So there are some interesting things going on that I kind of wanted to chat about here, today. This entry is part news, part classic bloggy flavor, I guess. You know how I do. If not, you will.
There are a lot of people getting on the blockchain wagon, folks. It's so funny how people finally catch on to a craze, and how that craze begins to 'go viral'. Bubbles are so silly in some respects to me. The answer to the question "If everyone else was jumping off a bridge, would you?" for most people is not only an unabashed, enthusiastic "Yes!!", but more of a "Yes! And why the hell aren't you, ya weirdo?"
And yet these sorts of bubbles are incredibly important for major paradigmatic transitions to take place. But still, there are certain things that feel a bit silly. For example, I think it goes without saying that any cryptocurrencies launched by a central institution (especially banks and governments) should be almost laughably suspect.
But while there's a lot of hype, there are also many good examples of progress being made. For example, there's some exciting news in Korea as a company gears up to make the country's most comprehensive exchange that's able to convert the cryptocurrencies directly into the Korean Won and vice versa. These sorts of projects are going to be extremely important for altcoin adoption in the future, making a much more even playing field with the likes of the already fairly pervasive and accepted Bitcoin.
And let us not underestimate pervasiveness. Outside of Steem's "transaction fee-less" approach it's potential for pervasiveness (especially with the announcement of SMT's) is larger even than Bitcoin's. In fact, I might even go so far right now that Bitcoin's current popularity might be an illusion by it's nearly nine year head start on Steem and other alt-coins. But unlike Bitcoin (or any other altcoin) Steemit is available to everyone.
This means the currency has the potential for wider distribution. And, after all, what good is a currency that isn't distributed? You need others to have at least some of the currency for their to be a wide adoption of it. Bitcoin, by it's nature, is a top down distribution approach kind of currency. In other words, Bitcoin started with a few people and spread, but these were all people 'in the know'. It then spread to people those people knew, and so on and so forth. It's inherently exclusive and this combined with the fact that it's also deflationary and suddenly it's not so hard to see why it's so valuable. But Bitcoin's weakness is inherently it's exclusivity. Facebook started off exclusive (by invite only), but at some point it finally had to open it's doors to the general public to gain wide acceptance. Bitcoin has no such mechanism.
Steem, on the other hand, is bottom-up approach. It's whole thing is to make it as easy as possible to get, give, and exchange Steem. That's why it's spreading like wildfire. Once enough people world wide are Steem holders (or SMT holders), and putting bringing new interest and money to the platform, however much, there will be a breaking point where people will start talking about it in mainstream media and big time investors start putting their coin into the platform. And that's when Steem holders (especially people that are holders right now) will win big.
Or so we're hoping.
But it's not a false hope, some mirage or delusion. This could happen people, and it always feels like it's about to happen. I'm hoping hard (can one hope hard?) that it turns out that it's next year after SMT's go live.
Speaking of, has anyone heard a hard date for this release?.
Wednesday, October 25, 2017
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