Yes. Check the SMT white paper.
Everyone can start a SMT but there’s requirements, especially if you want to issue your own tokens. SMTs need to issue against held (not leased) STEEM.
Don’t focus too much on Appics. They’re an advertising/marketing agency. They made that obvious in their talk at SteemFest: they have years of existing relationships with clients. That was their main asset. Or the only thing she could reply when asked about Steepshot.
https://smt.steem.io - it’s linked on the steem.io homepage.
Thanks. Just had a look. This is what you a referring to below? So you don't have a lot of faith in Appics to deliver the IT side of their pitch? Their presale sold out in ~20 minutes.
"STEEM Purchased for Transaction Bandwidth Enables Maximally
Profitable Participation across SMTs
With the advent of SMTs, there is growing demand for users to hold STEEM, because
users need to increasingly hold STEEM in order to participate, consume, and use Steem
services at a rate maximally commensurate with their growing potentials in respective
SMT ecosystems. Put simply, as power users are growing their earning potential in SMT
communities, they need more STEEM to achieve the bandwidth allowance needed to
perform at their highest possible rate of return in SMT ecosystems. At an application
level, the demand for bandwidth may be satisfied by users or by businesses, which can
delegate surplus bandwidth to their users."
The only reason I ask about Appics is as a photographer I hope they succeed. I have not been that impressed with steepshot.
It’s early days. Steepshot is a side project (free time project) of some developers, in a very early alpha. Appics for now is merely marketing. Nobody knows if it will even launch. Or how good it will be.
Expect many more to enter that space though. It’s all very early. First mover is not always the winner. See Steepshot.