I was disappointed, albeit not surprised, to read a post put up by @aggroed yesterday detailing some issues regarding Steem-Engine. It really made me realize how little some people on here truly understand about what is taking place. Unfortunately, this leads them to attack someone such as him in a rude manner.
Before I start, for full disclosure, I must reveal my relationship with Aggroed: I do not have one.
I appeared on his weekly Steem Town Hall show a few times, a show that anyone can volunteer to go on. I also asked him a couple of questions over the past year on discord about a few different things, ones that he took the time to answer.
Outside of that, my interaction and experience with him is the same as everyone else, just what is posted on here.
So whether you like him or not, matters none for the topic of this article. It is based upon the project that is rolled out and how it integrates with what is taking place.
There is one thing I learned over the past decade it is this: if you do not understand technology, you simply have no idea of what is going on. As much as people challenge me on that, it becomes clearer by the day. Looking at our political situation truly reaffirms this when I see a bunch of lawyers trying to navigate a world that is run by technology companies.
Thus, it is imperative to understand where things are going. Bit and bytes are great but it is not the crux of it. Knowing what the picture looks like from 5,000 feet is where the truly knowledge is. Those who have that along with the bit and bytes ability have the potential to become household names. We are fortunate there are a few of them on Steem.
Which brings me to Steem-Engine. It seems there are a few issues that people have with it, all which is based upon a lack of understanding.
So let us take a look at what is being bantered about.
Pricing
This appears to be a huge elephant. Some are upset at the SE team for charging people to have their projects created on there. It seems some feel the rates they charge is too much money especially since Steemit Inc is going to charge someone 3 STEEM to have a SMT.
I will say this: SE is charging too much money if you know what you are doing. Anyone with the ability to tap into the DEX and create a token using the smart contract technology that @harpagon rolled out is free to do so. Of course, there will be the time commitment which one will have to take into account.
For the rest of us, it is the price of doing business.
I bet O.J. Simpson thought the price of his legal "dream team" was too high until he was found not guilty. I mean seriously, do you think he would have paid all that money if he could have kept his own ass out of jail?
There is nothing that says anyone is obligated to use the Steem-Engine service or pay their fees. The opportunity to create a front end is open to anyone who wants to do it.
As a side note, just for clarity sake, I suggest one delve into what it costs to create a token on EOS and Ethereum. Do you think that it will be free to someone without the technical expertise?
Innovation
This is part of the "SMTs are going to make Steem-Engine worthless".
A major problem people have is looking at things as they are today. When dealing with technology, what it looks like right now matters little. It is where that tech is going to be a year or two from now. That is where innovation enters the picture.
Steem-Engine is being compared to SMTs since they both allow (will allow) people to create tokens. On this level they are the same.
It is also the entry point that SE opened up with. This is far from the completed project. Too many are trying to compare what it is today with what will be released.
SMTs are on the horizon. According to Steemit Inc's blog, the projected path of development is the end of September. By that time, the coding should be ready and a testnet released. A project of this size requires a couple months of testing before a Hard Fork date is announced. Thus we are looking, best case scenario, at the beginning of December before adding another month or two for the fork.
In other words, all the stars need to align to see them released in January of 2020. With the normal nature of technology and how things unfold, end of the first quarter/beginning of the second is more likely.
By that time, Steem-Engine will be a lot more advanced than just creating "mini-Steems" which is exactly what SMTs are going to do.
What Is Being Tokenized
Steemit Inc's motto is "tokenizing the Internet".
I like this and believe it to be an enormous market. Since the release of the SMT White Paper, this, to me, carried the potential to really help usher in Web 3.0. It was a fantastic technological idea, one that we are still waiting on.
Fortunately, Steem-Engine came along to give us a glimpse into what lies ahead. However, that is just a sliver of the potential.
I want to tell you about a game piece that I have. It is one that is going to be resident on the Steem ecosystem and it carries a ton of power. This is a sword, one that makes Thor's hammer look like a child's toy. It allows me to defeat anything that I come up against.
This was created by combining the different cards from Splinterlands, resulting in something totally unique. It was done using a magical formula that only a couple of us know about.
Most of us know that Steemmonsters (Splinterlands) was developed by @yabapmatt. What most do not know is that he has a brother, Imaim, which is Miami spelled backwards (Yabapmatt is Tampa Bay spelled backwards).
Anyway, Imaim is also a game designer and he is developing a game that allows the use of Splinterland cards in it. This is completely revolutionary in gaming. EA games are not going to integrate into ones made by Activision. However, this is blockchain so all is different.
Imaim's game is going to be a lot bigger than Splinterlands because of their long lost cousin, odnalro who is a marketing genius. It is decades since Matt talked to him but Imaim kept in touch. By the end of the first year, there will be a Super Bowl-like tournament that pays out $10M.
There is a someone names scottygamer who also created something unique on Spliterlands. He is the only other one I came across who knows the secret. His innovation is a magic cloak that makes his character near impossible to kill. In fact, he needs to be stabbed, shot, and blown up 1,000 times in a 12 month period before death takes place.
Fortunately, I have my sword which does have the power to kill him immediately. It is the only weapon on the planet powerful enough to do this.
Since I am not a gamer, I know that whomever faces scottgamer in the finals is going to want this. There is $10M on the line in the first year. I will have to decide whether to sell or rent it out. Either way, I should come out just dandy.
As I said, this is resident on the Steem ecosystem. But guess what, it is not a SMT. This is outside the capabilities of that protocol. This is not a mini-Steem.
Instead, what I am describing is one of the many uses when NFTs are available. A fungible token is what we are accustomed to dealing with. 1 STEEM is the same as every other STEEM. Just like with Fiat, one $20 bills is valued the same as another.
With NFTs, we are dealing with unique, one of a kind items. Hence, my sword is super unique since it is the only one in the world. Thus, the value of it is whatever is agreed upon by a buyer. It is like art, what is the value of a Monet? Ultimately, what a seller is willing to pay for it.
Think this a bit far-fetched?
Here is an article from yesterday that describes something similar. The NBA agreed to a partnership which will allow people to own digital collectibles.
According to the companies, fans of the game can buy, sell, and trade digitally collectable in-season moves like “Kevin Durant’s 3-point shot or Joel Emiid’s dunk.” Digital collectables can be used for on-chain games or tournaments.
https://www.coindesk.com/nba-and-dapper-labs-team-up-for-in-game-digital-collectables
Could SMTs do that? Not as they are presently being designed (based upon what we were told).
Will Steem-Engine be able to do something similar? Yes.
Securities
One of the major moves in blockchain is going to be the tokenization of securities. This is already starting as we saw projects in the real estate market tokenized instead of going through traditional financing channels.
Many of the Wall Street institutions are setting up trading desks to handle cryptocurrency. The reason they are doing this is not to sell some old lady a couple of Bitcoin. This is small potatoes.
Instead, the reason they want in is because of all the companies that will go ICO (IEO) as opposed to IPO over the next decade. The technology is too disruptive to the present system that is high in cost. Tokens severely undercut the price of the entire process.
Tokenization also allows for fractional ownership, something that is going to become larger as more people are dealing in cryptocurrency. Right now, most are excluded from these types of investments since it takes a rather large amount of capital to get involved. There is also the "accredited investor" garbage from the SEC that is not going to be solved by tokens on their own. However, with decentralized exchanges, there is the chance that this is negated down the road.
For now, however, entities like Steem-Engine need to play ball if they are to operate in the United States.
Nevertheless, this exchange is going to be equipped to handle those types of transactions. Having the ability to bring securities to market is huge. Of course, once they are out and on the DEX, anyone can buy them. To get involved initially, will require adherence to the SEC's policies.
Will SMT's do this? Nope.
SMTs are going to tokenize the Internet; Steem-Engine will potentially tokenize everything else you can think of.
This is what got people so excited about Ethereum and EOS. They also have the potential to do something similar to this. Steem-Engine enables this ecosystem to provide similar features to developers. While not at the base layer, it is still present.
None of this is rocket science nor does it require one to understand the programming behind all that is taking place. All this information is readily available on mainstream crypto news sites like Cointelegraph.com. It only requires looking at what is occurring and connecting some dots.
This is where the true understanding comes in. It is also where one will see the value that a Steem-Engine brings to the table. None of what I wrote here is "insider" information, Aggroed wrote about it in a number of posts explaining the road map that is being laid out.
So, no, if the team does the innovating that it laid out in the road map, Steem-Engine is not going to die. It will be a very powerful component to the Steem ecosystem. While SMTs are going to be opted for in many situations, there are a lot more things that people will do that SMTs are not designed for.
Hence, it is time to stop looking at them as competing technologies. This is a poisonous mindset that leads one astray.
Here is the article cited written by Aggored concerning the questions around Steem-Engine.
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