The next hardfork (software update) will address one of the most annoying shortcomings of Steemit in its current form, namely the account creation bottleneck. That's what the name of the hardfork implies, IMHO.
There is an official announcement about it, containing more details and the complicated math (I'm still working that math, so no update on that until I get it right, which may take a while) but I want to just jot down my first impressions, along with a few suggestions.
Account fee - who's paying for that and with what?
One of the proposals of HF20 is to burn Steem in order to create accounts and ditch the Steem Power delegation approach. I'm supporting this, in theory, and in practice I have this suggestion:
- create a new token, SAT (Steem Account Token, this idea is not mine, @samupaha wrote about it, if I'm not wrong) and peg it to the STEEM currency. The total daily supply of the SAT will be subject to consensus (established by witnesses) but in absolute numbers, not relative numbers. This will allow the creation of more accounts if the value of STEEM goes up, as the account fee will be more likely tied to the US.
Creating accounts via mining
One of the proposals is to have accounts created via mining (in the beginning, STEEM supported that, but it was ditched, as the mining queue was dominated by just a few). I propose to keep the idea of mining, but use a different algorithm, called Proof of Burn. I wrote about this a few times, it's actively used in a token called Slimcoin. How this works: you spend a certain amount of coins, which, in turn, gives you a certain number of hashes that will be used to mine a block.
A short example
Bob wants t create an account on the Steemit website, but he doesn't have any Steem, nor he has the support of someone who wants to create the account for him.
So, he goes to an exchange and buys (with Bitcoin, Ether, etc) a certain amount of SAT (or even on the internal market, I think a basic exchange can be implemented relatively easy). What he buys, though, it's in fact STEEM, but it's converted to SAT. When he has to enter the address, he ticks a box saying: "I want to create an account for this address" and gives the desired account name. Upon verification of the availability of the name in the blockchain, a transaction is made. That transaction will contain:
- the desired name of the account, which is instantly created, but it's inactive.
- the amount of SAT paid
- the hash (transaction id)
After a certain number of blocks, determined by witnesses (see below), the transaction is validated, the SAT burned, and the account made active. The account then receives a certain amount of Steem Power, in order for the user to be able to transact (it may or may not be equal to the SAT paid for the account).
The price of an account creation will be variable and will incur a time maturation period (or the number of blocks after which it becomes active). To have an account active in a week, one will pay the standard fee ($1-$2). To have an account available immediately (or in 20 blocks, which is a minute) one would pay $10,000. The amount paid extra is not returned in the user wallet under the form of SP, only the official creation fee.
I hope it makes sense.
If not, I'm ready to give more answers in the comments.
I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.
https://steemit.com/~witnesses
If you're new to Steemit, you may find these articles relevant (that's also part of my witness activity to support new members of the platform):