Can we have it all?

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(Edited)

If you follow @steemitblog (which you should), you will have noticed a counter proposal for how to lock and unstake Steem Power. You can go there and have a look. The sticking point for many people is represented here:

I made this one as well, which might work in this case too:

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While I am all for personal responsibility and taking care of one's own keys, I also am quite aware that crypto for most people is new and the learned habits don't support security. Thinking that most people who will come onto Steem will hopefully be non-technical users arriving from platforms that are quite happy to offer account recovery through emails and the like, Steem developers should recognize the risks and understand that not everyone is like them.

I have found it incredible how many people get scammed in chat by people pretending to be whales saying send me BTC for upvotes or any number of other scams. But then, I remember greed. When it comes to the potential for gains, many people will instead take the risk - there is nothing wrong with that. However, when things do go pear-shaped, they blame the system, not their own decisions.

I would predict that many people would take the shorter powerdown phase to keep their Steem close to liquid, but then blame the security level if anything did happen. And it will. I am not sure how many people have lost their keys on Steem and some are retrievable, but not all. With all the alts flying around created through anonsteem and resource credits, there are likely a lot that are irretrievable if keys are lost.

I am glad hat they aren't considering moving on this until after the next hardfork at least, as that gives some time for some more thought into the matter and I am hoping that while perhaps it would help Steem price, so would a thousand other activities - like marketing and creating development tools for web creators and admins.

When there is discussion around a topic, it is easy to invest energy there and let a little sunk-cost fallacy creep in as well as overemphasizing the importance of the conversation due to the immediate interest. This can lead to ignoring more pressing concerns that could have more of an influence on the future. However, I do really like when there are community discussions around various topics where all kinds of people can have their voices heard.

And, this is having voices heard as this proposal wasn't instigated by Steemit Inc, it was a community-sourced initiative that got supported through the SPS, which in turn led to more discussion and consideration, for and against. While great, this is also part of the reason development on Steem goes so slowly, as in a decentralized community with many agendas in play, consensus can be hard to reach and there is virtually no way everyone will ever get their way all of the time, no matter how much Steem they hold.

Just like the meme above where there is a trade-off between liquidity and security, decentralized governance has its own pros and cons over centralization. Facebook and Google are good examples as neither of them care much of what the user opinion is, as long as they can capitalize on services. There is no, "we aren't going to do that because it is morally questionable" because they are corporations with a singular goal, profits and by default, the power the profits will bring.

This means that, because power is more widely spread and transparent on Steem, community decisions are harder to reach, but they are likely going to support the community when they are. This doesn't mean that all the decisions are good and lead to positive outcomes, it is just that more of the diverse community positions are represented and considered.

As I have said, while I do not feel strongly about the importance of the powerdown period at this time, when it comes to the security of crypto assets I would rather err on the side of caution, and slow down moves that could open up vulnerabilities. But as always, I am not the only one who gets to decide who does what and when it all happens.

Thankfully.

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]

Onboarding



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34 comments
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(Edited)

I just visited @steemitblog

Hello Steemians, as of now, the proposal to lower the power down period to 4 weeks has 20 million Steem Power backing it, while the proposal not to lower the power down period has around 17 million Steem Power behind it.

I am wondering if the increase in the price of Steem has anything to with people buying specifically to make sure the rules change. I am wondering if the price will slump again after the decision has been made.
Any thoughts to share with regard to that?

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(Edited)

I think it's highly unlikely people would buy steem just for a rule change. It's more likely just new money entering the crypto market on a broad scale. Infact I think we are going to see sustainable gains like this for another 2-3 years now.

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I think we are going to see sustainable gains like this for another 2-3 years now.

What contributes to you drawing that conclusion?

We have a dwindling user base, many of the new accounts being created are just troll accounts used for flag attacks funded by Steemit inc. From where I am sitting things don't look that hopeful right now.

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Maybe so but there are many more accounts being created by actual people with interest in the platform. I ran into a dude yesterday that just joined and bought over 4K SP because he saw Steem and believed in it.

Point is, it's not about who leaves or does the fake flagging thing, it's about the few that join.

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Don't get me wrong I would not be here if I did not see the potential.
And we can point to people like @theycallmedan he has invested both time and money and @tarazkp who has invest a lot and creates great content.

To help it along the road to becoming something even more inviting, we need to have a balanced picture of the positive things as well as the negative. Which is why I asked the question to @cyberblock about what contributes to his conclusion. I hope he shares more about what he seeing that I am not

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The size of user base has much more to do with the price of steem and the overall psychology of the crypto market than any other fundamentals. As we continue to move in to a crypto bull market I guarantee that we will have a tsunami of new and old users coming in. Plus we have other dapps being built on steem like steem monsters (the biggest blockchain game in the world)

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I would never have thought of it from that angle, thanks.

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Steem has been and continues to be in the top 6 most sctive blockchains for years. Theres at least 40-50 coins with bigger market cap that have virtually no activity, theyre garbage compared to steem. Check this out
https://blocktivity.info/

Undervalued?? I think so lol

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I don't think so. THey would have to buy a massive amount, and we aren't seeing those knids of volumes.

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Yes I agree.
I was actually thinking something quite different and not thinking they would be buying to power up for the vote. Its probably much better if I just shut the fuck up about those kind of thoughts. Next time I will just let the thought rattle around then drift off into space lol

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Next time I will just let the thought rattle around then drift off into space lol

Lol, definitely not! The benefit I have found in steem is getting my thoughts out there and testing them out. If done earnestly, it is generally well accepted and creates thoughtful discussion and new learning for everyone.

!ENGAGE 30

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(Edited)

I'm actually pretty happy with the announcement. Completely agree there's no mandate for a change in the SMT fork.
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Now they've opened discussions on variable staking periods, I'd like to see everything dynamic.
My vests x days staked / everyone's vests x days staked = my vote weight, RC allocation, witness voting strength and share of the inflation rate.
Or perhaps if that's too much.
My vests x square root of days staked / everyone's vests x square root of days staked.
Cap it at each end, and let us choose any staking period from a week to a decade.

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Happily Vandeberg seems to be on the same page.

Rather than time locking each satoshi STEEM, we allow an account to set a maturation date on their Steem Power. When the account powers up, bonus VESTS would be allocated as a function of how much STEEM is being powered up and how much time the account has left before the maturation date. The maturation could be increased at will for most (more?) bonus VESTS, but never decreased.

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There are so many variables that can be brought into play and I am hoping that they can be thought of as different pathways to steem, each bringing different values. I like the "choose-your-own-adventure" feel :)

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Saw it. Read theough it and a few constructive comments then waited for you to break it down here. I would agree with your security concerns as we are diverse and how some of us figure out scammers from a distance some of us don't.

Anyway. For me, the excitement is seeing where this will take us if it does work out. I think we are changing for better as much as we don't agree with everything that happens here.

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Yep, I am pretty excited about all of the potentials also and , there are more ariving every day :)

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Been listening to some Bitcoin podcasts lately and it's interesting the discussions around block size that happened. While I don't think this will turn into that size debate or have that large of consequences if the power down time is lowered it will be interesting to see what effects lowering the time to power down will have both positive and negative.

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I don't mind the lowering, but it has to come with increased protection and security. What would be great is if they use the impetus to introduce 2fa that can be leveraged by all the other applications as well.

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Yeah that would be nice offering 2fa. I get that it's not necessarily needed with the power down time, but it would be nice to have increased security to feel more comfortable leaving more steem liquid so that I can use it for gaming or trading.

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As I have said, while I do not feel strongly about the importance of the powerdown period at this time, when it comes to the security of crypto assets I would rather err on the side of caution, and slow down moves that could open up vulnerabilities.

401k

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two sides of a coin, not including the edge.

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It's precisely in the edges where inhabit the paradoxes. :)

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