Yesterday, Steemit INC released a white paper about user issued tokens on the Steem blockchain. In layman terms, when the features prototyped in this paper will be implemented, anyone (anyone with a valid Steem account, that is) will be able to issue their own token, on top of the Steemit infrastructure.
This "Smart Media Token" (which you can give any name you want, when you issue it), is way more than just a token, it's an application-enhanced store of value. Again, translating this in layman terms, it means that this token will take advantage of all the Steemit battle-tested features:
- rewards pool (your SMT will have its own separated rewards pool)
- controlled and variable inflation (you decide the time, the value or percentage of inflation)
- vesting tokens (your own version of Steem Power)
- voting (with a few rewards algorithms, including squared and linear rewards)
- curation (again, with the same variations as above)
Bref, you will be able to create your very own Steemit, with all the bells and whistles, without forking the Steem blockchain.
Do We Really Need This?
One of the most interesting "devil advocate" reactions to this announcement was: "why, oh why, do we need another wave of worthless, shitty coins?".
Ok.
Pause for a second.
Now let's rewind 20 years ago. Just bear with me.
It was 1997, and a strange, hard to comprehend technology was creeping on the wave of an even creepier social phenomenon (called Open Source) between software and media giants: the world wide web. This technology was giving anyone with a bit of technical skills (and the ability to learn) the possibility to publish their own personal page on the internet.
"Why, oh why, do we need this?" people asked back then. "Because we can", was the answer.
"But it's doomed, can't you see? What are you going to build? A book store on the internet? Why would you do that, since we already have real life book stores?".
"Well, I'm going to call my book store Amazon and it will kick the fat asses of the real life book stores", an unknown Jeff answered.
"And what are you going to create: a search engine for these shitty web pages? And you're really going to call it Google?"
"Yes, the two Stanford graduates answered. We are really going to call it Google and your life in 20 years will be basically impossible without it".
I think you got the idea.
What world wide web did to information 20 years ago, the blockchain does to currencies now. We're in the middle of a revolution. A revolution that will democratize money the same way web democratized publishing.
And like in every revolution, it's hard to understand what's going on, unless you pull yourself outside the box.
Yes, it's hard to comprehend that in 10 years we will have not only one currency per state, but dozens of thousands of currencies, one per community. Or, even more, we may have a cluster of currencies for the same community. Or we may have an aggregator of currencies that will set the value of what we buy in a very different way, according to rules that we can't even fathom now.
The question "why, oh why do we need another wave of shitty currencies?" is very similar to the question: "why, oh why we do we need another book store on the Internet?".
And the answer is the same: "because we can. And because in 10 years, these shitty coins will kick the fat asses of fiat currencies".
I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.
https://steemit.com/~witnesses
If you're new to Steemit, you may find these articles relevant (that's also part of my witness activity to support new members of the platform):
Just brilliant like always. All revolutionary technology suffer the same disbelief and skepticism at the beginning, it keeps happening since the dawn of times, but that doesn't stop big inventions and Blockchain won't be an exception
Awesome information. And put in a way it’s easy to understand and relate to. Thank you! Resteeming:)
Great article. I'm really understanding the significance of this now. I see it as all these SMTs being simply derivatives of Steem so to speak with Steem being the engine that drives all of them. That's incredibly powerful and would tremendous value to Steem and the Steem block chain. Will be following this very closely.
You got that right! I envision apps that'll process via qr code anything you've got... like an instant shapeshift for any kind of currency...
upvoted & resteemed
Hey thanks!
I am glad you're analysing this. Your WP posts are the only ones I've read so far.
Thx for your post... we can't predict the future, but for me it's difficult why this will help grow Steem... Why would STEEM go to moon when there are SMT on the steem block chain... will there be more witnesses etc etc.
SMT are not related to witnesses, as far as I understood from the white paper, witnesses will keep their role: producing blocks for the Steem blockchain.
And, as a result of this move, Steem could go to the moon in the same way Ethereum, as a platform for issuing tokens, went to the moon.
But only if execution will be really good.
Yeah so what will be the reson STEEM will have more value with introducing SMT.. you don't need steem to create or have it circulated.. so I see a lot of enthousiasm but not an real answer to this question...
STEEM is the conversion gateway for these tokens. When you issue a token, you crate a pair MYSMT/STEEM, so if people will want to buy your token, they'll do it via STEEM. Makes more sense now?
@dragosroua can you help me understand exactly how this will work - or point me somewhere that I can read about it? Will SMTs be tradable on crypto exchanges? If I want to purchase some SMTs on an exchange (like any other cryptocurrency or token) then where does STEEM come into play?
Eth will always be at least needed for the gas price but since there are no transaction fees with Steem I don't see how the STEEM token is involved in supporting SMTs.
It's not yet clear how the external exchanges will play out. My hunch is that those market makers introduced at the end of the white paper will play some role in it, but I may be wrong.
Ah ok, that makes sense and now I think why I didn't see that... off course then STEEM wil grow..
Thanks for explaining this.
Thanks for your insights!
Was struggeling with that WHY... initially.
Sounds interesting but i will have soon my own token i still dont know how this is going to work and i bet there are a lot of people that have no clue how to use or develop this tokens so it will be great if you will add some more posts about this...
I am sure a lot of Steemians will read them with a lot of interest!
Looking forward for updates!
I'll do my best to "translate" the white paper in layman terms in future articles. So far it's only a prototype on paper, there's no implementation so I can't be sure if what's in the paper will be coded identically. We will all know more once the hardfork including these changes will be implemented.
That will be great Dragos!
As mention looking forward for your future posts about this. Please "translate" the white paper in layman terms!😉
Please do... please, please please...
Thanks @dragosroua!
I especially appreciate the "layman terms". :-)))
Yes, many people are dubious when revolutionary ideas appear. But luckily revolutioners don't care! :-)
This is the way we go forward!
By the way, let me grab the opportunity to thank for your steem.supply page! It is really awesome!
Thanks for translating the purpose of blockchain in layman's term.
If there is a good implementation of SMT, STEEM will definitely rise in value, gotta buy me some before its too late. This could be the next Ethereum or Neo.
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I'm not sure I understand the question. SMT is a generic name for an activity you, as a user, can perform on the Steem blockchain, namely to issue your own token, with your own name and parameters.
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Yes, that is also correct. So what exactly is the question?
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Ah, got it. Yes, in the white paper there are a few use cases described:
I'm going to start a series on the white paper and probably I will get to the use cases too.
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Very nicely projected..
I like the way you write the Article more than the Topic :)
Thank God I will go back to my abandoned blog
Hey @dragosroua..
I'm facing a issue in steem.supply.. I couldn't check my pending payouts using your tool.. Earlier it's worked for me very fine.. But I'm facing this issue from last week.. Founded that this issue is only with my ID.. Other IDs are working fine.. Please check in steem.supply with my ID (djmalith) and please fix the issue..
Thank you..
Checked, found the bug, fixed, uploaded to production, tested, it works.
Thanks for the heads up.
That's great...😊🤗
Witness voted for you..😊👍
Cheers..🎉🍻
Clearly, what's going on with crypto right now is setting the path for the next decade. Keeping your eyes focused on just the first generation of coins and projects is being very short eyed.
Who remembers myspace social media platform or Altavista search engine?
When a new revolutionary technology appears, new projects are the pioneers but just to open the path to new bigger ones. First, enthusiastic adopters jump in, but just to open the door to mainstream.
With Smart Media Tokens I see an opportunity to monetize many interesting sites and business models which have no chance to survive right now.
very good point.
Brilliant comparison. It's true we are not able to comprehend the uses of the SMT's now but who knows what it might turn into. All I know now is that it adds value to Steem and for me that is good enough at the moment. Might be cool to have a Xervantes Token :)
These are amazing news and i am heading right now to read that white paper. It is a missing link that i was waiting for to come out with Velocity update of STEEM BC together with effortless on-boarding which i could not do yesterday as we are so busy connecting our photography community BeScouted with STEEM BC.
Since we are a platform for talents (photographers, make-up artists, hair stylists etc..) where we have a casting tool that allows building a marketplace that will bring paid jobs and connect businesses with the freelancers while avoiding middleman. Talented people are already getting paid jobs on BeScouted but it has one inherent flaw - Transaction settlements in fiat are complex, slow and expensive.
At one point we were thinking of doing an ICO ourselves but building it on Btc or Etc BC had a few flaws:
a) Slow transactions and longer block times.
b) Transaction costs as miner fees or gas needed to run the smart contract.
So the question itself. WHY DO WE NEED ANOTHER COIN? Just a few very obvious benefits this will provide:
Users that create valuable content will get rewarded the same way they do on Steemit.com and will receive associated token which they can exchange for fiat or different added features on the platform.
Pay and get paid for participation in various photography or video creation projects instantly with 0% transaction fees. Hire talent for their projects or get hired fo commercial work.
Sell digital media directly on the platform and receive up to 100% of the value in a few seconds.
There are too many to mention and i might share more of the usage scenarios in the post after i read the white paper as i was thinking i will need to wait for EOS to launch to build full functionality on it. It looks like SMT might be a long waited solution. The only thing i am still a bit concerned is how consensus will be reached and blocks will be created as STEEM is not completely decentralized in a way Etc or Btc is but that is another discussion.
Thank you for sharing those great news, and we can't wait to kick some fat asses of the middlemen in the industry that practices favoritism and takes up to 70% of freelancers earning for the mediocre job they are doing.
Cheers!
Good luck with your community! :)
Thanks, we will see how it goes. Freelancers are already creating 90% of visual content in the world but are getting paid just about for 40-50% at it's best. We can only provide the tools, but the community will have to decide if we provide the right tools for it.
And since we are being provided with better tools it means we can build a better tool ourselves. Tools to build tool. Cool :)
Very interesting project and good looking website @bescouted.
I have to conclude that we've both been waiting basically for the same thing to make our ideas and well-being online projects take off and spread to our entire own communities big time.
I also have a stagnant online project launched almost five years ago (a local/regional replica of fiverr) with which I was trying to help to met ends monthly easier for my poor countrymen in our now depauperate country. Same as you, we faced tremendous obstacles to solve stuff related to payment gateways and financial procedures since most of the people over here are unbanked. So as you've said "Transaction settlements in fiat are complex, slow and expensive." But looks like our Time Has Come mate, to try fulfill our desires sooner than later with this promising SMT development platform now.
Good luck with your project and I'm following you now to also witness the progress of your work on this. And hopefully, also share tips & hints here and there sometimes.
Cheers!! :)
Hi! yes, it was a long awaited opportunity that allows new business models and allows freelancers to ear. Even more so in your country, BeScouted though is global so works for everybody :) You platform can also benefit greatly from micro instant payments and i am following you. Let's stay in touch and if you have any questions do not hesitate to ask! Probably could chat on steemit chat on one of those days :)
Sure thing mate!! ¿Is your nickname on steemit-chat the same as here?
I suppose so :)
Haha no worries mate. I will whistle aloud to call your attention over there. My nickname is the same as here. The ineffable @por500bolos Hehehe. :)
Ok, sure, let's stay in touch.
So, what I will do is somehow merge LogicCoin into a SMT. I will setup a website that will take the Proof of Logic (POL) and transform it into some pretty graph or something else interesting. Then, people will upload their POLs in order to earn LogicCoin and show off their brain patterns. Then, other people can comment on the POLs in order to earn more LogicCoin.
Seems logical.
It's for businesses to use so they can have their own branded token and not be forced to use Steem.
It will be a new Bitshares ?
With a dash of STEEM :)
Nice article. You're definitely cheerleading this technology.
Interestingly this has been done to some extent on letstalkbitcoin.com and the tech has spun out into an organization called Tokenly. It was a very exciting development. LTBCoin facilitated on the Counterparty token was issued for forum interactions and rewards for "magic words" given during podcasts used as "proof of listening". Forum members could create their own forum spaces and issue tokens as keys for entry.
It wasn't the most successful project monetarily but it proved the technology worked although hampered by some of Counterparty's shortcomings.
The community there wasn't huge.
So why I'm excited is this idea on Steemit can quickly reach growth unseen on LTB network because there is already a huge base of users by comparison.
There's a hint of nostalgia in what's being developed here because I've seen it before. What I haven't seen is the potential fully reached. Here's hoping we can look back at this moment as the start of a new way of life for everybody.
@dragosroua - Sir, I have no idea why we need them until I read your post. Love it Sir. Well explained lots of my questions about this news Sir.
+W+ [UpVoted & ReSteemed]
As always another excellent and thoughtful post making perfect sense.
I agree with a lot of what you said.... the only problem I find isn't actually the technology but how easy it can be used to create.... low value and scam steemit alternatives that would be promoted here on steemit.... making this platform and theirs full of spam...
I think there's a difference between shitty coins, and coins that are made just to scam people.
I liked this part!!
You're right. There may be myriad coins with deceptive names. Buy my ST33M tokens at 50% of market price. A bargain!
It's happened on Counterparty for sure.
@dragosroua,
I am still at the stage of "why, oh why do we need another wave of shitty currencies?" :/ Anyway great explanation!
Cheers~
"Linux (1991–) The Linux kernel, started by Linus Torvalds, was released as freely modifiable source code in 1991. ... Among Linux distributions, Debian GNU/Linux, begun by Ian Murdock in 1993, is noteworthy for being explicitly committed to the GNU and FSF principles of free software."
But, yeah, I get and appreciate your point !, lol
"Value today has nothing to do with value 1, 5 or even 10 years from now," HOLD it !!! JTS
The Linux bit in your comment was to point that the revolution started in 1993? I know that :) I was pointing to a fuzzier time interval, the one in which the WWW raised, and it was pretty much round late nineties. Google was launched in 2002, if I remember well.
Humm, I remember Open source being a revolution way before that. Why some of us decided not to be coders, because there was so many free "Open Source" programs out there. After 38 years on computers my mind does tend to forget tho, lol
Great post ! I do agree with everything you said regarding "Why Do We Need Smart Media Tokens When We Have STEEM?"
This project has my 100% support !
Thanks again for the great post !
btw, not just to you, but ANYONE reading this, Th Wiki has some really great history on Open Source and free software, Hope you don't mind me sharing the link here?, i will delete if you want.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_free_and_open-source_software
By all means :) I code for about 30 years as well, even had a high school graduation project which involved punch cards in Cobol (can't remember a thing now, obviously). I did a lot of BetaBasic stuff on Z80 processors back in the day, when I was 18-19 years old. So yes, I know FSF and Richard Stallman are going back to the eighties, probably.
lol, I went from 13.62 an hr. in the oilfield at 18 yrs old, to 4.50 hr at Radioshack, because they started selling TRS80's. I unboxed and sold the 1st one, Test market Radio Shack, marshall Texas. December 8, 1980
/bow /salute !
Haha seems like we've been paddling on the same ancient Galley slave boats as far as computer technology is concerned.
Ahh! wadda triplet of ol'farts we are peekin&poking raw machine language thru our Sinclair ZX-81, Vic20s & C64s back in the good days to light a simple pixel at the center of our big and heavy long-ass CRTs. ¿Huh? :P
hell ya ... good to read you again Bro, just finally got back on the net and steemit !
those were the days
If people did not take the leap to try and find new things and implement them, we would not be where we are today in technology, engineering and many other things that we use and find helpful today.
I think it's always good to ask the question why though. I'm still not on board with SMTs and have a lot of questions. I think it will be a roller coaster ride just like steemit. For every one site that has a coin that really takes off there will be another 100 people that complain creating a crap site and token doesn't make them instantly wealthy.
Am I as excited as a gitty little school girl, yes. Do I have my doubts, of course. I'm cautiously more and more optimistic about the future every day though.
That was real good analysis got confused by seeing so many post's today finally understand a lot about it thanks so much :)
Very good info man. Thanks for clearing things up. I'm eager to see how will one be able to create his own smt. I'm not that technical with crypto so it's still in the gray.
Great explanation! ty
thank you for sharing friends
Thanks for sharing keep it up, help vote me
Thanks for inpotent post ....i fiow your post
Great post but we can't predict about future.
great one dude followed and upvoted <3
i agree with you that this coin will be over ruled after the traditinal money, thanks for sharing.
Nice post on steemit!! Please followme ,I will follow back you.
I dont know but it is always nice to have something new.
Thanks for sharing post.
Thanks! Now I understand why Steem price is increasing inspite of the market going down :)
so that's the innovations we get on Steem?
I am really unimpressed.
Instead of kicking the butt of other social platform who struggle to monetize their platform, or enhance the security of the average joes here (with hardware wallet support) , we think that we should add another layer of technical incomprehension. I would have stucked to only one currency to grow the brand (like how unnecessary and bad choice was the idea to allow and promote Golos).
yeah, I am just unimpressed.
"A revolution that will democratize money the same way web democratized publishing"
Thank you so much for all these historical analogies. You really help us to understand what's going on and prepare ourselves.
Paradoxically you also proving that the Steemit-mother will be relevant exactly because here you can find this kind of deeper and clear explanations.
Very well thought out post @dragosroua. With splendid examples & an accurate analogy about how true free thinkers and outside-the-box clairvoyants must see technology advances in front of their noses.
Enjoyed your post big time. And cross my fingers that all your predictions become a cool overwhelming reality sooner than later. :)
¡Upvoted & Resteemed!
I too can understand what your saying about back when the question was, why an online bookstore?
But let me remind people of just went down back then.
Sure the internet popped up, people were creating web pages, selling stuff and profiting on ebay, but there were so many scams going on, like pyramid scenes, people were doing just that, buying a store front, and really not having to stock anything, just have your friends and friends of friends buy from your store, but it was like everything else, people poured money into something they thought would be a get rich , or at least make some money, but instead lost hundreds of dollars each.
It was like when my space came out and then for some reason everyone went to Facebook and never looked back, my space was fine but it became ancient history quick, and then came ebay, boy did I and everyone else make money in the beginning, we could sell just about anything, better than a garage sale! Anything you thought was junk, someone out there wanted, but then people got scammed, items delivered being reported never received and vice versa, people paid for an item and either never reicieved it or got junk.
Eventually people started gaining trust in only certain companies and people with such high ratings, again , I was making some good money, but then came free shipping, and money back guaranteed items, it took the average person out of it unless you could keep up with pretty much either giving stuff away or have enough reserve to take back something a person bought and either broke or damaged the item, especially electronics and computer parts.
Guess what I am saying is yes, this would be a chance to profit like when the internet started, but also be careful, lots of people lost lots of money, and eventually the big dogs will come out and make it where the big stores will take over.
A very good article and appreciate the information, guess I'm showing my age with the beginning of the internet, but it's good to remember history on both sides.
People made a lot and people lost a lot.
Which brings me into crypto, I always say silver is the most undervalued asset, and gold is well worth it if you can afford it, but you also have to take advantage of crypto currency and diversify, lots of money is being made, but again people are losing money, with steem, I believe it will take over Facebook, which would be great!
Again great article, thanks for sharing will look foward to more informative post.
Congratulations @dragosroua
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I applaud the enthusiasm, I really do - I hope you are completely correct. I hope my perspective is horribly wrong. More than anything I hope this.
I think the bitcoin technology, has been known to governments way before it came into the 'mere mortals' hands, and is a red herring to create a ctrypto revolution.
(about 3% of any given population to required to achieve this revolution)
Once underway, legislate away the freedoms.
And the governments (the banks really), will be left in charge, the same as today, except it will be then, even more easily controlled/taxed.
I would love nothing more than it success in the free eutopian future.
I think the Evil of banking at its systems are more powerful, older, and cleverer, than the last few years of crypto technologies. ( even if they didn't create it themselves to manipulate us.
On the upside- I have been wrong about enough things in my life, and I hope with all my heart this is one of those times I am so wrong it's laughable.
in some ways i can see this being ok... but to me steem has more issue to fix then worthless features that is gonna have a token creation that is free and likely to flood steem blockchain with fucking ICO's