically the increased SBD price is just as real as an increase in Steem price enjoyed by the system and it should reflect that.

I feel that overall, under displaying rewards is just a missed opportunity to attract more users onto the platform. Regardless of how likely it is that SBD will normalize, the fact that rewards are currently 5x more than the displayed amount is very real.

I don't think it's niche at all. Its a daily occurrence as someone who's constantly involved in steemitabuse; I've seen this "deserve" mentality constantly. I think you might be discounting people being attracted only to the $$$ and then leaving because they didn't get what they were "promised" by the system, if the reward changes.

It would happen if Steem price is high anyway.

This is actually not exactly true: the increase in steem price does not immediately affect the price of all posts. It has something akin to an averaging function of the price of steem over the past week or so. So if there was a spike to 10x the value of steem, we wouldn't see posts go to 10x right away. They would slowly increase over time to reflect the change. (Though, maybe we could do the same with value of SBD, and have witnesses report SBD/USD.)

This sign is really a problem I did no get at first, but a friend of mine wrote an interesting article about another solution:
https://steemit.com/steem/@mathsinnature/rethinking-the-steemit-monetary-system-wallet

there's an easy solution to make the SBD/USD peg more accurate.
The "reverse converse" proposal by @timcliff :
https://steemit.com/sbd/@timcliff/saving-sbd-proposal-to-restore-the-usd1-usd-usd1-sbd-peg
The original Steem White Paper warned against it, but Steem has changed since then and "reverse converse" is not exploitable anymore as @smooth explained:

"in the system as it exists today, if someone were to convert STEEM into SBD and produce a large amount of SBD, it would no longer be fully convertable into STEEM, either immediately or after a price drop. The whales in the above-described situation would end up with 50% less STEEM than they started with, obviously not a very attractive 'exploit''

Don't worry my friends, in time steem will be worth well above 100$ anyways. Let's be patient and enjoy the ride!

Strangely it is more realistic that SBD reaches this ;)

a friend of mine wrote an interesting article about this:
https://steemit.com/steem/@mathsinnature/rethinking-the-steemit-monetary-system-wallet

Makes sense since Steem Dollars is not 1$ ahaha
i share the same opinion

yes, if we can display a higher and more honest value, everyone benefits

current system is better in my opinion.
I need more time to collect SBD. LOL

Lol it's nice, and I have been posting about this when it passed $4, $5, and even $7, but after getting paid out for a $15 payout.. I received $12.87 TOTAL as a payout..

Screen Shot 2017-12-07 at 10.35.25 PM.png

Which was 6.433 SBD and 4.445 STEEM POWER..

Screen Shot 2017-12-07 at 10.49.46 PM.png

The confusing part is how we only get "50% STEEM POWER" at 4.44 STEEM, but the other "50% of the payout" that is paid in Steem Dollars is worth approx 28 STEEM?

Screen Shot 2017-12-07 at 10.49.52 PM.png

So yes it would be nice to get 28 STEEM POWER also, but then again I'm thankful I turned 5.387SBD to 28 STEEM!!

However I do fear that this will cause a problem or a spike in STEEM soon.. Since SBD is programmed to equal $1.00 of STEEM..

Screen Shot 2017-12-07 at 10.43.20 PM.png

That is exactly the problem ...in steemit's internal market 1SBD is worth 3.30 SP if you convert... it was like a free fall yesterday with value of Steem minus 40%. Look at the internal price now..it's 0.15 if you sell you steem in the internal market.

lol slowwalker, so greedy!
but honestly all that Steem will be worth a lot more if newcomers saw that posts are actually worth 5x the advertised amount here in USD
they're be much more inclined to join
more users = higher steem price

Yes I agree I was about to do a post about the effects this could have, but I am glad it is being brought to everyone's attention.. How can we inform the new buyers/new exchange that Steem Dollars are like Tether (USDT) and will always be valued at $1 of STEEM..

yes, I think it can just be a rough conversion done on the front end
it can even display your native currency and update daily or hourly etc

basically right now our rewards are high and we should advertise this so more people are inclined to join to take part here

more users = higher steem price in the long term

I agree. Why limit to US $ when we could make the option to select the currency that you use (assuming the number can be pulled from an exchange).

It would be better if it actually used the current value of SBD though, rather than what I can only assume is the expected pegged value of it. So if you're claiming 50/50, half of that is non-moving and assumed to be worth US$1, while the other half (representing the SP portion) is varying with the Steem price. If both halves varied with the actual price of SBD (even if it was the internal market's price) that would be an improvement.

the value will increase over time

The interface is very important. A good interface will bring many users that will use it.

Great idea. Nice to see SBD rising.

Great article, it has insight as well as humor... I have only been here a little over a week, so I have to take your words on faith and knock on wood... But this is all very exciting, appealing to me because I knew nothing about crypto, I was mostly loving a place that would pay me to do what I was doing on fascistbook and instagrope... So I dove in, even though I have really just gotten my toes wet...

Here's to the fun, weird future!
IMG_2406.JPG

oh it's very easy to confirm, just go to bittrex and check at how much SBD is trading it, and that's meant to be pegged to the USD

you can also check in the internal market under wallet, just go to steem dollar and select market to have a look

basically if you choose 50/50 post rewards lately, esp if you did 7 days ago, you're getting over 5x the advertised payout if you convert your SBD to Steem or anything else

That's basically what I've been telling people as well since this whole thing started, make sure to set your posts to 50/50 to take advantage of the huge boost. Kind of crazy that right now 20 SBD is worth 120 STEEM on the internal market!

Also, dunno if you noticed yet, but it also seems that you can now select 50/50 comment payouts on STEEMIT as well!

Oh, I also meant to suggest maybe a toggle that we could switch on each profile settings, whether we want to see posts in USD or SBD?

This is a great proposal, @trafalgar! We need to show that it's possible to make a decent amount of money here to new visitors, so that they will hopefully register and make a few posts.

yes, right now it's actually like over 5x the advertised amount, so we should really let people know

It is hard to show the USD value because it varies between markets. For example, right now the markets show SBD ranging from $4 to nearly $13.

I think something that's quite rough is fine, even a trailing average indicator
basically right now it's displaying the rewards as if SBD = $1, which is bad for onboarding, because the higher SBD should really be reflected as part of the value in the entire ecosystem, just like higher Steem value
If people say that posts are actually worth 5x the advertise amount right now, they're far more likely to onboard, and more users = higher actual value

I do concede there are technical difficulties that I brushed over and I don't understand the dev side, but the pros are potentially very high here so it's worth considering

If you're pulling data from the Coinmarketcap API, I think people would be confused if they keep hitting refresh and see prices go down or up with no apparent change or additional interaction with users. People might also get super disappointed if they expect a large payout and then a week later SBD crashes and they get a fraction of what they were expecting in USD.

Another (albeit trivial) issue - how do you handle which currency to show? Not everyone here is American.

I agree that we can use a rough number. Maybe a weighted average of known exchanges that updates daily. That would give the user a more accurate idea of the value of their wallet while not having it fluctuate too much.

yes, this would be exactly my view

The bittrex price is closest to a real price. Only bittrex and poloniex have significant volume, and the poloniex price can't be trusted because their wallet is broken. You can't buy SBD there and then withdraw them, only trade on the platform as a sort of undated IOU. How long their wallet will be broken nobody really knows but in the past it has been down for a long time, i.e. months.

Yes, thanks for clearing up the details

My guess is the bittrex price is even higher than the coinmarketcap average

Regardless, I think it's a missed opportunity to not accurately advertise our very generous rewards (over 5x what most would assume at a glance) given that that's probably our biggest attraction

I thought it did this anyway, but I may be wrong. Maybe they just didn't expect SBD to get this high

they certainly didn't, but it does happen from time to time
either way, the increased rewards are very real and part of the value that the platform generates, and they're 5x the amount advertised
imagine the uptick in new users if our ui clearly reflected this!

Sod the money, did someone say handjobs!!

handjobs are the currency of choice in my part of town ;)

haha you must provide an exceptional service for hj to reach currency status in your town

you should franchise this skill to Qld, we're still trading(fake) kangaroo and alligator skins at survivor shops, so primitive :P

TY for the laughs trafalgar!

Now, my guess is some devs are going to point out that this isn't as trivial as it sounds because in order to do that they'll need to rewrite the source code of the blockchain and reboot the internet and build a flux capacitor etc.

^^This :-D

It is confusing, perhaps an easier code change would be to come up with an SBD logo rather than using the $ sign. Although maybe that doesn't achieve the goals you set out above, but still, people are catching onto this crypto lark so when they see it, they may ask; ooh I wonder how much that one is worth?

Anyways, once the madness stops SBD will go back down to a dollar and it won't matter anymore (I think).

Cg

yes, but I think it's a missed opportunity if most people who aren't familiar with the system think it's only payout about 20% of what it's actually paying

and arguably our rewards are our biggest attraction, so we should really try to advertise the full extent of it when possible

irrespective of whether it's steem or sbd that gets an increase in value, it's surely very real value produced by the steem ecosystem, which in term will attract more users if it's correctly displayed

If as a promotional engine, we could do that for those not currently logged in to the Steemit interface but I think that can also backfire and could lead to people calling Steem a scam if it they visit again in 5 days and then it has crashed.

Remember that not everyone is crypto-knowledgeable.

while this is possible if SBD prices normalize (it usually takes quite a while), it's certainly also true that currently your posts are worth 5x more than the advertised amount

It is also true, and very real, that posts made 7 days ago are getting 5x the advertised amount at payout right now. And you can't ever do that justice without at least risking over advertising the amount you'll get in the future.

Current price is still the most accurate indicator of actual price. Yes when it's high if you start writing now you'll likely get less in 7 days, but when it's low, there's a chance your posts will be much higher in 7 days. On balance, displaying the value in USD is still the most honest and beneficial way.

Right now we're missing an opportunity to attract more people onto the platform as overall the payouts are actually 5x what they currently have shown.

Thanks for the awesome info! I just got approved a few minutes ago after applying last night and this community and concept seems incredible already, even more so now! Being a Web Developer myself, I can definitely see your point on displaying in USD and definitely agree. Speaking in terms of getting more people to join Steemit, with the amount of buzzwords and different coins popping up left and right everyday, the general public en masse want to feel like they aren't wasting their time in another crappy cryptocoin they keep hearing about on the news. Displaying in USD I would argue immediately makes people feel safer and secure rather than dealing in a new currency they barely know.

Steem has the highest transaction activity out of all blockchains
http://blocktivity.info/

because it's a little different, traditional crypto investors aren't all over it like they should be
but ultimately, utility and adoption will define its value, and there, Steem just wins

Or to have it show in local currency. I'd love to not have to convert what the screen says into A$.

I also wasn't sure exactly what the $ was in that the posts show, and thought it was US$ but when the prices went up it became pretty obvious that assumption of mine was wrong.

yes, local currency option would be great too
just anything but SBD as it severely under reflects the true value of the rewards, which makes the platform seem a lot less attractive than it really is

Oh wow! I didnt know that the rewards are actually 5 times higher! Yes i agree, the UI should be adjusted to reflect this. Very good suggestion! Thanks for filling us all in =)

this happens when SBD gets pumped, which happens now and then, usually followed by a rise in Steem price

showing a higher $ in the UI will attract more users, which means more value and higher Steem price in the long run

I think is better as it is right now, if not people will start to reduce the voting amount when seeing the big numbers. 😅

haha it shouldn't be misleading
we should proudly display the high rewards offered by the platform which will attract more users to take part and in turn bring more value

Right now is rise again $14 :)

Yes, Steem is better than everyone thinks!

Just display in both SBD & USD

What I'm going to say may be ironic (because steem dollars are "pegged to US Dollar" but we gotta be forward thinking. Forward thinking that in the future less and less people will be cashing out of cryptocurrency as they become legitimate forms of tender. So just like apple got rid of the 3.5mm jack early, we can start calculating in only crypto terms a little early I think ;) progress!

Great post

@trafalgar That is exactly what I was thinking a few days ago. Why aren't the rewards properly displayed to represent their true value in USD? It would go a long way in marketing this platform to professional content creators and writers.
About the peg for SBD, I definitely think that it should be set to something other than the USD. Possibly the reference price could be an ounce of silver or gold ;) lol. But it would never really be a "peg", just a reference price that is maintained through some sort of consensus among the user base.

From what I understood 1 SBD was suppose to be worth $1 of steem is that correct?

The problem is that each exchange has different SBD price:
https://www.livecoinwatch.com/price/SteemDollars-SBD
And poloniex does not account deposits and withdrawals, heard about problems with Bittrex too so we're having some nasty market manipulation now :/

@suggestion @funny cok guzel bir paylasim olmus. Gecen gun @bahadirk ile ayni seyi konustuk . @steemit de boyle seylerin olmasi cok guzel. Bu da sizin kalitenizi vikartiyor ortaya. @ebruaydogdu ya da tavsiye edecegim.
Tekrar tesekkuurler
Basarilarinizin devamini dilerim

I'd like to see both USD and steem/sbd

Would be cool for someone to build an open source chrome extension that does this. There’s certainly his functionality in exchange extensions right? Guessing it wouldn’t be all that tricky for just one (two, three?) currencies?

steemdollar.com is super helpful.

Dear Sir I think the whole Steemit community agrees with you and it's a revolutionary idea also as it will change the whole idea of viewing our rewards pattern so it will be great step on the growth of Steemit community.

Thank you

You know something? i didn't even realized that until i read your post. So my $0.6 cents votes are actually worth more?

yes, if they're opting for 50/50 payout, maybe over 5x more

I still wish there was a super easy way to transfer right into and out of fiat. That would help open steem up to the average Joe. I know it's a big hurdle. but if people could transfer right from their bank account and back on steemit.com the price and user base would soar.

Just keep it as it is. It may fluctuate anyway.

while many people are happy with $7 for SBD I'm worried.

Why? Because it is not good for the community, it shows many intern problems because it was created to be pegged to usd. If sbd would be pegged correctly we colud attract more people to join, think about that (and finally leave the usdt).

@brandyb and I were having this discussion last night. With the price of SBD being above $10USD, it's very deceptive what your @steemit account is really worth in fiat value... which is important to know if we are paying mortgages and car payments with our fiat earnings.

It would be more helpful if we were seeing a daily exchange ratio on our wallets. Steem or dollars, doesn't matter, just show us their value for the day (currently at X5 for example)

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