personally, I kind of hate the fact that promoted posts "burn" money. enough crypto is burned off already just by people losing their keys and such, so why "accelerate" the process. perhaps this made more sense when the annual inflation rate of STEEM was 100% or so annually.
I think I might appreciate the promoted feature more if at least those funds went towards perhaps some sort of community stake-weighted vote on how best to use the funds (projects, charitable efforts, etc). And by "happenstance", that's sort of what it seems whaleshares is trying to achieve! :)
I'm just reading this now - I am new to all of this crypto stuff as well as to steemit. What does the term "burn money" even mean? Trying to learn and constantly lost here :)
as if you would destroy a dollar bill by burning it, you destroy crypto by sending it to an address (in this case @null) where it's basically lost forever, and cannot be used by anyone else.
That is a completely new aspect of this world to me. Thank you for the explanation but I'm not sure I get the analogy.
Are you saying that @null will never spend it and so it is lost? Why will @null never spend it, or by what mechanism does he/she/it destroy it? How would that be different from someone who is just holding steem money of the various kinds without spending it to boost their power or whatever?
I'm not sure I understand how the money is created in the first place and this is another side to it. I really appreciate your replying. Thank you.
because @null doesn't actually exist as a user, any money sent there is forever inaccessible to anyone! And that's also my point, it's no different than someone just holding STEEM, EXCEPT that they can eventually choose to spend it. Unless they lose their keys, of course, at which point it's also as good as "burned" (ie. completely inaccessible forever, or until quantum computers figure out how to crack it)!
Regarding money creation, think of the STEEM blockchain as a new sort of "blockchain government". And how do governments create money? They "print" it into existence, out of "thin air". That's basically what the STEEM blockchain does as well. However, it is done very precisely according to a specific algorithm agreed upon by the community and the witnesses they support.
All new STEEM and SBD go into the reward pool and are delegated according to the rules of the system. So, unlike say the Federal Reserve, each of us actually has a say in how that newly printed crypto money will be distributed to the stakeholders in the community! How great is that?! :)
Anything that diversifies me out of fiat is fabulous to hear! This is why I am on barter platforms as well. Thank you for that very good information and I am pasting into my long doc of info to understand.
What is the benefit side of the destruction for null or for anyone else?
Why would null not want to spend the money?
How to you get to be a non-existent user in the first place?
Are many users non-existent like null, or just is this one or one of a few?
Why would this system allow the destruction or is there no way to stop it and that is just a risk in this type of currency?
So many questions!
As far as I know, @null is the only account where our money gets burned.
there's no way to stop it, because anyone could still send money to an account where the owner has lost their keys. as I said above, originally, I believe the idea was to control STEEM inflation somewhat (last year, it was around 100% annually). but inflation is much lower now, around 9% or so (that's also where the reward pool comes from).
as for the @null account, that was just built into the system as more or less a "burn" address where funds could never be retrieved (again, because no one has the key).
ok - that explains a lot - more to process through my head about this. I'm actually trying not to focus on the money side of things and stick with the content only until I have any money to worry about - so I don't really even know the details of the money at all.
But this explains a lot about he system so I really appreciate all of it. I had heard of the inflation rate before but ignored thinking about it. Now I have some info to think about.
It's interesting to be here while it's crashing and I have no dog in the race. I saw innumerable people putting money in on the way up and I know some are retrieving it now. Just like the stock market! At least I semi-understand that farce.
@null is having so much money at the moment that his wallet can't be even loaded :) :) :)
But i agree and i understand concept of @null, non-accessible account with wallet defined in config for steem blockchain.
HAAHA Funny I BUMP into YOU here! Anyway, thanks for the explanation, so it is frowned upon by part of the community to use the upvote sellers it seems. I just realized how insanely easy it is to take advantage of and I was thinking of using vote selling to promote a guy on youtube to come to steemit with his 80,000 followers, if using vote bots helped me snag him and his 80k followers would that still be considered as a "net" negative to the community? I am essentially advertising that which is disliked by the author I think, but with the caveat that it potentially could strengthen the steemit user base hmmmmmmmm.
And who is going to decide, where this money go ???
New steem is created every day and will be forever. Burning steem is just to put upword pressure on the price. When more is created, the value goes down, when more is burned, the value goes up. Of course, that is only the supply side of the equation. You have to factor in demand as well.