According to the recent Weiss Reporting, STEEM performed very well- consistently ranking B (i.e. no coin has rated A). It attracted questions from Weiss's subscribers why STEEM is rated so high. They replied with couple of pages on STEEM's strengths. However, they also mentioned about STEEM's major weakness which is its skewed distribution or, chaotic governance of whales. They are probably right. It will take time to solve such a complicated issue.
Have you watched the cucumber test?
In this test, two Capuchin monkies find rocks and are rewarded with cucumber or grape. Due to fairness sensitivity among the primates, the monkey with the cucumber reward resists and throws it out.
STEEM being the most transparent blockchain, every action of every user is visible to anybody. Therefore, deemed unfair activities are easily judged by the other users. However, human society existed within a pyramid of authorities from the beginning of the civilization. Most of the actions of authorities are hidden by abstractions, therefore, it is not resisted all the time but few times (e.g. French revolution, or Russian Revolution etc.). Even in the skewed distribution of assets of all time (i.e. today) where richest 1% hold assets of more than bottom 50% of the world population, it is not resisted much because it is hidden behind lots of abstractions.
STEEM's system of distribution is better since it shows that whales are losing power. It will take long time that distribution to take place. However, there are couple of proposals from influential steemitians such as @liberosist, @tarazkp etc. to distribute STINC's SP to large number of valuable Steemitians on conditions. The Steemitians who will receive SP will curate and contribute to the platform. Once they achieve certain SP (or, time), their SP will be given to another contender. This scheme will make a large number of middle class Steemitians who will work for the good health of STEEM blockchain. Another proposal is make a Helsing: vampire killer (i.e. monster killer), where a big SP account or collection of SP accounts will fight bad actions of a big whale. Since it is a subjective issue, it will be decided by the board of selected members.
These are the proposed solutions. There will be more. However, STEEM is a self-correcting system, if it does not take actions, it will die like orkut or myspace (i.e. earlier social platform). Due to recent rumor of EOS based social media platform or future ones, STEEM will face stiff competitions. It has to be changed for better (e.g. distribution) or, it will be reminded as the first but not the most successful blockchain based social media.
Problem with any DPoS like STEEM even EOS or BTS is that people who have the stakes (i.e. large holding) have the most say (i.e. capable of large upvote). But not necessarily, the large holders are the rational beings and benevolent (e.g. @ranchorelaxo with 1.1M SP voting 10s of @haejen's posts daily instead of voting thousands of minnows). It will take some trials and errors, few adaptations on the road to find a sweet spot.
However, STEEM has the early mover advantage like Facebook over Google-plus, it will be hard to dislodge it. BTC is not technically better than lots of Altcoins (even LTC is faster and has 56 TPS while BTC is slower and has 7 TPS). Do anybody think LTC will overtake BTC soon-- this is called early mover's network effect advantage? STEEM has this advantage to make the first move and acquiring first 1M (i.e. it will be very soon) users.
Steemit (i.e. most popular app on STEEM blockchain) has lots of problems, by any means, solutions are not easy. It is evolution and adaptations with adjustment through hardforks. Therefore, any new blockchain based Social Media will struggle with similar or different problems. Can anybody argue that they cannot mine 10K BTC or LTC with their GPU or even CPU? This is called early mover advantages since whales bought STEEM in loads when STEEM did not have any significant value. They trusted the system and HODL, their persistence gave value to STEEM. But big power comes with the big responsibility, therefore, whales have to behave rationally to protect their wealth, since they are lined up to lose big if STEEM/they do not function rationally.
CONCLUSIONS
STEEM is not a perfect system and it has lots of issues. One of which is the chaotic governance by whales. The solutions are not easy and therefore, will take time. STEEM blockchain is self-correcting as whales are loosing power to burgeoning dolphins and minnows. However, having largest stakes STINC has the biggest responsibility to make better distribution of STEEM so that the system works better. A system like mini-economy of STEEM will perform best when it has a large number of middle class STEEM holders rather than few whale holders and extra-large minnows who are just struggling. In future, there will be competitions, therefore, to take its first mover advantages, STEEM/STINC/whales has to work smart and fast.
Disclaimer: This opinion is not a financial advice, it is my personal perspective and opinion. Please seek professionals for financial decisions.
Image sources: Most images are open sourced (e.g. Pixabay, Wikimedia etc.) with Creative common license. Some images are used with due courtesy to respected owners.
Thanks for reading.
@riseofth
Cryptominer since 2013, occasional trader and tech blogger
This article was super intense! Felt like I was getting thrown back on what to believe! I do want to ask, do we have a whale problem? At a billion dollar market cap it still seems up for grabs. What do you think? I agree we’ve got first movers advantage and it will be hard to replace. Not to say it will be #1 but it will not go away so easily!! Awesome post!! Upvote / Resteem
At some point, institutional buyers will enter (to overall altcoin market that have strong fundamentals) who will be the long term investors. This will stabilize STEEM. Also, effects of SMT, community and automatic signup process have to be realized, hopefully mostly positive. Moreover, a big marketing campaign is overdue, may be STINC is waiting on SMT release. Finally, few big investors (e.g. Winklevoss) can speculatively take positions. Weiss rating is helping the cause for big investors.
Good post like the pic of the capitalist pyramid couldn't be more true in life I'm sure I seen myself at the bottom supporting the pyramid lol 😂😂
Lets hope Steem continues in the decentralized direction and whales wont be able to take control of the platform.
Good postings, and good news stories .. I really like your post, because it can understand about it better
last pick is choose...
i saved it.
This post has received a 0.31 % upvote from @speedvoter thanks to: @riseofth.
Thank you for pointing out some of the issues with Steemit. I, being new and all have been focused on reading only the positives. I do see some very large whales/orcas with so much Steem power I am quite envious because I didn't onto Steemit sooner, but hey at least I am ahead of most people...lol!