Will Libra Help Steem, or Hurt it?

in #steem5 years ago (edited)

The release of Facebooks white paper on Libracoin has caused quite a stir. It’s a hot topic in the crypto and fintech world and I have read a lot of different opinions on the subject.

On the negative side, we have the centralization, ownership, and control by the very thing many think blockchains purpose is to oppose.  On the extreme side, there is the die-hard anti-establishment crowd which has nothing positive to say at all about Facebook's Libra coin.  Many of these would consider XRP not to be a true blockchain, although its not only the die-hard anti-establishment crowd that feels this way towards XRP.  Yet XRP has managed to hold top 3 position in the crypto world for a long time now.

I don’t come from a technical background.  I might know a lot about the inner workings of STEEM, but when it comes to blockchain in general, I am by far an expert on the topic.  I didn’t come to crypto to escape from centralized control or to protect my data.  In fact, like 90% of the world, I don’t care to much about all that stuff.  Its part and parcel with the online connected world we live in.

I came to crypto as a business person, with the intentions of exploring opportunities for online entrepreneurs like me to utilize this technology to gain competitive advantage.  And though my research I wondered here into steem.

Many of you are aware of how I have been using STEEM with my online business. If you are not familiar with what I am doing, you can check out this blog post to get the gist. The Quick story is, I teach Excel online, I publish a blog post every week which includes a learn and earn activity.  Readers of the blog that carry out the activity and leave a comment with the solutions are rewarded with upvotes.  The aim is to get people engaging more on my blog, and for my blog to become more popular than others of the same topic because I am rewarding learners with steem and so seen to add more value than just another blog that doesn’t value their reader and yet competing for their attention.

One of the challenges I have found is that people are ‘scared’ of crypto, the fear of the unknown.  The bad publicity crypto has received in the past still rings loud.  There is also a mindset that crypto is an investment vehicle and a risky one at that.  We all know only too well from the level of power-ups on steem alone, not everyone has an investment mindset.   Then there is the complexity of getting involved. Wallets, Keys, exchanges.  There are just too many steps, too many clicks for the ‘general’ people to bother with.

Personally, I see Facebook entering the crypto space as a good thing.  And I know many agree. With billions of users, all the advancements Facebook have made todate have been accepted and used by the general public. And most often, with no questions asked.  If not Facebook would have flopped by now.  Launching crypto is just another innovation from this Global giant.  Most people won't even notice it happen as it grows in usage and popularity. That’s what Facebook are good at.

I believe this will take crypto currency into mainstream use.  I believe STEEM will benefit from that and I wanted to test the theory.

Testing my Theory

Each week I create a post on my blog and market it using my email list, social media and other traditional online methods bloggers would use.  It works well and always creates a spike in my traffic.  With the announcement by Facebook, I decided this week I was going to piggyback off this topical trend.  Never before have I mentioned the price value of steem in my newsletter or marketing, and I very rarely allude to cryptocurrency.  I have avoided this because of the challenges I have found and I have kept things really simple.  

This week however I went all out.  Knowing Facebook coin is trending, I decided to piggyback my efforts this week.  The quote below is taken from one version of the email that went out.

This week, instead of a new post, you have an opportunity to catch up on some of the learn and earn activities and earn yourself some STEEM tokens. These tokens are currently valued at over $0.40 and can be easily traded for Cash, Bitcoin, and other Cryptocurrencies.  With Facebook launching their own coin soon, I’m sure it won’t be long before you can swap Facebook coins for Steem and Steem for Facebook coins.  You have an opportunity to get ahead of the game, just by learning Excel

Other social posts yesterday include the likes of:

  

Results

Damn dude, this is going to work.  Below is the daily traffic stats to my blog.  The marketing campaign yesterday (unpaid by the away) was a tremendous success.  

 

Other comparable campaigns were done on the 29th May, 5th and 12th June.  This campaign had a 65% increase in traffic over the campaign on the 5th of June.

Although it could be a coincidence I think this is strong evidence Facebook Libracoin will help Steem and carrying out this experiment has left me rather excited about the possibilities. 

Yes there will be libracoin haters, but here comes mass adoption. 

The next question is, are we ready for mass adoption??????   


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Hahaha, I am going to borrow this xD

@theycallmedan, Shall we put a three speak logo on the bottom? and get people to blast it out? ;)

This has some dystopian potential, imagine people stealing each others' viral memes en masse, trying to exploit them for clicks and currency... Well, even if this actually happens, it will be interesting at least.

By the way I'm stealing borrowing this image too.

We'll be taking 90% of your tokens as payment to reactivate your wallet.

lol, thats epic!

What happens if you call somebody fat on Facebook.....will they kick you off Facebook and hold/Freeze your Libra coin. Don't touch it people...it's a trap to enslave us all.

Libra bad, Bitcoin Good!

I don't support Facebook and don't support another PayPal copycat with fancy marketing terms

Oh man, that is all too real...

The control capabilities reminds me of this clip of an Aaron Russo interview (not saying there's any paralells) :

Haha central control center here.

This is exactly what will happen.

wow, so decentralized, much blockchain

Nice one :)

This is too funny ! and the scary part is it actually can happen.. Also, with Libracoin, hackers have more incentive to hack Facebook accounts

deadly, I love it :-)

This is perfect!

Some here in Spain say that LIBRA is a trojan horse to introduce the owners of FIAT money into the crypto world. They refuse to lose control, so they will use the largest company of registered users in the world for their purposes.
That's what I've heard, I'm just ignorant.
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it will get people into crypto and get them used to it, i hope it doesn't take off as people are such sheeple but bitcoin isn't going anywhere and hopefully the right people will adopt bitcoin and get coinbase accounts. Its the future and confirmation that we are ahead of what is coming.

Starting to look like half the politicians in the US hate the idea, so it might struggle to even get off the ground.

Of course they would. The realisation their market cap will be larger than the federal reserve would make most governments nervous

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I need to read the white paper

Capitalism was always good in incorporating things made to get away from it.

But in case of the Facebook coin I don't think it will be (very) succesful, simply because Facebook, as it is, is already beyond it's peak and going downwards.

yes but they own instragram and whatsapp....and they are on the up :-). Also look at the partner, ebay, uber, spotify, the list goes on

I don't think a social platform is on the up when it loses active users from month to month.

You don't have to be too concerned about one of your brands declining if you have a few others that are fine.

I hope this will expore more users to blockcahin in those kind of network wich include Steemit , hope that i will help..

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art by Alotta Money

People should realize anything related to Facebook has ZERO positive intent for them. It's all in the interest of Suckerberg and his shareholders. They have already enslaved 2 billions users with dopamine releasing social network, next it's gonna be their wallet?

Interesting!

I'm fussy i know...

Maybe even a hashtag too.

Hopefully your course explodes (and we get a few more people here too).

One step at a time @abh12345, let people figure out what crypto is first before we bombard them with different coins. It's good enough #cryptocurrency and #blockchain are trending. Baby steps and before they know it they be transacting on steem like there is no tomorrow 🤑

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That's some excellent clever marketing right there - I agree that a 30% (roughly) spike in your traffic certainly suggests people are interested in what I'm going to call FaceCoin (I can't bring myself to use the real brand name, it's like calling a Prison a liberation centre).

I guess that's a lesson to increase traffic - be specific and bang on the news trend!

I'm optimistic about the impact Facebook will have... we just need to be positioned right to market this place effectively. Something I'm less inclined to do with top 20 witnesses changing the ecosystem to benefit themselves.

'Pay to learn'... please don't take me to court if I steal that idea, I can see that working wonders with my blog. Although I'd best check out the legality of my clients being mainly 17. Sure it'll be fine.

its not pay to learn, its learn and earn :-) I even have the steem account @learn-and-earn. I'm working on a program that will attract other online instructors to steem and a way to store certs of completion and course progress reports on the steem blockchain, I can't work fast enough and wish I was ready to release something.....I think the next few months will be very exciting and I would love to use the positioning of being ahead of the game, if I can get their fast enough.

'learn and earn' - yes that's what I meant. I was thinking of you paying them to earn which sounds much blunter, but when you're used to teaching teenagers BLUNT is effective!

Sounds exciting, and I know exactly what you mean about staying ahead of the game. I have big plans for total domination of A-level sociology online - whether they come to fruition before I take off to live off-grid remains to be seen!

lol I hear ya, well if there is anything we can do to piggyback off each other, do let me know. If are doing something in that space, the @learn-and-earn account will be there to support it

this: "FaceCoin (I can't bring myself to use the real brand name, it's like calling a Prison a liberation centre)." ME TOO. I CAN'T.

I think that no matter what anyone thinks about Facebook this new Libracoin is going to get everyone’s attention.
I plan to install the WhatsApp and the wallet when available, to stay on top of this, it will be a game changer.
I believe your average Joe on Facebook will now have there eyes opened to all crypto.
This can only help Steem, we just need to make on-boarding easier or we will be passed !
I keep hearing that we are making it easier, but I just had a friend signup and it’s still confusing to them!🙃

You didn't include any useful link to check this out, well, here it is:
https://libra.org/en-US/
and here is a post about it on techchrunch:
https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/18/facebook-libra/

thanks!!!!

The only point I find to be useful to the crytpo world with Libra is the mass adoption. Everything else looks SUPER shady to me. I don't trust the corporations signing on just like I have zero trust in fb. This venture is not truly for the people, there is FAR too much money to be made by the powers that be. Where money is so is corruption.

My sentiments exactly!

Mine too.

I’ve been slacking on keeping up-to-date with all what’s been happening on Steem, however, upon grasping that the new hard fork is going to bring some new sort of DAO where anyone can submit proposals for projects...

I’d like to recommend/invite you to consider what sort of proposals you might be able to make, marrying your skill in formulating & executing such ‘test projects’ as described in this post with the resources available through this new SteemDAO thing to leverage to scale up your personal impact and bring these types of marketing projects for others in the community to use...

(Hope I articulated that well so you grasped the idea I had in mind).

😉💖

aweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee what a lovely comment. Thank you so much for your kind words. Funny I do stuff for steem all the time and have not considered when the DAO is live I could apply for funding :-)

Seed planted... ☺️

I know that Libra isn't crypto by any definition. It's more like video game gold, than a cryptocurrency.
I've noticed people are comparing what the Libra experience on FaceBook is going to be like, with what Steemit is today. In other words, they're talking about Steemit when they talk about how they think FB is going to do things. A reward-based currency for content creators. Interesting, anyway.

Hi, friend! :)
Forgive my ignorance, but I'm still uninformed (haven't seen yet) if this Libra (my zodiac sign ;) is going to have real operational blockchain / explorer / ?
..otherwise it's really virtual as you say...

@aggroed and @blocktrades should build Libra <=> STEEM exchange so more FB user can buy jump to STEEM with Libra.

Honestly, this is exactly what needs to happen as early as is possible.

Of course, the problem is that no one knows when or if this will be possible. While FB has talked about being able to build your own wallets and interoperable applications, there has pointedly been absolutely no discussion of whether Libra will be able to be exchanged outside of the FB architecture.

As someone else noted, Libra at this point resembles World of Warcraft gold more than it resembles what most of us think of as crypto-commodities. That is not an accident.

Let's use the hype about Libra to introduce real Blockchains and Crypto-Currencies to a wider crowd!

Ok, let's think about the facts we have:

  • FB intentions are far from collaborating with Steem, the evidence is that Libra's logo resembles too much the Steem logo. Since they have more users they will claim it's his idea and trust me, 90% will blindly believe FB without doing a research.
  • FB business is to sell others people data to other companies and governmental institutions... they don't care what the purpose of those 3rd parties is, business is business. Ok, let's see what do you think about privacy when some personal photos of you or your family members ends up in adult sites... not so harmless now are they?
  • FB could (and probably will) allow crypto to go mainstream on their own, if Amazon and Uber alone start accepting Libra, then Libra use case could be twice as much of bitcoin all time high. Then, people could be curious about the other little coins and a waterfall effect my start and lift other cryptocurrencies alongside with Facebook's coin. For this to happen, steem platform must innovate twice as fast as it does today. We will need smoother keys management tools, we need more appealing User Interfaces, and we need use cases for Steem that Libra could not offer.

That will be about it, FB are bad news to the goal of the decentralized economy proposed in 2009 with Bitcoin because it has the potential of shooting down the competition. But it is a good news for business-oriented people of the crypto ecosystem... this will divide the community again between those who want to be in crypto for making profit (a legitimate goal) and those who seek freedom and privacy (count me in this group).

Adding all that up, I think FB is good news because everyone will be aware of crypto and its potential. Also, those who are on crypto for the quick grab will most certainly land on FB coin, thus letting great projects such as Steem for people interested in other objectives like freedom, censorship resistance, and privacy. Finally those who are seeking for these characteristics and still are not aware of what they can have with platforms such as Steem, will first land on Libra and when they found out that is more of the same sh.t they will focus sight on Steem or another similar platform.

I will check your excel blog, best regards.

Libra will help Bitcoin, but it will wipe out at least 1000 altcoins

Concerning Steem, its MarketCap is stable, because...
The number of users is stable.

Until that fact changes - there is no bright future

I believe that LIBRA is the Trojan Horse in the cryptomarket! It is the next level of data-collection from its users...so BEWARE!!

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Many of these would consider XRP not to be a true blockchain, although its not only the die-hard anti-establishment crowd that feels this way towards XRP.

This is not an "extreme" position, Ripple Labs themselves acknowledge that Ripple XRP is not a blockchain.

If you think that Ripple is a blockchain, can you tell me what block number the "Ripple Blockchain" is at now? Can you tell me the hash of the latest Ripple "block"?

Ripple doesn't use blocks. It doesn't have a chain of blocks. It is not a blockchain and this isn't even a controversial statement. Ripple uses a "last closed ledger" as their distributed data structure, not a blockchain.

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/guides/what-ripple

This isn't a political disagreement. It's a matter of fact that Ripple is not a blockchain. Cryptocurrency yes, blockchain no.

I did say it's not only the extreemests that feel that way about xrp, and I also said I dont know much about blockchain. Yet their success as a crypto can be measured by market cap.

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They said that Libra's competitor is XRP (Ripple). Also many have speculated that Libra will annihilate XRP.

Based on that narrative I think Libra will not hurt STEEM (it will but not so much I think).

I think it will also help STEEM (again, it will, but not so much).

Maybe time will tell if it is going to help or hurt STEEM.

Why are you all talking about this Libra shit ?
No one cares about, fuck you.

I'm not convinced FB will really be in the interest of the entire cryptospace just like has no interest in providing any sort of organic reach even though it has is 22% of the worlds refferal traffic to other sites. They will do the same and cut out middle men and as consumers and users get used to it they will continue to squeese because you have no choice but to use the service, eat into business margins and we will see wide spread business failure in my book.

Im not anti-innovation but power like this that goes unchecked is likely to not be a good thing

I'm not a FB fan but I have mo problems in using them to gain advantage, just like i did in this experiment. If i am happy to use them, it would make sense for them to be happy to use what they feel will give them an advantage. That's business.

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Really want to see how it will turn out.

I believe it will have a positive impact on the crypto space no doubt

Your experiment looks great! Although I'm not a fan of Facebook, I can admit whatever they do makes a huge splash, and if that will make the average Joe more receptive to public crypto, such as Steem, I can only be glad for us.

I think that kinda sums up the post, but had I of written that then it would just have been a shit post 😜

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Very much the same thoughts in terms of the anti-establishment mind set. I stumbled on Steem in working a business angle too. Mine was from a confluence of interests in content management systems and crypto.

I'm thinking that this will be a boon to Steem and any crypto that has more to offer than a simple exchange of funds. The announcement is so wide spread that I have people, that previously had no interest in digital currency, now asking me about it. Facebook if anything has pushed that to the masses.

It's time to market the shit out of Steem and the dApps that are on Steem. Great idea to tie it in to your marketing.

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The next question is, are we ready for mass adoption??????

1M dollar question indeed but I have another even more important one:

Is steem blockchain ready and capable for mass adoption?

It's funny how Visa and Mastercard are backing it but no banks are interested it puts the spotlight onto the space if nothing else.

Woah!!!
That was smart ;)

wow you so clever ♥ Excellent

Will Libra Help Steem, or Hurt it?

Steem? What's steem? Facebook capitalization more than whole cryptomarket.

Well, FB is mainly a social network and there's not too much social network chains around so there's that.


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Facebook capitalization more than whole cryptomarket.

What is the relevance? They are not distributing Facebook equity via Libra.

The capitalization put into Libra by the founding members is actually only $280 million.

well with libra being so centralized, people who use it, later on will start talking and want to research into other forms of crypto that are more decentralized

Libracoin will I think a vehicle for steem to move forward and penetrate the mass adoption.

I see libracoin as competitor for steem, but it is the way for more people to take part and involve in cryptocurrency. and it would help to increase the chance for cryptocurrencies to get better price. we like it or not FB still take big part in social media. Nice to be able to visit and comment on your post @paulag

I think will help the comunnity.

Its may be or not truely time can say what will happen if that there is some difficulties in its own platform than steem,structure is not suitable like steem to start something like us.may be or not.i am not sure.

Shade, background image, camera angle, shot – splendid :-) Resteem for you...

¡Bienvenida sea toda corriente que impulse, los blogs de cada uno, saludos!

It's not like facebook is going to go away anytime soon. using their announcement to promote your programs and to get people interested in this manner was a terrific idea on your part. I imagine you will be getting a few follow-up emails, of how and where can I learn to earn request.

:-) and I wouldn't think I am the only one capitalizing on this. People can use facebook as much as they use us. After all buisness is business

Facebook announcement will drive massive adoption. Governments will be concerned, since FB could be bigger than any nation!!! I think central banks will work with companies to adopt these technologies. FB proposed a stable coin backed by FIAT. This in many ways different that the crypto eco system. Think of it as a block chain technology applied to facilitate cheaper transactions aka a facilitator for fast transaction of FIATs.. If the idea is constrained within these boundaries, central bankers will be on-board

I might be wrong but "block chain technology applied to facilitate cheaper transactions" I think is part of the parcel with this one. And with the partners involved, paying for goods and services is on the way but by the looks of things, bypassing banks. the next year will be interesting for sure

ONLY STEEM!

Selling souls has a price tag.

The thing is @stellabelle most people dont care. The proof is the sheer volume of users. Yes there are some that do care, but most dont.

Great to see you stop by. Hope you are keeping well 😁

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My thoughts are, that just because it's FB, it will probably do ok (after they go thru the process of answering to the Regulators, Congress, and the European Union).
I am sort of in the crowd of anti-establishment (don't really care for $XRP either)
Having said that, from an investors viewpoint, you're right:
Just another fact about it to know and take into consideration.

I think your right, just because its FB it will probably do okay. I think it will be an interesting year, and no matter what side of the fence one may sit on, we all want crypto to be successful :-)

Steemit charges nothing to use the platform. Who knows Facebook could charge for this thing like they make you pay so more people see your posts

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I dont think its going to be used to charge for publishing or posting....

Great insight @paulag, look, I'm a big believer of the Dow Theory, and, as the first rule of this theory says: "the market discount everything".

What it means is that the market reflects the emotions, decisions and thoughts of buyers and sellers, both of which are influenced by news or public opinion.

Following that same line of thought, LIBRA may be both good and bad for STEEM, but in my opinion, it will be good, and that will also depend, fundamentally, on how the STEEM community will take advantage of the launch of LIBRA and how it will affect public opinion regarding cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology.

In short, I am absolutely sure that we are at the beginning of a bull market in the critomarket in general, given the good news there will be about it, and at STEEM we have to take advantage of that.

I too think we are at the beginning of a bull market and I hope the steem community make the most of this while they can

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