Smart Media Tokens (SMTs)
A new way for publishers to monetize their online content and community, based on battle-tested blockchain technology.
A Token Protocol for Content Websites, Applications, Online Communities and Guilds Seeking Funding, Monetization and User Growth
Steem’s Smart Media Tokens (SMTs) give anyone the power to launch and sell Proof-ofBrain [1] tokens, which are tokens distributed by “upvote” and “like”-based algorithms and can be integrated with websites to align incentives and spur growth, while websites are empowered to adopt sustainable, currency-centric revenue models. This model has been tested and continues to be proven by steemit.com, busy.org, chainbb.com, dsound.audio, dtube.video and other Steem interfaces, which are monetizing content, tokens and media in a way never before seen. Several popular token protocols, such as Ethereum’s ERC-20, allow you to create and launch arbitrary tokens, but no protocol enables content businesses to leverage those tokens by aligning incentives between users and applications. Due to suboptimal transaction cost structures that incur fees for basic actions such as voting or posting, misalignment of interests between meta and core tokens that aren’t built for influencing distributions based on Proof-of-Brain, private key hierarchies that don’t cater to social versus financial operations, and slow transaction speeds that are out of sync with real-time websites - none of these protocols could ever provide an acceptable user experience for content websites, such as Twitter, Reddit (even subreddits) or The New York Times. For content websites and tokens, incentive alignment between websites and users comes from a steady, as well as decentralized and mathematically guaranteed, release of new tokens, and incentives that must be allocated to the users - including bloggers, vloggers, commenters and curators. The distribution of new tokens occurs based on stake-weighted voting to prevent gaming and eliminate the need for a counterparty. Quality user experience comes from tokens that can be transacted safely (through separate private keys for distinct sets of actions), without fees, and at real-time speeds. Further incentive alignment comes from a company’s ability to raise capital in ICOs. All Smart Media Tokens have built-in ICO support, should the issuer wish to launch one.
