Blockchain without downvotes at your fingertips | Ecency

Little-known fact: Blurt is a fork of Steem that launched a few months after Hive

In 2020, after the high-profile Steem split → Hive launched on March 20, 2020. Shortly after, Blurt appeared—an independent social network built on the same family of technology (DPoS from the Steem/Hive lineage). Blurt was created from a snapshot of the Steem chain and has operated as an independent network since launch.

What does that mean for former Steem users?

When Blurt was created:

STEEM balances were carried over from the snapshot at block 43,526,969,
SBD was converted to BLURT at the rate from that time,
the same account names and their public keys were added.
Content, followers, and some metadata were not migrated. In practice: if you had funds on Steem at the time of the snapshot, the corresponding BLURT balance was assigned to your account on Blurt (unless you fell into specific exclusion categories).

How to quickly check “if I’m eligible”?

Open the explorer or wallet and see whether your username exists:
https://blocks.blurtwallet.com/#/@yourname or https://blurtwallet.com/@yourname
If the account exists and shows a BLURT/BLURT POWER balance—that’s the amount assigned at network launch (unless someone has moved it since).
When you log into Blurt for the first time, secure your keys (change password/keys in the wallet; never share private keys with unknown sites).

You can also use one of the blurt frontends:
https://blurt.blog
https://beblurt.com

Note: on Blurt, the snapshot comes from Steem (not Hive). People often call this an “airdrop”—technically it’s genesis balances created from the Steem state. If you’ve never used Blurt, those funds may still be visible on your Blurt account.

How is Blurt different from Hive in practice?

Unfortunately, despite its revolutionary and innovative approach to the tokenism inherited from Steem and its completely different approach to combating spam, Blurt, unlike Hive, could never count on the substantial capital it hosted on Steem and later migrated to Hive. Consequently, its initial development was very slow, promotion was minimal, and user numbers remained low. In practice, the network has never seen a true test of its foundations on a larger scale.

Despite the difficulties of adversity and several financial difficulties associated with its founding (which can never be entirely avoided in places where real money is involved), Blurt continues its development five years later thanks to the numerous efforts of a close-knit and mature community to finally emerge from the shadows and showcase its capabilities to the world. Since it was clear from the outset that Steem was founded on so-called game theory, these assumptions were woven into its operating principles. Blurt is a completely new version of this "game" with completely different rules.

No downvotes — Blurt removed the negative-vote button (which changes moderation and incentives). In contrast to Hive—where a single large Hive Power holder can heavily influence whether your posts are rewarded and visible—on Blurt you don’t have to worry as much about censorship or being silenced. If scenarios like this one or this one aren’t your cup of tea, Blurt might be the place for you.
Economy & UX — no stablecoin, lower interface complexity; the network focuses on simple publishing and curation and also reduces market-manipulation risks associated with a stablecoin.
Transaction fees are burned to @null to fight spam and add deflationary pressure — in practice, most users who don’t post anything compelling enough to attract at least a few people end up paying for their transactions. That makes “farming” unattractive for most users who haven’t invested significant amounts. Since the token supply is fixed, more users means more fees burned and increased deflation, which can benefit long-term investors as the network grows.

So, do you want to be part of this new tokenomics? Or do you want to test which assumptions are better? Now you can do it like never before.

Who might this make sense for?

If you like to post short, frequent, or controversial content and worry about rubbing someone the wrong way—or you simply don’t want your earnings to depend on people who dislike your work rather than those who support it—then Blurt may be for you.

Getting started in 3 minutes

Check your account as above.
Log in to blurtwallet.com and change old keys immediately (security!).
Publish a short “hi, I’m from Hive/Steem — testing Blurt” post and add your favorite tag.

If you don’t have a Blurt account but like the idea of a network that takes a different approach than the original chain—or you just want to test it and see the differences—nothing stops you from creating a brand-new account.

You can use a voucher-based account creator and receive 100 BLURT to start. Here’s the link:

https://blurtplugin.online/account

Free voucher for the first 5 people: