This is an article I was meaning to write for a while.
it is easy for us to get pigeon-holed with our focus when we spend a lot of time in one place. When this happens, we have a tendency to lose perspective on things such as problems. They suddenly become larger in our minds than they really are.
At the same time, we also get into the habit of thinking we are the only one experiencing this. It is why self-help groups do have some success with different issues. It all starts with the understanding that we are not unique.
I am here to tell you, from this perspective, Steem is not unique.
One of the biggest complaints about Steem is the token distribution. I will admit when we look at one of @arcange's charts, we see a radical tilt in one direction.
https://busy.org/@arcange/steem-statistics-20181211-en
This is not unique however.
Bitcoin is about 10 years old. After all that time, over 40% of the tokens are held by under 1,900 accounts. More tan 62% are in the hands of a little over 16,000.
Charlie Lee sold his Litecoin holding but it did not seem to alter things a great deal. That network is going into it's 8th year yet over 71% is in the hands of under 3,900 accounts.
Dogecoin: 73% in the hands of roughly 700 accounts.
Taking a quick look at Ethereum, it looks like the top 25 accounts hold 20% of the tokens.
Even EOS, which had the 300+ day long ICO to try to distribute the tokens ended up with about 50% of the token in the hands of 10 wallets.
The point is that unequal distribution is not uncommon nor is it isolated to the Steem blockchain. It is everywhere. Even Whaleshares ended up with some Whales having most of the stake.
What I do like about Steem, and I show it in my monthly reports, the distribution is changing over time. Having tokens issued as reward allows for others to earn tokens. The low price also offers up a buying opportunity for smaller accounts. While it is slow, it is changing.
Another point we hear brought up is about the actual usage of the blockchain. We saw a major decrease in activity since the first part of the year. This actually is a good thing for those who are still on here posting since the reward pool is being distributed each day to less users. Nevertheless, Steem saw a drop.
I will use blocktivity's numbers since they are available and easy. While there might be some dispute about the accuracy, it does drive the point home.
Looking at the list, we see Steem number 6, which is a drop from most of the year. Of course, we look at the others to determine what really has traffic.
To start, does anyone know what WAX is? I don't and am not particularly motivated to look it up. KIN is the token for the KIK messaging application. which forked the Stellar blockchain. They have over 300M users of the messaging application providing a good basis for the introduction of the token.
That leaves Bitshares, EOS, and Tron. Bitshares is an exchange so that traffic is just swapping tokens. EOS had a huge jump in volume in a week meaning there is probably a script that is just sending transactions all over the place. It is unlikely they had a 10X jump in such a short period of time because of people signing up and using apps. And finally, there is TRON which seems like an interesting project with some good development.
Who is providing real transactions that rival Steem? Perhaps EOS and TRON. They could have applications that are similar to what Steem has. SInce Steem does not have a major exchange with a lot of different tokens, it's transactions are going to be a lot less than a chain with one like BTS and EOS.
When we look @miniature-tiger's DApp list, we see that 19 out of the top 25 have at least 300 authors. Comparing this with a Tweet that went viral a few months back shows the difference.
I realize these are not exact comparisons since the Steem report uses authors throughout the month which does not really tell us how many users are on there. Also, we do not have an idea about the daily number of users. Nevertheless, we can conclude a number of these applications have at least 300 users a day on them.
While the Tweet is 4 months old and there could be a change, it does show that the applications on Steem in terms of usage is not far from these more publicized blockchains. Hence, Steem is right there in the activity column.
One other thing people complain about is the disputes that arise on the blockchain. That is going to happen. People are upset with Steemit Inc right now (for good reason). Yet, I can tell you, from what I saw, this is minor.
If you want to find out about disputes, ask @michaelx about what he dealt with in Bitshares. That blockchain had Battle Royales. EOS is not without it's friction with governance issues causing a lot of stirring. And we know about Bitcoin, every dispute leads to another fork.
The overall point is that, while Steem is not without it's faults, it is important to keep things in perspective. I repeatedly stated that I feel Steem is a top 5 blockchain right now. It is one of the more active blockchains both in terms of usage and development. We have a token distribution system that is changing each day with more accounts gaining STEEM on a regular basis. Each month the Whales get a bit weaker in terms of the overall stake on the blockchain.
Certainly, things can change in the future but right now, Steem is off to a good start in the blockchain world. This is going to be a long process for the entire industry. The question is not where everything is today but, rather, where is it in 5-7 years?
That is when we will know how the development and efforts of everyone on here now paid off.
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