Today, Ned made a major announcement, indicating Steemit Inc.'s plan to launch Smart Media Tokens, which will allow any content-hosting website to launch its own coin that can be distributed automatically through upvotes/likes.
“SMTs are essentially Steem repackaged into a more customizable format for developers,” says Andrew Levine, Community Liaison, Steemit Inc. “They will have all the benefits of Steem, they will be powered by Steem, but they will give developers exactly enough flexibility to meet their needs while requiring a [minimal] amount of engineering work.”
Levine added tools will be released in the near future, which will make it possible for people with minimal development skills to be able to integrate Steem and SMTs into their platform or website.
According to Steemit Inc., any website that is considered a “content-hosting platform” will be able to leverage SMTs the same way steemit.com leveraged Steem to bootstrap growth and generate revenue. They claim this could be the simplest, most flexible and robust way for a developer to create a coin that can be transferred quickly, without fees.
“We are the only protocol with three-second transfers and no fees, with an automated token distribution model that has been battle-tested and proven to fuel engagement and growth,” said Levine. “ERC20s are just a token. You have to figure out what to do with them, how to distribute them, who to distribute them to, etc. SMTs allow you to integrate all of our knowledge and experience instantly.”
When asked how this may impact the overall monetary value of Steem, Levine wouldn’t speculate on price; however, he said that SMTs will be a big step in helping Steem become the protocol of the Attention Economy.
The SMT launch date is estimated to take place in early 2018. The small, one-time fee for those who want to leverage the technology will be $1.
*Edit - Original post had incorrect information on the small one-time fee. That has been fixed.