I initially said I'l leave this one for the first day of January, make the resuming of my blogging one of the New Years resolutions but, hell, the tips of my fingers were tingling so I had to do it.
Resuming active blogging mode
I'm back but never been gone really. After the quiet period preparing for Steemfest, actively engaging there helping Steemians enjoy the conference and being part of the awesome organisation team of @firepower and @roelandp (your rock guys! best mates fo' eva!), then a cooldown period after coming back from Amsterdam with many projects finished (including a $2mil/yr one won by the company I work for), a move to another city in Romania and a plan to switch to a new Steemit handle, I also want to become more active on my blog as tbf I've been active more on Steemit.chat than here and that's not fair.
What about the clickbait title?
It is clickbait, but I'm standing by it so let's get this out of the way first. I have a couple hundred $ left over from my Christmas budget and I want some crypto for it. In this case, I want SBD and I loose quite a few if I go through the standard channels, buying BTC from a broker, then converting it to SBD. (there's also changelly to do direct USD>SBD, but their exchange rate is again, with a steep conversion rate).
So if you need any money in your PayPal account, or need an Amazon Gift Card, etc., let me know and we can get it done. I'l even match 1SBD with 1USD for you.
My stance on the SBD discussion
For what it's worth, I think SBD should stay:
- It gives non-crypto people something simple to relate to in terms of valuating their wallets, Steem rewards etc.
- It is a stable token (not a token I know, a smart contract, keeping it laymen terms here), that keeps it's value over time around 1USD, being less prone to devaluation. It is ideal to be used in eCommerce, holding savings (gives interest), etc.
Just imagine if SBD were more marketed and easily available for purchase directly with Indian Rupees, in India, the past weeks, and if they could use SBD to pay at stores (hashtag wishfullthinking) and etc. How much enclined would people in India be to put their money in SBD instead of Bitcoin knowing our Steem Backed Dollar's stability?
I feel you all out there that SBD is pegged to Steem and that's a big responsibility (read: risk) on Steem's shoulders, not viable (read: not used, not endorsed by eCommerce) but it can't do that yet, because the amount of SBD available is extremely small. Do you know how much real money is out there in the world? Only fiat (coins and banknotes) in the entire world is $5 Trillion (5,000,000,000,000). Do you know how much all the crypto values? Almost $16.5 Billion ($16,485,981,065). Do you know how much SBD is out there? $1.2 Million ($1,202,571).
There's no point in debating if SBD would be worth while for mainstream commerce right now because even if it were, the amount of people that could be using it would be very small. The current available amount SBD is too little to say it won't be fit for mainstream use in the future. SBD can be thought of as a stable, decentralized, fee-less, interest paying currency to be used in the future, when it can meet the market's volume demand. This year's Black Friday sales topped $3 Billion, let's pick this up when the SBD pool increases to at least a fraction of that.
All in all, I agree with @clayop on one thing. If SBD is to be removed, please don't do it now (next 3-6 months). Steem has gone from major redesign to major redesign, quarter to quarter. This creates instability.
Ending humming carols
It felt so good writing this post that I wished I would have done it sooner and I'm not sorry I didn't postpone it to January.
Tonight is also Christmas night. I do hope all of you are in the presence of your loved ones and will enjoy some quality moments with them on this magical night.
What I'm excited about happening next, Steem wise:
- 2017, removing the Beta tag?
- the December 6th fork effects (the dumpening?)
- busy.org - where I've had the immense privilege to be accepted in the Alpha testing stage
- more of @alexandriova's girlfriends joining Steemit (seriously guys, stop flagging her for no good reason, get over it...)
- @stellabelle's back for a couple weeks now (eager to see how that progresses, or doesn't...)
- orca-nising myself as I'm a proud dolphin now
- a couple Steem apps I swear to the sweetest things I have, I will finish soon
@anduweb
Oh, and I mustn't forget. I'm beginning the transfer of my Steem Power and blogging to a new handle, one that I wanted when I joined Steemit and was disappointed to see it wasn't available. I thought I was a super early adopter but someone else registered it before me. That handle is a shorter version of what I currently have: @andu
Many people at SteemFest called me Andu (dropping the ...web) and when I got back I said I had to get that handle. I asked the account holder if he'd sell it to me and I'm so proud he said yes so I got bought it in a heartbeat.
That's it for now: Merry Christmas my fellow Steemians and SteemOn!