[Dev Blog] A big change to Gems is on the horizon

Hey there! It's @ddrfr33k and @chiren with another update post. Last month, we kicked off premium memberships. Some of you even bought them! You're awesome people, you know that? I mean it! You help make this community awesome. And speaking of awesome, we're going to be doing something awesome. Some of you might call it crazy, some of you might call it a good idea, some of you are going to agree with me that I'm completely insane. (Chiren already does...) You're all correct in that assessment. But before we delve too deep into this, I want to take a moment to explain how we got here.

One of the perennial problems with any new business, social network, or community is getting people involved. Onboarding, especially for social networks, needs to be as simple as possible. It's part of the reason why we allow anyone to create an account on Vimm. We want people to get in, get streaming, and worry about the details of rewards payouts later. There's only one small problem:

From a viewer's perspective, it's hard as hell to engage your favorite streamer.

Onboarding with Steem (and then Hive) has always been the primary stumbling block. Especially during the crypto boom of 2018. Who wants to wait two weeks for a wallet, and then have to manage all those keys? People will always take the path of least resistance. If something is too complicated, they will ignore it for something easier. It's human nature. For streamers, that means you're limited in the number of people that can support you, and for viewers, it puts streamers behind some gated community that they feel separated from. And that's not us. We're a collaborative sort. Those of you that have stuck around since the early days (there's still quite a few of you) know this all too well.

I(ddrfr33k) was talking with a good friend of mine recently. He's also a streamer. He more or less confirmed all of these thoughts, and had an idea. An idea that, ironically, I had heard about a year earlier from another one of our streamers and promptly forgotten until I was reminded in our Premium Member discord. (Speaking of, sign up for a Tier 3 premium membership and you can be in on these conversations, too!)

It's an idea that is likely to be divisive, it'll probably ruffle some feathers, but it will bring more people to the Vimm family. People who might never have considered any interest in cryptocurrency. People who can help drive growth of the network, including more potential viewers for you!

Starting on September 12th, Vimm Gems will be completely off-chain

Yeah, it's such a big, yet small thing. Hear me out. Our Gems are a great system. They already work, and people use them. But tying them to the Hive blockchain makes things difficult for both us and potential new viewers and streamers.

You see, it hamstrings us. We could sell imaginary points with no publicly audit-able ledger, and we could do so with no government oversight. Let's not kid ourselves, this is exactly what Twitch does with their bits. But the moment we attach our points/coins/tokens to a blockchain, we have to collect AML data, submit umpteen forms to government agencies around the world, and there's not a damn thing we can do about it. Tommy Wiseau said it best:

So we're taking the Gems off of the Hive blockchain. What does this mean for you? Well, not much. We will still use Gems as normal, they just won't be attached to the Hive blockchain. Vimm will instead sell Gems at the same price as it always has been: 1Gem = $1USD. We will have a new storefront for purchasing Gems available on the website. We'll also have more purchasing options available. This just might include free gems for buying in bulk. Nothing is confirmed yet, and subject to change. The price and the portal are definitely not changing, though.

Oh, and you will have a Gem wallet on the Vimm website, much like the Gem wallet you currently have. More information on this will be forthcoming as we get closer to the go live date. There will, however, be a few differences the old and new wallets. You won't be able to stake your gems, and the gems you hold will not affect the value of your upvotes. Everyone who has an account on Vimm will receive one of the new wallets right away. You won't even have to claim it, it'll just be right there!

Now, I need to stress this next part in big, bold letters:

THIS DOES NOT MEAN WE ARE LEAVING THE HIVE BLOCKCHAIN!

We're not about to pull a dLive here. We're smarter than that. We care about the Hive community at large. The same upvote system will still be there, you can still share posts on your Hive blog, and the Vimm community will still stick around. None of that is changing. If we reneg on this promise, I will make sure it's for a damn good reason. If I don't, feel free to call me out on it. Actually, please call me out on it. Seriously. Our community is what keeps this site going. If we can't keep the community together, we've really messed up.

Anyhoo! Getting back on topic again. Here's how this is going to work. Everyone who holds Gems right now can claim new gems at a 1:1 ratio. Once we flip the switch, we will have a form on the Vimm website for claiming your Gems. You will transfer your gems to @vimm, and then we will transfer them to @null. You will receive an equivalent amount of the new Gems right away. This form will be available until the end of the year, which should give even the laziest stragglers enough time to unstake their Gems and convert them. After that point, we will shut down the form. We're giving you a month's advance notice so that you can be prepared for when it finally happens.

In case you were wondering, there's another nifty little thing with this...

We're going to rework the premium memberships. The tiers and bonuses will all be the same, but instead of paying cash, now you pay for them in Gems. Yep, that's going to be a thing. All tiers will be included. Even the coveted Tier 3 with all the fun goodies.

Oh, did I mention that we will make an avenue for buying Gems with Hive? So you can pay for your premium membership with Hive? Some of you have been asking about that, not naming any names, so this will be your way to do it!

So yeah, this is coming up quick. Please unstake your Gems, they will take 30 days to fully unstake. And when this all goes down on September 12, we're going to take this and take Vimm to new heights! And now, a toast:

here's to you.gif