I think this is a more important question than most people on here realize -- and also a little more complicated than most people (myself included) realize. Firstly, I'll admit that I'm (in my own eyes at least) still super new here -- but I've been actively trying to wrap my head around everyone for about 2 months now. That being said, I have thoughts on this that could go for either side of the argument -- and I wont pretend to have any sweeping conclusions.
There is aboloutely no question in my mind that stability would be a good thing. I'm a civil engineer when I'm not pretending to be a rock-climbing on Steemit, so I interact with a fair amount of people on a daily basis that have lots and lots of resources. The number one thing I hear from every single owner of infrastructure, or land developer, or whathaveyou, is that they want to try to minimize risk as much as possible.
Currently, the volatility of crypto is general isn't doing itself any favors for mass adoption. In the case of STEEM, when I first approached it, I was confused for quite a long time by the concept of SBD's. I've been trying to convince a lot of buddies & co-workers that they should get into STEEM while it's still early adopter, but they're all very put off by the crazy volatility, and the generally confusing roles that SBD & STEEM play in the ecosystem (remember, I'm working with engineering professionals).
My generally thoughts on the matter, I think, can be summed up in two or three points:
- Stability itself is a good thing;
- The question needs to be asked eventually -- "Stable to what?", since a large part of the point is trying to get away from centralized currencies.
- In the short-term though -- stability could be seen as a bridge for people to come over comfortably.
- If a stable SBD peg is to be actively pursued, it makes sense to me that it should be done ASAP (maybe a hard-fork where a quantity of SBD's are issued proportionally to all holders such that it drives the price to 1USD = 1SBD?), and then abandoned once the user-base grows large enough to be self sustaining.
- At which point, maybe STEEM / SBD's can become their own reference point?
I'd like to finish my comment by reiterating that I'm very new to all of this, and this is just the opinion of an average Joe, while he sips beer and gets ready to write his daily climbing post (shameless plug to yesterdays post).
Doing an airdrop of SBD on everyone is quite a radical solution and probably not something I'd consider stable. I can imagine people (especially speculators on exchanges) would freak out about that and it would probably seriously damage the reputation of the STEEM blockchain. It's certainly an interesting idea to radically fix the peg though. I often use the word "interesting" for things that I would never actually do in real life though. :)
I agree, we should always be focused on minimizing risk, especially systemic risk. I also think stability is really important and the broken peg right now with prices on posts that don't make sense really add to a lot of unnecessary confusion. Hopefully we can fix that going forward.
Thanks for commenting.
Hey if you say thanks for commenting -- I should say thanks for listening.
I agree that doing an 'airdrop' (awesome name, btw) of SBD is a radical solution. I'll admit to personally having some left leanings in my line of thinking (I also have the fortunate situation of not living paycheque to paycheque), but I am curious to hear why you think it would be an unstable solution -- the overall value of everyones 'total number of tokens' would stay the same, and SBDs are pretty divisible already, aren't they? There's little doubt in my mind that you know what you're talking about and have thought about it extensively -- just curious.
Also -- in my line of work (I deal with a lot of municpal infrastructure that people interact with extensively) people are often freaking about changes. And I'm compelled to ask:
At some point, ideally, Steem should become something more than an investment platform, shouldn't it? Is it not supposed to be, first and foremost, a 'decentralized content curation platform'?
EDIT: I should clarify my last question as: "Is it not supposed to be, first and foremost, a 'decentralized content curation platform' -- so then would it not be best served by becoming as immediately accessible by as many creators as possible via stability?"
The 'unstability' of airdropping SBD is that it sets a precedent, making the future outlook for the system completely unstable. If loads of SBD just fell out of the sky today, who says that won't happen tomorrow?
Also, the value of any crypto-currency at the moment comes from supply and demand on the crypto markets. Therefore being an attractive investment opportunity benefits its users immensely (it simply makes the rewards for content curation and creation higher).
Revolutionary and principal about Steem is the fact that rewards in crypto-tokens are built into content creation and curation. You can imagine that the value of those rewards (i.e. the value of the tokens) is vital and a driving factor for adoption as well.
On the STEEM vs. Steemit question, this post may help: STEEM Is NOT Steemit. STEEM Is More Valuable Than Steemit.
As for leaning left, you might enjoy these posts:
When it comes to cryptocurrency, the commitments made to investors about the supply is one of the single most important promises made. When a token violates that trust, it can hurt the community for many years. It's certainly not something anyone who understands the economics involved should seriously consider without very, VERY careful thought. Even then, I have trouble thinking of a situation where it would be justified unless it avoids some type of systemic risk which could destroy everyone's value.
Thanks for taking the time to ask these questions and follow up in discussion on them -- I appreciate it, have found it very informative, and have given you a vote for witness because of it.
I've seen a couple UBI posts floating around -- thanks for sharing these other ones. I'll definitely give them a read.
Thank you for your support. :)