As part of the Review the World Community, I want to write web reviews of all sites related to HIVE.
For today's review I wanted to look at Blurt.
Blurt is an independent copy of a the SteemIt blockchain that appeared on the scene a year ago. The site gave airdrops to most STEEM accounts. So, if you had a SteemIt account last June; you probably have a blurt.
I love the name "blurt." The site has much better branding than HIVE.
I suspect that their airdrop was a bit too generous. Many of the large accounts from Steem simply dumped the coins they received in the airdrop. The generous airdrop destroyed the value of the coin.
If I was smart, I would have dumped my airdrop. But, I have a strange compulsion to support the people I encounter. So, when I first encountered Blurt, my reaction was simply that I want them to succeed.
The interesting thing about Blurt is that they charge fees for transactions.
I actually like this structure as it forces people to think about costs. There are costs associated with posts on SteemIt and HIVE. SteemIt and HIVE pay for the infrastructure by inflating the currencies. We experience the costs as a downward pressure on the price of HIVE.
I tend to favor transparency to gimmicks.
Hiding the costs of infrastructure in the inflation creates an illusion that we can create a world where everything is free.
That doesn't work in either the real world or the cyberworld.
Because Blurt charges a fee, I was forced to engage in a cost/benefit analysis.
My average post reward on SteemIt for the @yintercept account was under $0.02 per post. I wrote a few posts on BLURT and realized that my account was going backwards.
The Secret to Success on HIVE, SteemIt and Blurt
The secret to success on HIVE, SteemIt and Blurt is that one has to buy some HIVE POWER, STEEM POWER or BLURT POWER. I bought 3600 HP and my HIVE account is suddenly doing well.
A good example of this is found with the upvotes. I just placed an upvote on Blurt. It charged me 0.018 BLURT for the action. If my BLURT POWER was too low, then I would lose money by voting. I had only 200 BLURT and the voting fee was more than I would receive in curation rewards.
The cost/benefit analysis forced me to confront the fact that I would need to buy BLURT to succeed on the platform.
Now for my Blurt Story.
I am Really Mad at Blurt
I like the fee model on BLURT. I decided to invest in BLURT in increments. I followed the instructions for buying BLURT on Steem-Engine. I didn't buy a lot of BLURT. I sent my BLURT on Steem-Engine to the correct address ... and it disappeared.
Blurt was having issues at the time and I wrote off the loss.
I bought 1000 BLURT on Hive-Engine. I followed the swap coin instructions and received 990 BLURT in my BLURT account.
Hurray! The world is good.
I decided to buy a second bundle of 1000 BLURT coins. I sent them to the swap address. It bounced back.
This was probably stupid. But things looked like they were working the next day and I sent the 1000 BLURT to the swap address again.
This time the BLURT disappeared.
I tried contacting the BLURT team. They pointed to the first 1000 Coin transaction as proof that the transaction went through.
I sent three 1000 BLURT transactions. The first made it. The second bounced back and the third disappeared.
I mention this as the lesson I learned is that, if one is using a swap service, it is a good idea to send a different amount with each transaction. When something goes haywire, the admins simply don't have time to look at the long transaction strings that identify the transaction. They just look at the amount and the memo.
I should note that the Conversion Process from HBD to HIVE asks for a unique memo with each transaction. If it goes wrong, you will want to reference the memo.
Anyway, I've been mad at the BLURT swap service. I sent 2000 BLURT to my account and received only 990 BLURT.
Conclusion
I think that it is great that someone made a copy of the Steem Block chain.
Personally, I believe that independence is more important than decentralization.
Blurt is a STEEM-like blockchain that is able to experiment with different ideas such as transaction fees. BLURT is a great test engine. They might come up with ideas that we would want replicated on HIVE.
I am not sure who created BLURT. I like to support independent web development efforts. Due to the iffy nature of the swap service, I don't think I would invest heavily in the platform.
There might be some better swap services and exchanges that work with BLURT.
I am mad at the swap service and not the platform. Quite frankly, I suspect that the business model for most swap services is to build up a clientele and then mysteriously disappear when the daily take justifies closing shop and moving on to the next hustle.
Of course, the really big lesson that I learned from BLURT is that one needs to have a few thousand BLURT POWER before they will make any coin on the platform. I bought 3600 HP for the @yintercept account. I am not getting more upvotes.
Yes, I keep upvoting my own posts, but outsiders have to do what outsiders do.
I dropped a post on Blurt . The system charged a 0.318 BLURT posting fee.
They appear to be having problems with their image server. I added a link for an image from my photo server. I understand that the posting fee would be higher if the system accepted the image I was trying to upload.
It will be interesting to see if I make more than the posting fee for the post.
The posting fee adds an element of chance to the platform. Will I make more than the posting fee or will my account simply diminish to nothing.
!engage
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STOPCheck out the last post from @hivebuzz:
I just realized that the HE blockchain explorer shows the @blurtlink ripoff.
The @blurtlink ripoff took place on 12/31/2020 on block 3858965
I had invested in DHEDGE and ARCHON. These investments filled my history with drips.
Currently the ripoff is on Page Two of my BLURT history . The page shows this as six months ago.
You will see that I had purchased 2000 BLURT. I sent three transactions. The first one went thru. The second bounced back. I tried it again and it disappeared.
The history showed that I paid 55 HIVE for the coins that @blurtlink took.
It felt like a punch in the jaw when it happened.