Seeing that this is the top post in my feed, I wanted to share my thoughts on the current proposal to expedite the current 13 week power-down period to 4 weeks. This is SOLELY my opinion as a content creator based on what I understand about Steemit, Steem, and my understanding of the implications that this change could make to the community, this platform, and Steem's overall market value.
Hello @steemitblog, this is my feedback! I wanted to write a dedicated post to cover my thoughts.
t. I am pursuing my Bachelor's in Computer Information Systems.
I agree with both @aggroed that people who shouldn't be allowed to take things for free and quickly dip out of the system. However, @berniesanders makes a lot of sense as investors paying for their Steem shouldn't be held hostage for wanting to invest into the platform!
The current Steemit is trying to fit everyone into one mold, where circumstances greatly contrast depending on whether you are a content creator or an investor. I believe that there should "different withdrawal options available" if you are investing, and benefits for keeping your Steem powered up for longer periods of time if you are growing your account through producing content.
Why not provide periodic SMT airdrops that award various tokens for holding more Steem in your account, so that it becomes a choice to be staked? There can be community-driven events that require an entry fee in tokens. This rewards those who keep more of their funds on the platform by providing an additional incentive on top of the votes posts and comments receive. As a content creator, I wouldn't be off-put by longer power-down periods if there were an upside to it.
I appreciate that @blocktrades, being an exchange account is not only looking out in their best interests but also wants Steemians to look at the larger picture in stating;
"I'm pretty sure this will result in people losing more money due to phishing attacks that obtain their keys."
Risks with a shorter withdrawal period not only assist phishing attacks through various communication channels, but also allows scammers, bid bot abuse, and upvote rings the tools to get out faster, I am very against the current iteration of this idea. @gtg makes a good effort to explain that the account recovery process is already slow, and the shorter power-down period will only make it more difficult to properly detect and deal with site-wide abuse.
@inertia brought up a good point about people who like to speculate and diversify their investments.
My idea to help Steem liquidity for investors is that when you power up from an "external source" like you bought Steem through through the site or through an exchange (instead of receiving it internally), it gets recorded on the chain. The amount purchased should be the same amount you are allowed to quickly power down as opposed to simply holding Steem without being able to use it for voting. I feel that if you buy Steem, you should be able to use it for voting and still be able to power the purchased amount down at a faster rate.
This way people have the opportunity to try out investing in Steem as a short-term effort as well as through long-term. I agree with @theycallmedan when he says that;
"A month is still too long for a large investor to YOLO on(power-up) and doesn't satisfy a way to get out instantly."
Investors should be allowed to invest as they please. Imagine if people could swing trade Steem :0 like any other coin. The goal should be to evolve Steem and Steemit in a way that is beneficial to everyone. While I don't know what fixes should be approved, I feel that flexibility is a key issue that should also be looked into.
Thank you for reading my post! I wanted to comment my thoughts on this proposal, but I also wanted to show how these seemingly different ideologies tie into one another. I want to believe that there are a lot of people that care about Steem and Steemit.
Like my post? Feel free to upvote or even downvote my post if you don't agree. I came to Steemit because everyone is allowed to have an opinion and a voice!
With love 💖,
@shello
Nothing stops anyone to buy or sell STEEM. If by "Investing in STEEM" you mean buying STEEM on exchange just like people buy BTC, then sure. Swing trading? Sure. Still possible.
Power down period is not about STEEM, it's about VESTS, a.k.a. Steem Power to simplify things. You lock STEEM by powering it up to gain influence on the platform. It is also crucial to governance and security of a platform.
Hello @gtg,
Sorry if I wasn't being clear in my initial post. I believe people should be able to VEST and un-VEST at a faster rate, especially if you are purchasing coins to vest with. Okay so on Steemit, there is SP (Vests), SBD, and STEEM. That's already too complex for people to want to onboard. Fiat uses only one currency, so why are there three? Who is going to want to use three currencies? (these are rhetorical questions).
You can only invest and uninvest in Steem quickly if don't power up. You can't change SP to STEEM without powering down.
You should be able to buy Steem, use it to power up. Be able to vote, and power down faster than 13 weeks or even 4... Because you purchased it. I don't actually see the point in buying Steem if you only have the option to hold it (and have it do nothing) or power up and have it locked up for long periods of time. I feel that Steem as a coin loses its utility.
Regular people don't have 13 weeks to lock up their funds trying a new investment. I feel that the way SP is locked doesn't make sense if you are looking to buying into a coin, and want to see what it does. That alone makes Steemit look unattractive to most people.
At the same time, it doesn't make sense to allow everyone to take all their funds out regardless of the amount in such a short amount of time. That's why, I'm suggesting that if you buy VESTs /SP and not earn it, you should be able to have more control of when you cash out because you bought in.
If you earn SP on site, 4 weeks is too short. Steemit will absolutely crash and burn.
Big Yikes my dude.
Mahalo,
@shello
I disagree :-)
Not true.
It's not that simple with fiat. Within EU, there's not only EUR, there's also BGN, HRK, CZK, DKK, HUF, PLN, RON, SEK and even CHF. Oh, also GBP, but that's about to change very soon ;-)
There are plenty of various financial instruments.
Among them there are term deposits.
You can buy USD, you can buy U.S. savings bonds, you can buy term deposit.
That's not a reason good enough to withdraw. There are term deposits where it's impossible to withdraw/terminate before maturity.
STEEM utility is still there. You can transfer your funds within 1.5 second on average. Without fees. You can use it on internal market to trade/speculate with SBD.
To "see what SP does" you can lease SP on the available markets.
It doesn't matter what's the source of Steem used for SP because effect on governance and security is the same.
You are really underestimating possible threats to whole ecosystem and anti-abuse value of lock period.
And it's totally alright to disagree c:
What I mean is that each currency (fiat) can only be used at one place a time. I can't go to the store rn and buy things with Euros y'know? I do see where you are coming from, there are many different ways of investing and that is something I should have put more consideration into.
Maybe I don't think the same, like what if someone came to the platform, powered up, then before 13 weeks they wanted to leave and then found out they couldn't take it out?
I know that you can lease out your SP and vice versa, but what about the learning curve for someone coming in? I feel that Steemit is too aggressive on long term investments and benefits only, and new people coming in will see that Steemit is too hard, and will move to something easier.
I think that most users coming in aren't going to take the time and effort to learn such a complicated system. Maybe there should be more transparency about the lock system instead of a straight-up change to the power-down schedule.
I'm not saying that people who buy steem should be able to power up and down instantly, but that there should be more incentives that makes people want to invest and stay powered up longer, not a mechanism that forces people to stay.
There are other sites and services (in the cryptoshere and outside) that allow users to opt out, and I feel that when new users come to Steemit they can't opt out so it feels like their freedom is taken away at that point.
I wanted to suggest that there should be some parameters in place that allow opting out early depending on the situation, in ways that don't harm the Steemit ecosystem. I feel like we want similar things and I'm genuinely trying to see where you're coming from.
Flexibility in general, I feel is very important.
Mahalo,
@shello