RE: Steem Dollar Economics

[dragosroua]

As long as only 10% of the liquid Steem is blocked into an alternate currency like SBD, I personally consider SBD an interesting experiment. But just an experiment. From a theoretical point of view, SBD is "working".

The real validation will come if there will be market demand. If people have a way to spend their SBD, then there will also be demand for it. If it's just a theoretical experiment, it will be dwarfed as just a "theoretical experiment".

A currency is ulterior to a market, to a stream of transactions. If there aren't any transactions, as brilliant as the mathematical model behind a currency is, there won't be any adoption.

This reminds me of another experiment, in languages this time. People invented an artificial language called esperanto. Guess what, nobody used it.

The real problem is a marketplace, not a currency. If we have a place where we could sell stuff, we can invent 20 different currencies and nobody will have a problem with that. I'm eagerly waiting for the roadmap of Steem. A marketplace will certainly make all these comments about SBD obsolete. At the end of the day, people just want to be able to buy and sell safely and profitably.

Comments

[smooth]

I agree with you except:

1. peerhub.com exists, it was built by a big Steem supporter, and it supports SBD for payments.
2. Aside from peerhub, there are other uses for SBD for payments in the ecosystem. It was extensively used by and for Steemfest, is used by other projects and initiatives, and finally for the Promotions page (which we are told is to be a proof-of-concept for more advanced promotion features). Steemsports has also used it for real money gaming, and plans to expand that use.

[dragosroua]

1. I know about peerhub.com and used it. Looks like the community is quite small, though. My perception of a marketplace is something similar to the internal market for buying / selling currencies which we already have on steemit.com
2. I also know about promotions page (used it a few times myself) and about SteemSports. These are real examples of transactions and they benefit from SBD. My point is: if we would have more of these, the theoretical conversation about SBD wouldn't be necessary.

Thanks for contributing to the conversation, appreciated it.

[smooth]

if we would have more of these, the theoretical conversation about SBD wouldn't be necessary.

I agree, but you have to start somewhere, and these cases show that the potential is there. The entire steemit community is very small (probably only a thousand or so very active users) so you just can't expect too many little niches to thrive. But with a large community there can be many of these niches indeed, and larger marketplaces and economies starting to bloom.

[dragosroua]

Agree. So we're still all very early adopters.

[teamsteem]

Thank you for that enlightening input. I feel like your comment put a nice perspective on the matter.

[luzcypher]

A marketplace will certainly make all these comments about SBD obsolete. At the end of the day, people just want to be able to buy and sell safely and profitably.

Agreed.