Many feel that STEEM is heading to zero. This is natural since we are mired in a crypto-Winter where the bear was firmly in charge (especially with the alt-coins). An added layer to this belief is the fact that STEEM keeps dropping in relation to other tokens, putting it somewhere around 80.
That said, there is going to be another alt-coin run. The Bitcoin maximalists are not correct believing the only valuable token is going to be the grand-daddy of them all. Just like 2017, we will see alt-coin projects take off.
There will be one major difference. Unlike that year, where anything that had an ICO skyrocketed, the run in either 2019 or 2020 will be based on development. Instead of throwing money at all things blockchain, investors will be wiser in the ones they choose.
Hence, those tokens that represent progress and solutions are going to gain. The market is going to weed out the garbage that is nothing but fluff and hype.
This is where Steem comes in. I often wrote about all that is taking place on Steem and how it is very encouraging. Listening to that audio only made me believe it more.
Oracle-D, according to Mark, is having some success reaching outside the Steem ecosystem and bringing in money. In fact, this week, he expects one company to fulfill a contract by buying at least $50,000 worth of STEEM. At today's price, that is roughly 250K that will be powered up.
Before getting into that, it is crucial to look at some of the projects and business model that Oracle-D is implementing. There is a platform that is going to be released called "D-call". This will allow Steemians to review and rate ICOs to give funds a better idea of how to gauge them. Part of the deal is that these funds buy some STEEM upfront and putting a portion of their profits each month into STEEM. This is leveraging the knowledge and value of the Steem ecosystem into a tangible result for the token.
They also are offering promotional services where companies can power up STEEM and let Oracle-D utilize it to reward Steemians who are providing the promotional services. Once again, we see how this company is bridging Steem to the business community.
Here is the real crux of the matter. Businesses can apply a lot more buying pressure, on average, than individuals. This is good since the Steem reputation among the early crypto investors is not great. Businesses want results and Steemians can provide them under the context Oracle-D is setting up.
By establishing buying on a contractual basis, the buying pressure is firmly established. For example, according to the interview, the $50,000 purchase of STEEM is a part of a larger commitment that is to reach $150,000. Instead, of 250K, that is roughly 750K of STEEM at today's prices.
After listening to Exyle's audio, my belief of holding onto those STEEMies was re-affirmed. There is in the neighborhood of 120M STEEM on the open market that is not powered up. This is out of a total of about 320M.
This might sound like a lot at this time but, I can assure you, if some of the plans that are being put in place come into being, STEEM will get very scarce.
Companies that purchase STEEM in half a million blocks will really eat into the amount that is floating out there. This is coupled by the fact that individuals are going to need it also.
Another project that Exyle and Mark discussed was 3Speak. This is also another piece that is vital to the economic puzzle on Steem. Using light accounts, 3Speak is allowing anyone to log in with a non-Steem account (Facebook and Google). This allows people to not only view the videos but also leave comments. Those comments are posted to Steem through a proxy account which is tied to a back end database. Hence, any rewards earned on the comment will be tied to that Facebook or Google account.
This was mentioned in the past in a number of posts but it is worth bring up again. Once the account has enough STEEM earned, it will be able to convert to a full Steem account. Essentially, the commenting activity is paying for the setting up of the account.
Here is where it gets interesting. Having people who are actively commenting converting to Steem accounts is only part of the equation. The second part is that each account needs some SP to operate. Hence, people are going to have to power up to at least 15 SP to comment and upvote. Once again, we should see the buying pressure start to build.
Of course, to achieve this, we need people to come to Steem. This is where 3Speak's business model is entering the picture.
The platform is one based upon free speech. There is a target market at the moment since Facebook and Google are censoring certain views by closing accounts. These are prime candidates for Steem. It is one reason why 3Speak opened up their beta stage so quickly and put a MVP up. The plan was to wait a bit longer but the opportunity presented itself.
We are also seeing non-censored content creators focused upon. There is a program in place that is going to allow these individuals to promote their videos on other social media in an effort to bring them to Steem. The "hook" is these individuals will be given control over the 3Speak account for a day to upvote their followers who leave comments. Here we see a method which a content creators can instantly reward his or her followers in a monetary form. Of course, the hope is, especially in the early stages, that this results in a lot more Steem accounts being created.
This program is going to be available to the Top 30 creators on the 3Speak platform each month. I am not sure if it is on a rotating basis or how the particulars work, but you get the idea. Newer people are going to get rewarded in SPEAK and SP simply for doing what they are presently doing on YouTube.
Looking at things from this perspective, it is easy to conclude that it is a good idea to hold onto the STEEMies. However, there is another layer that needs to be considered.
Cue the proverbial "but wait, there's more".
Like YouTube, 3Speak is going to have advertisements on the videos. This only makes sense since companies want to target those viewers who align with their products and services. Videos that are tagged to particular categories make this easy. It certainly was a windfall for Google.
We will see the same thing on 3Speak with a few exceptions.
To start, according to Mark, the goal of advertising is to cover expenses while giving them "a small profit".
Here we see the value of crypto-economics. The creators of 3Speak, Mark and 
This is much different than Google's model which is another publicly traded company trying to maximize profits for its shareholders and suck every dime out that it can.
What is really exciting about this is that each of us is going to look forward to ads being implemented. I know that sounds odds since almost all of us hate ads but this situation is different.
On this platform, it all begins with the idea of "opt in". All ads that are viewed are going to be done by consent. We, the viewers, will decide when to watch ads or not. Of course, there is a reason to watch them: payment.
Ad viewers will be paid to watch the ads. This helps the economic stability of the platform because advertisers want their stuff watched. By paying people to view it, the numbers go up very quickly.
The other side of the equation is the distribution to content creators. Google keeps almost all the money for themselves. In this situation, more than half the money is expected to end up in the hands of the content creators themselves.
Project with me for a moment, to a time down the road, say 3 years. Why would anyone use YouTube and give them most of the money when one can use a platform like 3Speak and get receive more than half the advertising money? It amounts to a few pennies versus dollars.
Can you see what is starting to take place here?
This could radically alter the economic system of video platforms. Instead of the platform taking most of the money while content creators get little and viewers nothing, we see the complete opposite here.
Under this model, viewers get paid some, the platform makes a little, and the content creators get the lion's share of the pie.
Of course, all of this is built upon Steem, meaning that the STEEM token is required.
Can you see how 120M STEEM could get bought up fairly quickly?
It will only take a couple million people getting involved for this to explode. Again, from our present perspective, this sounds like an enormous amount. However, we must keep in mind that some of these YouTubers have a million or more followers.
If 3Speak is successful in bringing over 10-15 of them, they will add close to a million active users. That will result in a certain amount powering up to operate. Couple this with the other projects Oracle-D is working on along with all the other applications that are locking up SP, and the only conclusion I can make is SP is going to get very scarce.
This will have an impact on the price of the token at some point.
Hang on, I expect Steem to be a totally different place by next Spring.
To listen to the interview by
https://steempeak.com/threespeak/@exyle/ybeiczna
None of this is financial advice, do your own due diligence.
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