Hardfork 20 and Why We Should Take It Easy

^how people be actin' today Source

I read a piece of advice the other day suggesting users with low SP be careful about their activity immediately after Hardfork 20, and I meant to absorb it. I didn't, however, and as soon as my "resource credits/mana" were back up I made a comment or two and got a little out of control.

In the course of a few hours, I made 13 comments, 5 votes, and followed one account. That's when I was cut off. I went back to Steemworld and that's when I saw the new "RC Status" tab @steemchiller put in and noticed I had dropped to 3.23% of my available RC. I was surprised (one) that the percentage was so low and (two) that my remaining 15,548,116,814 resource credits weren't enough to leave another short comment.

I decided to give it a rest and let the blockchain sort itself out. A few hours later, I again went back to Steemworld(the tab never closes) and saw my RC status had returned to 4.54%. I opened Steempeak and clicked resend on the outgoing comment and saw it go through. This brought my RC down to 0.05%(still a quarter of a billion RC's), which means my comment cost me about 4.49% of my RC.

Now, this was simply a test, and I don't expect these numbers to hold up; as our witnesses have graciously made us aware of already. I just wanted to see what my 238 SP translated to initially. If it were to hold up, I would obviously be very disappointed, because that would mean a user with 238 SP would only be able to leave 22 comments a day; if they wanted to completely destroy their RC for the week and not vote.

But, like I said, it was only a test. Just because I was curious. These numbers will adjust over the next 5 days or so and I suggest that people let their voting power climb back to normal as much as they can. If you aren't aware, the reason your VP may be low is that most, if not all, accounts were reduced to ~20% after the HF20.

Why am I talking about this shit?

I have seen a lot of negativity and overall a lot of confusion going on about HF20. There is a good population of people here that seem to be pretty down about the whole thing, especially with the stunt Dlive pulled(totally fine, timing's off).

I, on the other hand, like many, think we just made a big step in the right direction. Before I continue to talk about my personal opinion, I would like to emphasize the point that I am by no means an expert on Steemit or the blockchain in general. This is just what I've picked up while trying to learn as much about this amazing blockchain as my petty brain will allow. This is mostly for people confused about HF20 and if you aren't confused, you aren't going to learn anything here. Maybe no one will. But hey, I'm trying.

Calm down

That's the first thing I'd like to say. To everyone freaking out. This is a huge step forward for STEEM and it's possibilities. It does suck to not be able to use the platform as usual but that's to be expected. Rather than think of an unreliable platform think of a developing platform that you are an early adoptor of, taking things as they go. This is a small speedbump compared to how amazingly complex the Hardfork is and to be honest I think it's pretty incredible that they can convert over the entire system in such a short amount of time.

The replacement of bandwidth with resource credits is very confusing and no one is really sure exactly how it's all going to balance out. But, I have pretty high faith that it will balance correctly. Additionally, this opens up so many possibilities, including the possibility for easy sign ups for new users which is HUGE.

All of us already on the platform know what a pain in the ass it was to sign up. If I hadn't heard about the blockchain extensively from a particular individual, I probably would have never remembered to check for that confirmation e-mail. And I'm sure I wouldn't have been the only one. In fact, I know first hand that the long sign up process of Steemit inc. is a huge deterrent when trying to encourage new users to sign up.

Now, users with higher SP obviously earn more RC's. Those RC's can then be used to essentially "buy in" new users. This is cool; but let's think about what that means when it comes to the future introduction of Smart Media Tokens(SMT's) and decentralized applications(Dapps) built upon the Steem blockchain.

Dapps/SMTs/HF20

Screen Shot 20180926 at 8.49.43 PM.png

One of the most amazing things about this blockchain is the easy implimentation of it and how that allows so many Dapps to be built upon it. Every week a new project is running and so many of these are already vastly successful, with a broad range of specific uses. Many of these Dapps have accounts with a very high amount of SP, a.k.a. a very high amount of expendable, regenerating RC's. They can now use these RC's to sign up new users directly on their platform.

To me, that seems absolutely crucial for mass adoption. A few days ago, for instance, if a user unfamiliar with Steem stumbles upon something like Dtube, or Steem Monsters, and wants to get involved, they will be redirected to Steemit.com to set up an account and wait. If those people were anything like I was 8 months ago they'd probably say "fuck this" and that would be that.

Now, however, those Dapps have the ability to sign up new users directly on their platform through their own RC's. Then, of course, these people will want SP of their own, and we have more investing and staking. What they will learn over time, as well, is that this account of theirs is tied to an entire network of different applications built upon one blockchain. I think it's pretty easy to see how things would evolve from there.

Then, with the future introduction of SMT's, we have even more use for RC's, staking in SP, etc; which will all increase the importance of STEEM, as all these SMT's will be tradeable directly with Steem. More importantly, they will ALL need the RC system to run properly, further encouraging investing and staking. I cannot stress enough how important I, personally, think this is for our future here.

The next 4(or so) days

Source

I am, again, by no means an expert on this stuff. I'm not even sure if any of what I wrote will be helpful at all, to anyone, but I hope it is. This is just my humble opinion on things that are going on and it just pains me to see so much negativity and mayhem about such a positive event.

Part of the reason I decided to write this is that over the next however many days I'm not sure how much I will be able to post/comment/vote/etc. Hopefully things will be starting to settle tomorrow but I know for one that I will not be able to vote much, and I do not expect others to feel the pressure to do so. It's alright to be conservative with your activity while everything gets back on track. Just be patient.

So, if I seem gone, I'm not. I am just trying to figure out exactly how HF20 is going to influence my activity here. I just ran another test to see if I could even write this post by using a little bit of my liquid Steem to power up to see if it would increase my RC. Two(2) additional SP bought me 1.63%, not nearly enough compared to the 4.49% it cost me to make my previous comment hahaha. Which is why I may not be posting much. But, again, who knows. Maybe we'll wake up tomorrow and everything is running better than ever!

Don't give up. This blockchain is making STRIDES, and it doesn't take a lot of looking to see that. Just look at Steem Monsters, for instance. That seemed to happen almost overnight, with minimal investment. The future is bright.

And as for the next few days.. go outside or something, idk.