There is so much happening on Steem it is mind-blowing. Yesterday, there was a bit of news that appeared to fly under the radar. Nevertheless, it is one of the biggest moves we could be watching on the Steem blockchain yet.
We are aware that Wall Street banks are starting to get involved in cryptocurrency by setting up trading desks. Why are they doing this? Many will say so they can trade in cryptocurrency and sell it to funds. While that would be correct, I think we need to get specific about it.
Personally, I do not feel that these institutions care about selling 1,000 BTC to a fund. That is not what they are after. Instead, Wall Street is all about the Security Token market. These banks are looking at losing a lot of money if the IPO market dries up. If the Security Tokens do pose that threat, it is how they are going to still maintain control over the industry.
Steem-Engine was a terrific addition in that it provided the ability of token creation to the Steem ecosystem. Even though it is a sidechain, it is pairing with STEEM. This gives Steem based projects the ability to produce a token for their business. When SMTs roll out, this will also be a part of the equation.
While it is nice to keep everything in-house, the reach of Steem needs to increase. On the currency end, this means tokens created being paired with something other than STEEM. The reach is greatly increased when dealing with currencies that people have. There is a lot of BTC, ETH, and LTC out there. Wouldn't it be great if your token could be purchased with one of these tokens.
That is the next step in the evolution of Steem-Engine. @aggroed posted yesterday that he did his first transaction in Litecoin. I will not go into the particulars of how that was done since his post covers it. However, this is a huge moment.
The idea is to develop a full service DEX on Steem with one difference: STEEM is the main pair. With other exchanges, STEEM is listed and paired how they want. Now, this is the focal point.
How does this come into play?
We go back to the Security Tokens. By being able to legally create Security Tokens on the DEX, they are all going to be paired with STEEM. In fact, they will be traded with whatever tokens are developed on the DEX.
This is enormous. I do not think most people grasp how big it really is.
Security Tokens are wealth building vehicles. They are tokens that are backed by assets. A few of the types of tokens you are going to see are real estate, art, intellectual property, and partnership agreements. These are arenas that are closed to the average investor yet are a path to expanding and growing wealth.
Steem, for the most part,, is an income building platform. People can earn by joining this ecosystem. STEEM is the primary token and we are starting to see others emerge.
Steem-Engine is looking to bridge the two worlds together. Essentially, if the vision comes to fruition, one will be able to earn tokens on Steem by participating in one's favorite application and then invest in Security Tokens. A major advantage of tokens is fractional ownership. Instead of having to buy a full unit like on the stock market, one can buy .002 of something.
Think about it this way: Do you have a successful plumbing company covering a three county area? That could be tokenized using Steem-Engine enabling people from all over the world to buy into the company. Or perhaps there is someone with a small apartment building who would like to do the same thing.
The possibilities are endless.
Another factor in this is the size of Steem. If we are looking at an ecosystem of a couple million people, we are not going to garner much attention. However, if we do grow to a couple hundred million people, which is still not a lot in the online world, that might catch the eyes of some bigger entities. You could well see some decent size, household name companies not want to deal with Wall Street, opt for a DEX like this.
By establishing a common protocol, the reach gets even bigger. Most are familiar with the ERC20 protocol which most of the tokens used in their creation. This is what gave Ethereum such a boost in the ICO craze. Those tokens were created using that protocol which, most exchanges, accept. By having a similar one, it will allow tokens developed on Steem-Engine to be traded on any exchange.
That is huge.
And now we get the proverbial: but wait, there is more.
The idea is to implement DShift which is based upon the Shapeshift design. He one can put a token in while simultaneously taking one out The individual could also opt to leave his or her token on the exchange. This, again, opens up a larger reach for the entire ecosystem.
Here is the full post by @aggroed.
This is mind-blowing news. If all of this comes to be, it will make the Steem ecosystem very attractive to millions of people around the world. Once the word gets out that we provide this total functionality, people will begin to see the possibilities. Think of all the assets that individuals own that could be tokenized in the manner described.
I will leave you with a quote by Aggroed that might go down as one of the most memorized in history.
If you're not pumped for Steem get pumped for Steem
Anyone excited yet?
If you found this article informative, please give an upvote and resteem.
