I hope this article stops one of the biggest myths regarding the Steem ecosystem. My aim is to also show that Steem is doing something that no other blockchain is doing.
We all know Steem just celebrated birthday number 3. My time on here is a little over half way since I joined in August of 2017. I like to use that as my starting point, so all that I am going to illustrate spans just shy of 19 months.
The main attack against Steem is that the biggest accounts make all the money and everyone else is picking up scraps. We see the mindset is that only "the rich get richer".
Here I am going to prove that is completely false. I am also going to show that Steem's distribution is leveling out faster than other blockchains.
People do not seem to understand the power basis and how it is changing. Let us look at a few charts to start.
As always, all charts provided by @arcange. These charts are in MVest which, according to steemdb.com, is now worth 499.93 STEEM per MVest.
Here is what the breakdown looked like on 8/1/2017.
https://steempeak.com/statistics/@arcange/steemit-statistics-20170801-en
Wow. That is an ugly chart. It is easy to see how much power was in the hands of the 42 Whale accounts.
Now let us contrast it with the chart from 3/27/2019.
https://steempeak.com/statistics/@arcange/steem-statistics-20190327-en
One of the beliefs is the smaller accounts have no power, that it all resides with the larger accounts. Looking at these two charts, the thing that jumps right out is the amount for Dolphins and Minnows. Notice how the Dolphins now have more power, collectively, than the Orcas did on 8/1/2017. At the same time, the Minnows have a higher mark than the Dolphins had.
Think about that for a second: the Minnows have 3,500 more MVests today than the Dolphins did 19 months ago. This is a radical shift.
Another way to look at this is the totality SP held by the non-Whale accounts. On 8/1/2017, that total was 82,760; now it is 185,262. That means the non-Whale accounts grew by 102,502.
In 19 months, the non-Whale accounts grew by 51.24M SP.
This coincided with a decrease in the Whale totals by 21.3M SP.
In the past 19 months, the Whales to non-Whales accounts had a net difference of 72.7M SP.
Let us also look at the rich getting richer.
Here are the account charts for the two dates we are discussing.
I am going to use average here. Some might say that Median is more important but I feel that is not required here. Each category has a ceiling on it which limits the amount that an outlier can affect the average. The impact of a 1M SP account on a bunch of 500 SP ones is much greater than a 4900 SP one.
We will look at the average number of MVests for each category and the change over time.
This table shows two things.
The first is not that the rich get richer is not entirely accurate. What this says is that everyone on Steem gets richer (as long as they are actively participating). No group was excluded, each showed an increase.
We also can clearly see how the smaller accounts are growing at a faster pace than the larger ones. The further down the scale we go, the larger the jump.
While the average Whale saw a 2.78% increase, the average Minnow saw the MVest holdings more than double.
Not only that but the number of Minnows almost doubled over that same period of time.
In each non-Whale category, we see more average SP in a greater number of accounts. The growth is happening on both fronts.
According to @penguinpablo, this is the number of transacting accounts we see on a daily basis.
There are a little over 2,300 accounts at the Dolphin level or higher. That means there are over 45K Minnows and Red Fish transacting on a daily basis. That many accounts will skew the reward pool towards the lower end (especially since most of the Whales do not post regularly) which supports the increase over the last 19 months.
Yesterday, I wrote a post about how fear around finances should be ending. My reasoning is that we are entering a new paradigm which scarcity is not part of the equation. This post here proves it.
Steem is not the only blockchain out there. I am not going to be a Steem snob and say that it is the best and only thing going. That is untrue. There are many projects that are valid and will serve to put tokens in people's wallets. We are going to need the collective effort across tens of thousands of blockchains to help all of humanity.
That said, I want to emphasize the pace of change in distribution on Steem. While it might seem like we are going at a snail's pace, compare it to other blockchains out there. Steem has a built in mechanism that is changing the numbers: a reward pool with 800K STEEM issues each week.
As was shown, the lower levels are growing at a greater pace along with having more accounts. This is a trend that I would expect to continue.
Collectively, we see this.
Over the next 19 months, there are going to be tens of millions of STEEM distributed from the reward pool. How many people are going to partake in what is being passed out? Based upon the numbers shown here, we will see the bottom categories accelerating their growth rates.
There are many other blockchains but, as we are seeing here, one does not need any other. Steem is providing a mechanism to really increase the wealth and standard of living of tens of millions around the world. This opportunity is open to anyone. We are seeing a marked shift in the distribution, something that is going to continue as more people find their way to this ecosystem.
Please bear in mind, I only covered the stake in Steem Power in this article. We did not even touch upon all the other tokens that are being created for the various applications or using Steem-Engine. A few of them might really hit it big as the value of those networks grow. Many are engaging in activities that increase their holdings in those tokens also.
Steem is quickly becoming the epitome of Crypto-Economics. The centralized distribution that was present when the blockchain started is leveling out as time goes by. More accounts are holding more Steem Power.
Nobody who is on here should fear the future financially. We already have a head start on something that is going to be the norm 5-10 years down the road. Steem is providing the opportunity for anyone to amass a token that surely is going to be forced up in value as the network effect takes hold.
I hope this article both ends the mantra that Steem is only benefiting the largest accounts and motivates people to take even more action. The blockchain is going to keep distributing STEEM each week. While it will slow down, it will not stop for decades.
So the question is how many of those tens of millions of STEEM that will be put out by the blockchain over the next 19 months will end up in your account?
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