Hey all,
24 hours later of diving into Steem and here are my thoughts:
Steem has allowed people to post amazing content and get paid for it. I have a friend who works at a restaurant and is an aspiring writer. He wrote an amazing short story and I've convinced him to post it here, so keep a lookout for it !
At first I was taken aback by the payout system but after reading more about it, I like it. The system encourages long term holdings, commenting and encouraging people to post more awesome content. Of course we all want to withdraw immediately, but this system is best for the network as a whole.
Some of you may have noticed I withdrew my Steem Dollars to Poloniex. I plan on buying the dips and selling the highs to increase my holdings as I've done with my crypto portfolio. I like how the integration makes it easier for people to sell and get Bitcoin to pay bills, ect.
Important when transferring SBD to Poloniex, make sure you don't capitalize the P in Poloniex. Type is as "poloniex"
Steem Dollars - Initially I didn't understand why there were three different tokens, and I'm still on the fence, but it was ALOT easier explaining Steem to people when it was denominated in dollars. I think Steem Dollars are an awesome bridge currency for creating content.
I'm still going through the whitepaper (which is very long!) and had to read a lot of tutorials. People are telling me some negative things and I'd love to engage anyone who has an opinion about it!
Please comment below and I'll respond !
I'm putting together my next post, my prison reading book list- every book I read. A great educational resource for anyone libertarian/free market/crypto minded or just really likes novels and other books !
Charlie
It's been fascinating to see the emotional negative response from the Bitcoin community regarding Steem. Bitcoiners are quicker to call other altcoins a scame than bankers are to call Bitcoin a scam these days.
I'm not sure the psychology behind it other than the fact that when you are really early and really deep in something, you tend to want to dismiss other people that are working on something related but different. It seems bitcoiners have some cognitive biases against Steem and other altcoins right now, though my guess is that will change.
I've been experimenting with the platform quite a bit and I think there's a lot of great things and also some potential problems. I wrote about it here: https://www.getrevue.co/profile/control/issues/control-issue-5-20293
banks are calling bitcoin a scam
bitcoin is colling steem a scam
anarchists are calling banks and fiat currency a scam
Everything is a scam. Send me 19.97 in STD and I'll tell you how to avoid scams! :D
How does one monetize an STD
There are exchanges you can sell STD's and get bitcoins and even change it into USD's.
:D
That @jsteck humor misses the mark again.
Find corrupt politician and repeat process
Am a massive bicoiner and am very excited about steem. I don't see them in competition.
I'm glad to hear such opinions.
It's worth noting that for many people Steem Dollars will be the easiest bridge currency to Bitcoin. So the success of Steem Dollar will mean having an easy on and off-ramp for Bitcoin. Those two can nicely coexist and support each other.
yes so exciting it seems like real synergies exist the more we all need each other to be OPEN
exactly at least for the time being they are both helping each other do the necessary leg work to make this self - sustaining they are hedges against each other like FOREX is now we are the forex of the universe!!!!
I think the community needs more help with good services in general, the industry has big goals but it can't do everything by itself or a select few players.
The main point to remember, and I had this same discussion with people who were anti Ripple, Ethereum and others, is: "It is not a competition". New innovations improve all digital apps and decentralized software. We are all on the same side!
Hot damn ... always great when I read that, especially from someone who has been in the crypto game from the start.
All on the same ride exactly =)
like clump
I've debated other bitcoiners on their use of the word scam, and found when it comes down to it, by their own use of the word 'scam', bitcoin itself is a scam.
I'm a Bitcoin purist and I get wary about new things as well, but prison has taught me life is too short to not explore every opportunity. I'm going to make my own decision and not take someone else's
So true.
The more Bitcoin is negative the better for us I see it :)
Just letting you know there are a number of us BTC supporters who are holding big AND support STEEM. Steemit.com can do what BTC can't and vice versa. It's not all "us vs them"
Welcome to Steemit Charlie! Your initial thoughts are similar to mine. At first I was mostly confused... but within a few days I really started to see the genius of it. If you want to hear a debate/conversation with one of Steemit's biggest critics, Tone Vays and I, I'll be posting it to Steem tomorrow.
Hey man! I had the same issue, he tweeted me and called me out for trying out Steem. The funny part is I know Tone personally and he's a nice guy, I don't know what happened in the past year. I'd love to talk to you about Anarchapulco and some other stuff, my email is [email protected] or I can use the email form on your site.
We had a debate on it. Went really well, IMO.
Basically two main takeaways I got from him:
https://steemit.com/steemit/@blakemiles84/the-great-steemit-debate-tone-vays-vs-blakemiles84
Tone Vays merely put his money where his mouth is and is now milking that cow. There comes a point on public forums when you can't react what you say otherwise you feel you've mentally lost the arguement and will feel inferior. Some weird male, penis measuring competition no doubt.
Yeah, you can hear it in his voice. He is so anti-Steemit that he feels he can't post anything here because it somehow taints him. Like some sort of hypocritical conflict of interest created in his own mind. He could still make thousands if he came here and contributed, but he said he won't. He said he would be the last person to come here once it was proven he was wrong.
That is a sign of someone that is frankly being an idiot in this regard. It takes no effort to setup an account and test the waters. Considering his pedigree he would create a lot of interest and if he had something useful to say he certainly would be rewarded for it. He is all in on "proving" and hoping Steemit is a failure. That's not an honest position to be in.
I for one, looking forward to it! 👍
There is a very easy way to explain the three assets on steem:
Initially I started powering down my SP. Last night I cancelled the power down when I learnt more about SP. I'm looking forward to using my reputation and SP to reward others for good content thus increasing the platform.
Great plan!
Agree conceptually but since there is an actual Steemit company (which has developed and continues to develop the software), it is important to make the distinction that this is not STOCK in the company. It functions economically much like STOCK in the blockchain itself. Of course it isn't literally that either, but it is a useful analogy.
I've been aware of Bitcoin for a while, but never delved into buying it, because I didn't quite understand it. I knew it had value, but without really "getting it," it didn't seem like a wise investment.
But, after about a week and a half on Steemit, I've figured out how to convert my Steem dollars to Bitcoin, and how to sell that Bitcoin for actual cash that goes into my bank account. I've done it twice now. The cash I'm getting is nice, and the more times I sell Bitcoin converted from my Steem dollars, the more I'm learning about Bitcoin, and my understanding of it increases.
I also like the way part of your payout for any article or comment you make money on goes to Steem Power, because you're being made an investor in the company.....something that could really pay out well for you in a couple of years. Making money and investing money, all from writing articles and commenting on good posts like this one....Steemit is potentially lucrative, it is an excellent creative outlet, and it is educational.
Personally, I'm loving it so far.
That sounds fantastic. Looking forward to it.
As for STEEM, I've been a bitcoin purist since early 2013 mainly because I didn't see any other crypto (even those with valuable technical improvements) having any chance of overcoming the massive network effect bitcoin already had. I was reminded of Betamax not beating out VHS.
STEEM (and, more importantly, Steemit) is the first cryptocurrency system I've seen which has the potential for mass user adoption. It got my wife into cryptocurrency after all my attempts for three and a half years failed. That, to me, is really exciting.
Me too, at first I hated the idea of Steem Power locked up for 2 years, but in crypto space it's necessary to avoid the pump and dump nature of failed cryptos in the past.
What negative things are you hearing?
Looking forward to this as I am very new to the libertarian/anarchist/free market talk that everyone seems to be extremely well versed in around here.
the biggest screaming is that steem has to be a ponzi since money is coming from nowhere. However, it is a very poorly designed ponzi as newcomers are not asked to put money in, but rather are paid money. Hmmmm. what type of ponzi doesnt require people to pay anything?
As to the money from nothing, it seems that finding a SHA256 hash with lots of leading zeroes is pretty close to nothing too, as are all the fiats.
Money is money because people all agree that it is money and it usually just comes out of thin air, though gold/silver as a currency is an exception the problem with those is that the economic growth is tied to the physical supply, which is an artificial constraint
You've put into words the concept that still baffles me...I just don't quite understand if Steem dollars actually translate into actual currency that can be used for everyday life. Without a basis, a physical supply, where can the money come from? Having said that, I also know that while our US dollars are based on gold, our treasury doesn't actually have that much gold and thus much of the US dollar is based on thin air too. But still, I don't quite "get" it. I'm new and maybe in time I will and I think I'll try to cash out a small amount and maybe running through the experience of this may help clear things up.
um. US dollars havent been backed by anything for decades. It is just an IOU from your govt.
Steem dollars trade at roughly $1 via several markets, so regardless of how either is backed, they are convertible to each other.
Have you heard that "time is money"?
There are also new thinking that "attention is money"
steemit's currencies represent the time that the content writers and curators put in and the attention that this content gets. In the information age, this is actually closer to real value than some lump of metal you have to pay to store safely.
Steem dollar is basically a freely transferable financial instrument that tracks the value of USD.
Gold and silver are not an exception. They're still valuable (especially gold) simply because people value them and when used in a monetary role it is because people agree to do so.
Thank fuck you're on Steemit jl777 as you crop up on most of the posts I read and seems to tell it like it should be. Many thanks for your input and please keep commenting.
Hi @charlieshrem! I'm a big fan. I saw you in The Rise And Rise Of Bitcoin and you're clearly a really nice dude. Was shocked when you went down, and glad you're back out and enjoying crypto!
I've written a little piece about the various ways people are using Steemit here .. Hope you like it if you get time to check it out. Either way, welcome. Looking forward to reading your thoughts on Steemit over time.
Thank you ! Will do !
Yeah I saw The Rise And Rise Of Bitcoin when it was first released out in LA. That day Bitcoin got smashed back to around $300. I also thought you were real and a very interesting person. It scared the shit out of me when they sent you to "Club FED" and it still does. I look forward to hearing more about your experience. Thanks for being here!
Thank you for sharing your unique view on it. You definitely see things in a new refreshing way :) Steem on!
I did this graph to facilitate the understanding of the three steem assets.
This is great thank you !
I think price stable cryptocurrencies are necessary to get bigger masses to cryptoworld. Most people are too afraid of the risk that comes with bitcoin and other highly volatile currencies.
Steem is a unique combination of a social platform and a payment network. This creates great potential for huge network effect. We have:
So we are really building here a totally new economy. Not just a way of rewarding writers for good content. Read Steemit's Evil Plan for Cryptocurrency World Domination.
Just imagine what would happen if Facebook set up a bank and let their users to use it for free and without any restrictions. Everybody could send money to anybody in the world. Who wouldn't use it?
Steemit is one of a kind. It is a kind of experiment right now, I think. With its own crypto-money and the unique payment system that rewards all contributors is revolutionary. I just wrote my introductory post, but read the white paper and studied Steemit for the last week. As of now, I believe it will be very succesfull. Keep steeming :)
@charlieshrem It's nice to see you here and it was nice to hit you up in chat the other night. It's rare I get to meet someone I actually consider a hero. But to me, you're exactly that. One of my heros. Like I was telling you, a lot of what I've accomplished is the result of some inspiration or another I've gotten from you.
The very first time I decided to buy a bitcoin rather than mine it, I bought from you. I remember there was a typo or something in my address and when I emailed your service because my coins didn't arrive, you personally responded in a less than hour and fixed the problem immediately.
I have never forgotten that!
I'm not trying to blogspam, but thought you might like to check out the reason I think BTC will drop short term since we were talking about it the other night and I really didn't have space in chat for a good explanation.
Either way, thanks for coming to steemit! It's really awesome you're here! Upvoted and following you, of course!
This! Awesome. Thank you for saying that man !
We're very glad to have you here, Charlie. Welcome and let us know if you have questions about how it all works. Not plugging my blog and I won't spam, but I've written a lot of simple How To's and informative pieces on Steemit since it began. We hope you'll feel at home in this community also!
I've been reading so many of them, so thank you for writing them!
@charlieshrem welcome to steem!
It is not that complicated as it sounds, in away steem has only two tokens. Steem power is same like steem, but trapped for two years.
Summary:
steem is like having an assent in an decentralized platform.
Steem is inflated 100% per year. From that round about 90% goes to steem power holders 5% goes to curators, 5% converted to steem dollars as post reward.
(not mentioning the miner / witness reward)
steem power is steem that is ¨trapped¨ for at max two years (in average 1 year) . Steem power equals the power of your voting influence, urrently mainly used for distributing the post reward and electing the witnesses that take are of the blockchain consensus.
Steem dollars are pegged to the dollar and should in the long run give a stable currency to do commerce. The witnesses decide on the interest on steem dollars, currently it is 10% per year. Steem dollars can be exchanged to steem equal to the average steem price of one week. This conversion takes one week.
Thats it, have fun!
Its just many people who hold BTC see it as a threat, it was the same with ETH when it started taking off and will be the same with all top competitors. But really being negative like this helps nothing. Besides, if BTC starts falling I can move it into Steem or vice versa, so its really not an issue. Just some like to get all emotionally negative and feed off that perception they created, all the while its just that, a matter of ones perception and also ones willingness to change it.
You obviously have some catching up to do.. glad to see steemit was one of your first stops. Tomorrow, Sunny King is going to be appearing on the BeyondBitcoin mumble radio show (August 19th) morning. I won't spam your comments with my post, but check out my blog and you'll see it.
I forgot to follow @charlieshrem yesterday, but I am now. :)
Nice good job on trading the dips and selling the highs play the market! Yeah the white paper is kind of long and can put you to sleep...... In short you are paid 90% interest for holding Steem Power and Steem is inflated at 100% a year, Steem Dollars are always supposed to be worth $1 USD! The system is designed to weed itself of any garbage content by simply not up voting an article if you do not think it gives value to the community. The system is not designed to heavily enforce spammers and people posting lots of articles it weeds itself by not up-voting if you don't like it. If you enforce the community that is having the crab bucket mentality described in the white paper. And also there is a 10:1 reverse split on Steem every 3 years so if you hold Steem you are inflated 100% a year plus reverse split 10:1 every 3 years but the price is supposed to go up 90% after the reverse split!
Also you earn more curation rewards if you up-vote content that is 30 minutes old or older and if you up vote a good article before it becomes trending in the trending section before a whale gets to it! So be sure to look for hidden gems of articles and up vote and earn some curation rewards before whales get to it!!!!
@acassity Best way to find those gems is to look in #payitforward BTW :)
to highlight again!
One more time for the people in the back!
Sounds like a bug in the web UI. Capital letters aren't allowed in account names at all, so this shouldn't be accepted.
I feel your excitement on your words! :) glad you're out and free
I'm sorry you had to spend time in prison for a victim-less "crime" :(
NO VICTIM NO CRIME.
Glad the platform appeals to you! It's a great opportunity for most people and there's much potential to change many, many lives! Welcome again and enjoy your stay mate! :)
It's simply amazing how you can have a reputation and then one post gives you whalish power. You are the first post I ever received a curation reward for. Nice to meet you Charlie!
There are a lot of moving parts and it takes time grasp the system as a whole. But when understand it's building an economy and not just a currency it starts to make more sense.
I like to look at it less as a currency and more as an app token that incentives content and discussion
That's what Steem and Steem Power are. Steem Dollars are meant to full fill the currency role.
Yeh it's a great concept splitting it up. See I think for discussions like this, how we have sub comments should increase payout.
I've been saying this for a while. With initial posts that make a lot of money, busually replies are virtually valueless, I think this discourages high quality discussion, which is something I believe should be encouraged. Do you have any thoughts on this?
Discussion is extremely important and I'd like to see more weight for replies that have sub comments, ect that are not just trolls.
nothing prevents people from upvoting comments, it just seems most people are not doing much of that and using all their voting power on the main post
That's what I'm trying to address. I don't want to get everyones hackles up by comparing steemit to reddit, but reddit replies get heavily upvoted and steemit will benefit if steemians take up this habbit imo.
Yes in many posts it is in the comments where the most contribution/value/content is.
In some cases people do not need "incentive" to make a quality in depth comment, but in many cases over time, if there is no "reward" for in depth comments they WILL happen less.
Some of the problem lies in how steemit works but most of that actually lies in the people that either do or do not UPVote comments.
If more people chose to UPvote comments than they would be worth more.
For example one of your comments on introduceyourself @charlieshrem made over $401!
This does happen but is rare.
SO maybe there needs to be built in code that provides incentive for more UPvoting of comments or maybe the Steemit community will just choose to do it more. Either way the potential does exist to give more value to comments thus inspiring more value in the comments them self!
Thanks a lot for your thoughts! Sorry I missed your hello-there post yesterday :(
By all means, share your prison reading list. I've never been to jail - I've never even had a ticket outside of parking tickets - but the aggressiveness of the prosecutorial State has had me wondering if I'll be thrown into jail someday. At first guess, for something like offending a border guard or airport authority.
(That said, I don't dislike cops. As the recent attacks on police have demonstrated, the folks in blue face a Mexican standoff in the rougher areas. The whole law-enforcement thingie is a mess, but I don't see any elegant way out of it so I peg it as tragic.)
It is interesting explaining it to people isn't it? People I've recommended usually convo ends with "... and call me when you have some funds wanting withdrawn" followed with "that's poloniex spelt c l e v e c r o s s" lol.
Curious as to where you are finding the majority of the negativity from? For myself it's the current users.... In some cases had some early success and now struggling with it. Or newer users being dissatisfied with their post rewards.... Outside of the platform I have mostly heard more skepticism than negativity. It's interesting (and a hell of a lot of fun) anyway. Cheers!
Look forward to hearing your thoughts about the whitepaper and your blog post about all the books you read.
Charlie, I'm happy that you are still involved with the crypto community. Best of luck.
Hello, would you be open to discuss/debate your thoughts on STEEM via video chat on one of the crypto talk shows ? Some in the crypto world are convinced its a scam, others think its a great idea and compared to other cryptos, harmless as you don't pay anything for the tokens except your time. Thanks
Enjoyed this Thanks!
I am amazed by the opportunity here, great to be part of something so exciting!
@charlieshrem Hey Charlie, again welcome to steemit. I am amazed when I hear people say that they were shocked when you were thrown in a cage. As soon as I heard of your troubles I was pretty sure you were headed there. Thank goodness you got a "good" judge or I believe you would have been there for many more years. I want to remind people what you said, "These people are not your friends".
Just wanted to let you know from the older generation, We have been looking for a way for many years to be able to control "our" money to avoid the theft and the thieves. You have created that ability and have wakened the world to the possibilities. The kids think it's "cool" but us old folks think its a way out of this Orwellian HELL we have been born into ! Thanks again !
Read More, Reason More ... JTS
Hi @charlieshrem. How do you do the reverse? Steem on Poloniex to SteemIT?
What are you trying to do? If you are withdrawing from Poloniex to your Steem account, just use your username. All lowercase, no '@'. Like this: feedthemachine
The fields available are: Address: , Memo: , Amount: @demotruk Are you saying for address = username? Have you tried this ; )
Yes I have, yes address = username. No need for Memo. Amount is self explanatory.
Hi Charlie, I appreciate getting candid and down-to-earth opinions from someone with your experience and insight. I totally get that feel from you.
I have no issues at all with you withdrawing your Steem Dollars. That is what they are for. You are still invested with an impressive amount of Steem Power after a short period of time. I am sure you will continue on that trajectory- a few thousand here a few hundred there then a few more thousand there.
You are wise to buy Steem at today's currently low prices. Obviously Steemit is going to be around for a while and will continue to be improved. This is the most intriguing use of blockchain tech that I have experienced and I am not even one of the top earners by any means.
I look forward to checking out your prison reading book list.
Until next time...
And for Bitcoin lovers, it's an awesome bridge currency to Bitcoin. Also, it's a perfect hedge to Bitcoin's volatility.
Did you know that Steem Dollars pay you an interest when you hold them? So there is an incentive in keeping them in your Steem wallet.
As for buying dips, you can do that using built-in exchange. Usually price is about the same as on Poloniex when you take into account the SBD discount.
So there is no advantage in moving them to Poloniex unless you want to day-trade other coins.
As I understand it, SP pays interest as well along with SBD? The Poloniex market is alot more liquid right now, but Im playing around with both.
Holding Steem Dollar: give true interest.
Holding Steem Power is giving no true interest. You just get partly compensated for the 100% inflation of steem. From this 100% you get 90% back. In away with round about 5% ¨you¨ pay for curation rewards and 5% for post rewards. So if steem grows more then 10% each year and you hold your steem in steem power you win.
Yes, SP pays interest, but it's only to compensate for dilution. If you believe that STEEM price will go up, it's better to keep it in form of SP.
SP pays interest in the form of more STEEM which makes it more like a stock split or stock dividend. It mostly compensates for the very high inflation and (long-term) resulting declining price of individual STEEM token units; most of it is not actually earnings. SBD has a fixed (or at least stabilized) token value so the interest is there "real" interest (variable rate; currently 10%).
welcome!
here is a guide for steem.
https://steemit.com/steemit/@facer/a-guide-to-steem-world
Great to hear from you Charlie, and yes, we'll keep an eye out for the posts of your book reading list.
I believe Bitcoin is here for the long run. Devcoin has a similar concept and it has been around for a few years.
I'm interested to see if you, and other BTC heavy weights, divest any substantial amount of BTC to invest in SP. I spent about three days on Steemit and sold some BTC to buy SP. Now that I'm going on a month it's getting harder to hold those bitcoins...
Steem is great!
Charlie, I am so glad to read your thoughts on this, I really like it so far myself, although I didn't make as big of a splash as you when I joined! I look forward to seeing your reading list, and wonder if we could offer the books on www.bravenewbookstore.com (yes we take BTC). I will probably use your list to send some books to a dear friend / political prisoner from Alaska named Schaeffer Cox.
Charlie,
Take a look at the Steem Video Tutorials, particularly the Understand Permission Keys. https://steemit.com/steem/@pairmike/learning-steemit-is-easy-as-1-2-3
I look forward to following you on here and hope you enjoyed the book I sent! How much are you benching now? :)
Cool! If you want to know more, here's a roadmap for Steemit. https://steemit.com/steemit/@xzars1/steemit-roadmap-and-the-near-future
I can't speak to the system architecture, but as a noob moron trying to navigate here, I do have a few concerns. Looking at this like any other decentralized, free market, it seems odd to me that a whale's upvote (which is like their approval currency) has greater weight than a minnow's. Their level of influence should probably be more a function of purchasing power (the ability to vote for more than a minnow), but a vote from anyone should count as a vote. Currency should be valued equally system-wide.
Steemit strikes me as similar to the book publishing industry before the internet and on-demand publishing made it accessible for everyone to self publish and self promote. 99.99% of authors never had a chance of being accepted by a corporate publisher, and 99.99% of authors here don't seem to have a chance of being accepted by the whales - content quality is beside the point. You just don't get seen, as the whales are either inundated or prefer to focus on the posts of their friends. That said, I'm not going to give up on it, not yet, until I better understand the system. Hopefully my concerns can be easily explained away by those more knowledgeable.
@charlieshrem I'm one day in to my Steemit experience. My first post is trending and doing well, and I'm still very lost. I'm pushing through a lot of tutorials myself. More than the money, though, I've been so desperate for an alternative to Facebook. I was all in on Ello but it fizzled as quick as it exploded. This seems sustainable and I love the revenue for creators.
You are already doing one of the things that benefits successful people on steemit the most. Interacting with people. As much as posts can earn you money, investing your time and giving your knowledge while sharing with others allow you to have a platform where people actually care what you say.
That is a major difference between here and twitter/instagram.
If you are not active in the comment section and never respond to comments and questions, I don't see very much growth.
You are already ahead of the game and have brought credit with you to the community so you have a leg up already.
You have the ability to take your blogging in any direction you wish. As much as I'd like to see you succeed, I would also like to see you give back to the community whether that be through time, contests or helping keep new users here.
I like to think of the money we receive as a bonus to this platform to keep from focusing on it too much. Helping others reach their goals is really the best way to propel you to reach your own.
As more people come here, it will be increasingly important to maintain relationships with followers and craft creative thought provoking posts.
Everyone has a lot of questions when they first join and post, but there are many users who are willing to reach out and help all.
If I can be of any help to you, you are welcome to reach out on steemit chat (bendjmiller222)
Hope you are enjoying your time here so far.