The most unique, and potentially disruptive, feature of SMTs is the ability for anyone to launch a powerful cryptocurrency with industry leading features, without having to write a single line of code.
ICOs
Potentially as disruptive, however, is the unique value proposition that SMTs will offer with respect to ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings). With any other token launching protocol, it is the developers of the cryptocurrency who are ultimately responsible for airdropping the cryptocurrency to the people who contribute to the ICO.
Minimizing Risk
This creates two risks to the stakeholder. The first is the risk that the smart contracts will have a bug. At Steemit, we believe the idiom "All code is buggy," and this belief continually shapes our development practices and priorities. Therefore, the risk that the smart contracts will have a bug is significant. The second risk is that the airdrop will not be faithfully executed. In other words, there is generally an element of trust.
Decentralized Airdrops
With SMTs you get the reliability and security of Steem, and decentralized execution of the ICO parameters. Once the creator of an SMT finalizes the traits of their token, including how the ICO will proceed, they give up all control over the token launch and distribution process, and hand over control to the Steem blockchain which faithfully executes the airdrop.
In short, SMTs are not distributed by an organization that you need to trust, they are distributed by a decentralized blockchain protocol that has been in operation for over 3 years: Steem.
Highly Customizable
Just because you don’t need to write code in order to launch an SMT doesn’t mean they aren’t a highly technical product. As you will see, there are a lot of “knobs” that an SMT creator can turn, which results in nearly infinite customizability. In this post we’ll talk about just a few of these knobs and the potential value they offer to those considering launching a cryptocurrency.
Minimum STEEM Contribution
You can think of the ICO process as having 3 stages, each of which should be designed to incentivize contributors to reach the next stage. The first stage is delineated by the “Minimum STEEM Contribution.” If this parameter is set to 100,000 STEEM but only 99,000 STEEM is contributed, then the ICO will not be executed and all of those funds will be automatically returned to the contributors. This protects contributors in the event an ICO fails to reach its goals.
Contribution Soft Cap
The next major stage is delineated by the “Contribution Soft Cap.” You can think of this as a “safety cap.” It might be a goal you believe you are likely to achieve, but not the highest contribution goal you’re hoping to get. In order to maximize the odds that the SMT creator can reach this goal, they are able to set “Pre Soft Cap” and “Post Soft Cap” token distribution parameters. They are able to specify how many tokens they want to distribute to a contributor based on how much STEEM they have contributed before the soft cap is reached, and a different distribution for after the soft cap is reached.
For example, an SMT creator could choose to distribute 5 of their SMT for every 1 STEEM that is contributed by a given account prior to the Soft Cap being reached. The SMT creator could also choose to set the “Post Soft Cap” token distribution parameters such that 2.5 of their SMT is distributed to an account for every 1 STEEM it contributed to the ICO. In other words, the account that contributed prior to the Soft Cap got a 100% bonus.
Contribution Hard Cap
But an SMT creator might still want to create some scarcity around their token so that those who contribute after the Soft Cap still feel like they got a “deal.” That’s where the Hard Cap comes in. It acts as a ceiling on the total amount of an SMT that accounts can receive in return for contributions. Once the Hard Cap is reached it will become impossible for more contributions to made. Even if the creator of the SMT wanted to increase the Hard Cap they couldn’t because all of the parameters are “locked” in consensus.
If the Hard Cap has been reached, anyone who wants the SMT must wait to purchase it from an existing token holder, or earn it through Proof-of-Brain, assuming the SMT creator decided to leverage those features.
No Code?
Just because anyone will be able to launch an SMT without writing a line of code, that doesn’t mean they are underpowered or simple. SMTs are an enterprise-level product, and there are a lot of features that one must understand in order to take full advantage of the capabilities.
More to Come
The ICO features are just one example of the types of options developers and entrepreneurs will have at their disposal, and how a trustless implementation differentiates SMTs from other token launching protocols.
We will continue to release more information about the various features included in the SMT protocol, so be sure to follow @steemitblog or subscribe to our e-mail newsletter. We will also be talking about SMTs, and much more, next week at SteemFest! So be sure to tune in to the livestreams.
The Steemit Team
I would like a promotional campaign on this ASAP!
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There's an idea ;)
They are users here on STEEM and have an account. You just did an interview with them which was really good.
Yeah maybe coindesk or cointelegraph
NC
.
Amen ! Share the good word !
An important job for the Steem community.
First of all, congratulations for this post which clearly and simply explains how to use the parameters of the SMTs.
I would like to temper your enthusiasm.
Indeed, if your code is well written, everything will go smooth.
But if there is a bug in the SMTP protocol, which seems likely given the beliefs you express, all the SMTs will be affected, not just those with a buggy contract.
In this case, how can this be mitigated?
There are a few mitigations in place already.
We are repurposing existing code as much as possible. We are taking functions that were created to work only with STEEM and making them generic to work with SMTs without changing the functionality. This gives us a greater confidence in a large percentage of the behavior of SMTs as these functions have been battle tested over the last three and a half years. It is not a guarantee, but a high degree of confidence.
We are reserving more of our time for testing SMTs than we have with previous releases.
If there is a bug in SMTs, it will cause a chain halt for everyone. This will allow us to not only fix to first buggy token, but also fix every other SMT at the same time. It will also avoid situations like Ethereum Classic. Because the entire chain will halt, a bug with one token won't require rolling back the entire network and will keep everyone's coins safe.
The whole Steem chain will halt? Oof, we've had a lot of that. Please test in larger environments than before.
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While blockchain halts suck, the other options are much worse. I will take a temporary halt any day of the week if they don’t happen often. Plus, state files will be a big improvement for getting the chain up and running again if I understand them correctly.
This is what I would call "outsourcing of testing and debug onto a public chain".
Not to think of any other reasons one could use this against Stem itself..
Well, were there any bugs in the testnet?
Has the testnet even been tested?
That's a creative solution for handling bugs that could create a situation where the chain would otherwise have to be rolled back. Definitely the lesser of two evils.
Is there a quick way to mitigate such an occurrence while the problem with the code is diagnosed and corrected?
https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@janar115/easy-way-to-earn-crypto
Rather then paying just 10 SBD, could you consider making the fee for creating a new SMT "RC credit purchasable as well"; something high like need 5K Steem min would do it, this will reward us old school Steemer's plus encourage more power ups..Just a thought lol!.. without knowing much how they work yet. Cheers
OK. This is cool. I am finally beginning to understand what SMTs can offer beyond what Steem-Engine already does.
A simple to use, decentralised ICO platform is huge.
Please include an option to exclude US investors as the SEC is a pain in the arse that the rest of the world shouldn't have to deal with.
Maybe Steemit should be talking to the SEC to get their blessing and advice right now.
Can't wait to see it released!
What I like about this is the "no code" bit. However that does raise some security concerns, if all the SMTs have similar or the same route code, doesn't that leave the door open for mass attacks?
I know something similar happened with the standard ERC20 token, with many people copying the route code and then having their tokens hacked.
Hopefully it's all as simple as you've laid it out here, and quite frankly I can't wait to check it out.
This has been 3 years in the making; better late than never! :-)
Cg
Curious about this as well..
Lovely improvement! I’m glad that we’re here finally, indeed this is a dream come true. All thanks to Steemit Team and to Steemians for their support and patience.
But please permit my novice question here.
What will be the fate of Steem-engine Tokens when SMTs is finally launched, or are they totally different entities?
We think there will be plenty of utility for Steem-Engine tokens. Because they are centralized and use Soft/Emergent consensus, they can be modified more easily and updated more quickly because updates do not require a hardfork. This will likely enable that team to experiment with a lot more features. The features that have the highest demand would be perfect candidates for integration into SMTs. In this way Steem-Engine tokens could become a testbed for SMTs. There will always be opportunities to improve SMTs, but what we don't want to do is add features that have not already been validated by the market. Therefore, Steem-Engine could prove crucial in 1. offering valuable features to the market before they are available in SMTs, and 2. demonstrating the value of those features before precious engineering time is spent adding those features to SMTs. Hardforks are very difficult to execute and so any feature that does not HAVE to be in SMTs, shouldn't be. That should create ample opportunity for Steem-Engine tokens.
Can you please explain how steem-engine tokens differ from SMTs?
SMT's are built right into the steem blockchain and are decentralized. Steem-engine tokens are more like a centralized side chain, someone with better knowledge could probably explain it better.
Solid response!!
That’s a great idea using SteemEngine tokens to test things as they are very adaptable. From what I have read SMT’s are not once launched .
Also do you see SteemEngine communities using SMT’s or SteemEngine tokens?
SMT’s with the ICO feature sound a bit to much for communities to launch as communities more often then not will be looking for a cheap or free community to join rather then funding or paying for one.
Just enough time for me to power down and use the Steem to finally create my projects with the community. Thanks!
It is a great idea. The coming of SMT will launch the business side of the steem tokens.
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BUIDLING is much more important than HODLING
nice,
But there must be a creation fee for ico to prevent spam.
There is a creation fee in SBD.
perfect and in SBD is also smart :)
Nice :)
What is that fee? And I assume that fee is burned?
The fee is burned. I think it’s 10 SBD, but that number is easy to change any time prior to the HardFork. That number is mostly a placeholder.
The white paper says 1 SBD.
"SMT creation fee
Issuing a smt_create_operation requires payment of smt_creation_fee. The amount required is set by the smt_creation_fee field of dynamic_global_properties_object. This field may contain a value in STEEM or SBD. If specified in SBD, an equivalent amount of STEEM will be accepted, at the current price feed.
Initially, smt_creation_fee will be set to 1 SBD, and no means will be provided to update it. Updates to the smt_creation_fee amount may occur in future hard- forks, however, so user-agents should read the smt_creation_fee value from the dynamic_global_properties_object. User-agents should not assume the fee will always be 1 SBD and they should be prepared to charge a separate fee paid to the user-agent if the aim of the interface is to enable only a curated set of tokens.
The fee is destroyed by sending it to STEEM_NULL_ACCOUNT."
Please make it $100 or 1000 steem. We really need this to get steem back in the top 50 so people take us seriously again.
Awesome! Glad to hear on all fronts, especially that the 10 SBD is a placeholder. I don’t know what the amount should be but I would love to hear open arguments for higher. Thanks for your response.
That's great idea, and cost is not prohibited to aspiring entrepreneurs.
Getting closer to reality.
Share some of that good drugs yall using cooking up this blog, pretty good... So Steem is the new Ethereum killer???
All the best...
Not at all. Ethereum is a general purpose protocol; a decentralized computer. Steem is more like a GPU or ASIC miner; it's designed to power web applications with powerful tokens than can be created without having to write a line of code. We're not saying that's better or worse than what Ethereum is doing, but it is very different. Ethereum lets developers experiment with smart contracts, which is great. We look at what smart contracts and features produce the most value on general purpose protocols like Ethereum, and then add those features to Steem. This enables Steem to be fast, efficient, and easy to use for developers and users alike.
Good use of analogy....
In other words, Steem is the place for the average Joe who is interested in Blockchain but not familiar with coding and the technical details needed to get started.
Probably market it like this, "The place where the average Joe who is interested in Blockchain base application can tokenize his business or project".
While we at it, we need to deal with liquidity and see some recovery with the token and merit of the system would pay off. But if that isn't address, that's gonna turn off people. Remember you are competing with 12 top100 project offering the same product, try to hit all areas and get ahead of the crowd
Nothing can kill Ethereum.
Nothing can compete with the Ethereum Defi niche and no one is trying to.
You can bet your ass Ethereum can't be killed. Serenity's DeFi movement is gonna be all up in the bankers' "business"
If you believe "all code is buggy" what makes you so sure SMT code won't cause too much harm with its code to Steem? Steem track record for last three hardforks isn't the brightest one too.
#sbi-skip
This is exactly why we have already released the testnet and will be testing this hardfork for a minimum of 3 months, far longer than any other Steem hardfork in history. This is also why we have not yet set an ETA for the hardfork.
Nice one again @andrarchy 👍🏽
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I feel so sorry for the other blockchains. They are going to be crushed.
"There can be only one"
.gif)
not sure your intentions of this but it got a laugh out of me
STEEM curation maximalist?
Im sorry but this comment isnt showing for me. Did you forget to pay the gas for this transaction or is the transaction still pending?
:D
Are we not too late of this ICO thing? Please explain.
ICOs are dead, long live ICOs, look at steem-engine, there is certainly a demand for tokens and this demand will only increase in the future, we are still at the very beginning and tokenization will be a big part of the blockchain movement.
any Thoughts on how you are planning on handling security tokens that form?
You've mentioned before that resource credits will play a big role in SMT's. I still don't fully understand the connection, where do they fit in?
I think it is quite simple. I think the underlying target is growth in numbers but stirred by apps and communities. Assuming there becomes 1m users and with apps, noting that some apps have myriads of transactions besides comments like say transfers etc all happening on the chain, they will need rc to transact, which means buying and staking steem but more than just steem carrying the load, app creators and community leaders are incentivized to pursue the success of their dreams, which say now uses their tokens but still need steem for the growth in numbers of their apps. Some may buy steem and power up just for the sake of claiming accounts which is expensive ofcourse to make their project mainstream. Overall the rc tech allows for that scalability in itself. That scalability wasn’t so possible before rc. Now would people who own projects buy steem to enable growth for their projects? I say they would looking at the tribes. Some who raise some money selling tokens putting it back into steem to vote on their communities and some to claim accounts and delegate to these users when their accounts are setup. This is just an example. Do tribes for instance not need steem considering that these tokens have their own seperate pools and voting power and the answer is they have still needed steem. Even if you had 100k staked marlians for instance and you have zero steem power, you still can use your power on the tribe to vote cos you need rc to. Now there will be rc pools that is delegatable. This can constitute and enterprise on its own, where people power up steem and rent out or delegate their rc to others. Ultimately, I feel it all boils down to the growth in masses. A steem account is becoming valuable. Right now it cost some say 3 steem to get a steem account fast. But soon a steem account can be sold as one account and you have access to 50 apps with the ability to earn 50 more tokens. I think people will seek to have a steem account. Now with masses this all adds up. With claimed accounts sign ups can be instant too and that alone when fixed can increase user growth fast and now not courtesy of just steemit but courtesy of an app or community in line with a persons interest. Now if steem can handle the numbers and it really gets to have say 1 millolion real active users across all apps, there will be need for more powered up steem and with many more tokens or communities of interest, there will be more zest for attaining rc or powering up steem
I see(I think), so an app creates an SMT that does well, they need Steem and RC's to be able to onboard people themselves and create accounts, plus all the new people will need enough Steem to transact, which if we're talking millions of users, even if they only had 25 Steem each would have a huge impact.
Yes. I have apps too and I speak in that voice. Even with my low budget and all I know how much I have put into its growth and intend to put, so basically I brainstorm, innovate think of ways to grow it etc as for claims I used to claim accounts slowly and have a few hundreds of accounts waiting for a time when it will be time to have users sign up directly and instantly via my apps than the steem process etc, now assuming I don’t have steem to buy to claim accounts and I have to rent from someone, they would have bought and kept their steem powered up and their own demands grow, they may buy more steem and lock it to let out rc while still maintaining their ability to curate etc
For instance on steem-engine tribes, one has to stake 1 eng per user where eng is bought with steem. Now I don’t have control really at this stage at growth and how many people I want to use the site. The numbers grow on its own and I have no choice but to keep up and buy eng to keep the use of steem-engine running. This is even where I haven’t pursued growth in numbers actively on my own. Where a site owner hits growth in such manner, they will either have to curb entries or go for it and buy sp delegate or innovate ways for their users to buy sp for a level of transactions. While steem is proof of brain, other transactions need sp too like transfers, witness votes so look at apps like blocktrades for instance with many transfers, they need to have sp now to meet the rc requirements for tons of transfers. Besides blocktrades there are other exchanges on steem. Transfers don’t cost so much in terms of rc but who knows how many apps and entrepreneurs steem will attract. Also communities are already made. I saw a recent post saying it will soon be implement. Even on small levels, normal users will adopt a mentality of owners especially when they have communities and admin it and perhaps attach a token to it. So even on small levels without a full blown app, many who now run their communities will now see need to make it thrive, they will look to have their communities members move together amassing sp or start to power up. Where they sell tokens like seen with steem engine, many like to power these dividends up to further growth, curate etc. even in the face of many tokens there is still that appeal to earn the parent token steem in conjunction with other tokens, not only cos of what steem has come to rep but also because it has first mover advantages and is on several big exchanges, somethinh smaller tokens will need time to reach those levels.
Also with smts there will be an internal exchange and more transactions will stay internal. I do think when some tokens hit more publicity, people will likely join steem for the sole reason of using a decentralized exchange, same way as some sign up to exchanges to trade as opposed to create content.
lol
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there is huge congrats for this post because they simply explains all the
parameters that are important to use the SMTs. This post need more likes than usual.
.
@tipu curate
Upvoted 👌 (Mana: 0/4)
Thanks for this exciting update :)
Just curious but "potentially" how will SMTs affect the price of Steem ?? Make it more in demand so price goes up ? Or no ??
Thank you
It's a complex system, so there's no way of predicting that. We focus on adding value to the Steem blockchain and designing systems which ensure that the more value developers and users get from the platform, the more STEEM they must power up. One of the benefits of the SMT protocol is that it provides another reason to acquire STEEM and that is to participate in ICOs.
The price will not dramatically change, we mint more Steem to spend and less to Steem Power up.
More supply, less demand therefore less value. Basic economic principles, of course we all want Steem to go back up.
So, STEEM POWER UP!
I feel something great is being carried in regard to SMT.
This is quite exciting news 🚀 great time to be a Steemian :)
That is music in my ears.
Hey @andrarchy love to have a chat with you at SteemFest about this.
I have been tracking this for years since 2016 when steemit had the first version of SMTs.
Do you have any example on how a typical traditional forum ( e.g. in discuz or wordpress ) can integration all the way with SMTs in your white paper?
Great and lovely post this post deserves more votes IMO.
Thank You @megasound Megasound
This was a nice couple paragraph about soft and hard caps, but I found it pretty meatless. Not much information, and no links. The idea of launching a cryptocurrency (through Steem) is wonderful. Where can someone learn more? Also, what's the timeline for this to start? I've been seeing teaser posts like this for at least a year. Lastly, is this something attainable by an average everyday Steem content-creator? In other words, could somebody who is good with using computers - but clueless about coding them - create SMTs effectively?
The eagle has landed. With this great features, Steem is on its road road to top 20. Cheers!!
Congratulations on the development! Looks like people are going to start seeing steem-based tokens on the website soon!
How is the price of steem affect the price of a new token and vice-versa ? Is it like, anyone who has steem, will benefit equally from a new token ?
Well a new token could mean new users that need Steem accounts and resource credits to use that new token. So, this can help the overall growth of Steem and demand for resource credits, which require Steem Power. That can result in more powered up STEEM staked on the network and more STEEM locked up in ICOs and token projects.
la capacidad de cualquier persona de lanzar una criptomoneda, sin tener que escribir una sola línea de código. Es perjudicial
@andrarchy
The way that I understand this is that we would soon be able to create a token for our charity???
Blessings!
Zac
Excited to see how community and businesses will use this... 😊
welcome to the world of nocode ;)
Congratulations @steemitblog!
Your post was mentioned in the Steem Hit Parade in the following categories:
I think there's a significant negative regulatory and "crypto-scam" association with ICOs these days that I suggest potentially shying away from advertising SMTs as such. As someone in crypto for a while, the term ICO makes me cringe and recall lots of scam ICOs from the past which gave crypto in general a bad name. Just my two cents. I don't know if linking ICO and SMTs/Steem is going to help attract the right people.
Tremendous news, big leap into the future and good be one of the ground breaking features that Steem can raise again. Internal and external factors contributed to the downfall of Steem, but with the right steps and the wonderful community from here, all can turn around and hi rocket.
Great work Steemit Team!
I would like to know how are SMTs going to be traded? Will we see a new decentralized exchange in the Steem Wallet like that we use for Steem / SBD trades?
I hope that your team is also focusing on a good UI solutions for that, because when we get a couple houndreds of small SMTs with low volume than the exchange features and stability becomes more important.
Great job on accepting rewards for this post. I think that it is right and and this worthy enterprise should receive as much revenue as possible.
thank you @megasound Megasound
And it will all be on steem-engine :)
Please consider:
https://steemit.com/steem/@whatageek/please-charge-and-burn-1k-steem-for-each-smt-ico-or-usd100-usd1000-when-the-price-of-steem-goes-up
Just Glad I'm a part of this #RightTiming
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When will the SMT's be available? I have a million ideas that I want to test out, I have been trying to execute on Ethereum using Solidity but have trouble creating even a simple token with no overflow issues. Plus with all the transactions we need to create it gets a bit expensive using ETH. Looking forward to seeing the SMT platform for building assets!
Well done on your progress with SMT's I think what could be an amazing marketing campaign would be to compare it to other chains in terms of speed, cost and ease of running an ICO on the various networks. Would make for a great video campaign giving 3 people a chance to set up a small ICO for funding something like a little business and then getting them to try it on STEEM, VS ETH VS EOS for example
Its a good step to get more steem adoption but hard to conceive a successful project will happen on it.Infact its not happening anywhere!!!
Hi there buddy, I'm not sure you fully understand how SMTs can work for growing in value. If you check out Reddit, you might find that while some subreddits are of very little value other subreddits are of major value due to their massive traffic.
You might think it is weird that a subreddit could grow to be of high value but they do grow to be of considerable value. The idea behind SMTs + communities is that you will be able to form something kind of like a subreddit, only on a decentralized platform. So, all the staked members of your SMT grow the value of their tokens together by growing the value of that SMT's community. It is also important to provide a consumable or burnable use case for the token within that community, but there are many ways to do that.
Lets circle back on this after 2 years
Correct me if I am wrong If you start letting people do ICO it needs to be registered first in the USA otherwise steem is about to get black listed like crazy.
Nice article bro. I like it
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