Hey, @abh12345.
Asher, blowing up my feed getting in last minute 2019 posts. :)
Okay, so I'm not sure exactly how to take this, knowing that a little over half the year, I hardly did anything, and yet, somehow, there I is in 15th place.
Must have done something the first five and a half months. :)
Well, thank you once again for all you do for STEEM, even when you're working full-time, moving, seeing your daughter, etc., etc. You put a smile on my face with this one. :)
Figures that @janton in stealth mode would still end up at the top of the charts.
It's been a while since you've seen two posts in one day for myself - New Years Eve without plans and under the weather gave me a whole day to myself.
I've had a few people wondering how they placed so highly, and I guess part of that is the 'competition' have dropped off a fair bit. Still, the numbers don't lie and everyone in that list deserves credit.
Thanks for your encouragement and support, wishing you and yours a superb 2020.
Howdy sir glen! I'm as shocked as ever because I really cut back in 2019! For being out of it even more you placed pretty darn good!
Hey, @janton.
Top 15—though something like a third of your score. :) Engagement is feeling like an endangered species, though, so we'll have to see what happens with 2020, Communities, SMTs and the hordes that are supposed to finally show because of them. :)
A very happy and prosperous new year to you and yours, sir!
Howdy sir glen and thank you! Yes, the experts that I'm reading about all expect cryptos to soar when fb, google, and the others bring out their coins. But sometimes Steem doesn't follow the rest of the altcoins for some reason as you know.
But if prices increase significantly I'd think the new membership would grow too. But maybe these other things like SMT's will make it grow without price increases.
Hey, @janton.
I'm wondering if it won't have the opposite effect, where people take their money out of the smaller alt coins like STEEM and put them into the Facebook (Google's doing one too?) etc.
I'm not sure what's going to be the allure of those coins, but it obviously won't be decentralization, privacy or transparency.
Maybe the idea is it will drive people to the alt coins for all of that? I don't know.
But then, I'm not claiming to be an expert, and I don't understand the investor mentality that much, so there you go. :)
I'm not sure why all these companies are racing to put out these coins but some people say that by creating their own currencies one or more of them could be adopted by the rest of the world and whoever can pull that off and make a one-world currency...well, they will be the most powerful person in the world.
So I think it ultimately might have to do with power. They already have all the wealth they could ever need. I do know that congress is kind of panicked at the moment because they can't stop these coins and they don't want to lose control of the money supply.
Which is why the feds are in the race too. If the feds get their coin set up, people are calling it the Fedcoin at the moment, and they see these other giant companies are rolling out their own coins...then the feds could force the end of paper money and into digital by saying a dollar is now worth one Fedcoin and that's the law now.
It would force everyone to convert to the Fedcoin.
You're right though about all these altcoins and having the opposite effect, I think that's very possible. How is steem even being marketed? You think they aren't marketing it right?
As far as I know, there isn't a concerted marketing effort going on for STEEM. At least not in any sustained, traditional way. And actually, not having ads flooding the airwaves or internet space is fine—but there really ought to be some kind of uniform message going out from us, the STEEM community—and when I say uniform, I mean, a consistent message of what STEEM is and what it can do and how that might help people.
There's enough diversity of living, thought and experience that people can tailor the message to fit their own groups. But within those micro-messages, there should be some kind of consistency with what STEEM is, what it can do, how it can help, etc. Tone should probably be similar somewhat, too, I think.
STEEM can be a lot of things to a lot of people, but there's also things STEEM expects from users, too. Stake to play is one. Some positivity and level of loyalty is another. Maybe that's more dependent on who's got the most stake weight, meaning who's making up the rules and enforcing them, but a dose of reality, positivity and some respect for STEEM's capabilities will go a long way, regardless.
re: coins
Well, see, that's just it. Facebook is worldwide, and if their coin suddenly allows people to do more than just buy and play games on Facebook—but it starts solving real life problems—then it's not just the US and our Congress that begins to lose hold on their citizens.
But the problem with the big companies doing this is they're already heavily regulated, and going to be even more so, by the governments they could potentially supplant, so I'm doubtful they'll be doing anything that would somehow undermine the government. It's more likely they will be doing the opposite—deter people from getting into cryptocurrency because of this or that.
Whether it's a monolithic federal government or an international conglomerate, which is influenced by many countries but not really controlled by any, neither really scream out "decentralized" or "private" or "uncensored."
So, basically, they'll control a narrative to educate the masses on what a cryptocurrency is, which won't include any of the things that has attracted the rest of us to them so far.
I agree sir glen but like your last sentence says, the information and education about cryptos will come and the sheeple will get in, just not for the same reason as we did. At least that's one possibility.
The only thing I know for sure is that big changes are coming in the financial realm and lots of forces will be battling it out for the top spots. I just wish I knew who is going to win so I can invest in them early!