There is an interesting movement underway that is starting to crop up. Many have been talking about burning STEEM in an effort to help the token price. I came across a number of people who proposed it and, now, we see an application that is following through.
Source
3Speak put out a post announcing they are going to burn 3% of all rewards that are earned on their platform. This also applies to Oracle-D.
3Speak is rapidly becoming one of the better known applications. Originally slated as a platform to give a voice to displaced video creators who got slammed in the Google/Facebook purge, this is quickly expanding its influence.
The application took the basic benefit of blockchain and put that out front. The immutable nature of this technology means that once it is up, it is there (unless a super majority of the Witnesses are willing to go back and change something). This is vital in a world where we see mega-technology companies attacking free speech and using their tremendous power to silence views they disagree with.
3Speak operates on a simple premise: people have the right to say and express themselves.
This is something that we all should celebrate. This does not mean we agree with the viewpoint or condone it. That is not necessary. What is necessary is understanding that viewpoints need to be expressed. Those who favor censorship only do so when it is not their viewpoints being silenced. They are all in when those they disagree with are getting slammed. But watch the winds change and the power structure shift, and you see an entirely different story.
3Speak seeks to prevent all of this. As the purge started, the team actually sped up its release to be certain that it was in position, at least with a MVP, to provide a voice to those people.
Now, we see 3Speak taking another step.
Burning tokens helps to reduce the supply. This is a bit obvious but is a major part of the equation. As supply decreases, even if demand remains the same, we could see an appreciation in price. Hence, each token that is sent to the @null account is removed from circulation.
This is done by 3Speak making itself a beneficiary on every post on its platform. This will remove the percentage of rewards from the content creator and curator pool. However, instead of going to the 3Speak's account, it will head to @null.
It is the same process that many applications use to help fund their projects. Many are listed as 10% beneficiary's to help offset the cost of development and operation of the application. 3Speak opted to not use this to fund but rather reduce the amount of STEEM that is out there.
Could this be a trend that starts? There was a comment in the post that actually expressed this idea.
This is an interesting idea. To me, it seems the intention will net greater payback than the actual removal. The amount of STEEM removed by 3Speak probably will not impact the total to a large degree. It could, however, set off a chain reaction, that others follow.
Also, this could help to alter the perspective of Steem. If outsiders learn there are applications out there burning STEEM, this could also gain some traction. People who are in the cryptocurrency world, especially as investors, love projects that are continually burning the token.
We already saw this with a couple of the Steem-Engine applications. LEO and ENG are two that come to mind immediately for me. Both have strategies in place that burn a bit of the token on a fairly regular basis.
As with anything in blockchain, a good idea tends to spread. We are in a copycat industry. This holds true on each individual blockchain. A concept like this could be picked up by many other applications, thus having a larger impact than initially thought.
This also shows why progress can be very rapid. Good ideas spread like wildfire, impacting the entire ecosystem within a short period of time.
It is the joy of open source and operating in a collaborative environment.
To read the full 3Speak announcement:
https://steemit.com/threespeak/@threespeak/3speak-s-steem-burn-initiative-newsteem