The rich get richer.
That is what we are told. The early adopters, those who were here at the beginning, have an advantage over everyone else. We are told they were able to get in when STEEM was cheap AND could accumulate a ton of the reward pool since there were so few of them. Those attacks might well be true.
However, I am going to say the same for everyone who is on steemit right now. STEEM is cheap compared to where it is going. We are looking at $1.00 a token. Of course, those who are fearful will point to the fact it could go to 80 cents. Well, I am here to tell you that is going to head higher, much higher, in 2018. Simply look through most of my posts over the last week to see the justification.
There is something that few understand called Steem Power. Everyone has it in their account without realizing what it is. The common view is that Steem Power is the number of STEEM in your account. Incorrect. Steem Power does not represent STEEM even though that is what the interface shows. In reality, Steem Power pertains to the number of MVests that one has. It is the MVests that are important.
The breakdown is as such:
1000 MV = Whale
100 MV = Orca
10 MV = Dolphin
.1 MV = Minnow
.01 MV = Plankton
MVests are understood by computers. Each MVest is worth a certain value of STEEM. At present, 1 MV is worth 487.244 STEEM. If you are interesting, you can find out your MVests by looking at steemd.com/@username.
So what is the point? MVest...STEEM...Steem Power...who cares? I see what it is in my account.
This is important because the amount of STEEM required for one MVest keeps going up. That is by design. Therefore, investing 100 STEEM today gets you LESS SP than 100 STEEM did a year ago (all things being equal). Simply by holding your STEEM in SP gives you automate appreciation. If nothing else changes, your SP will be worth more a year from now than it is today.
Which brings up the point what is SP really? What does it entitle one to?
SP is basically your ownership of the blockchain. Most believe that is true for most tokens but it isn't the case. Steem Power entitles you to a percentage of the pool of STEEM that was created to purchase the SP. At present, I read, that 73% of all STEEM is held in SP. If SBD is like a bond, then SP is like a stock. It is an ownership stake in the blockchain represented by the STEEM set aside. This provides steemit (and all the other apps since they read the same data on the chain) with the stability of having people become long term holders. This is something that every start up needs.
There is another advantage to this. It takes 13 weeks to fully power down. Anyone who does this and the wants to power up later will be doing so at a diminished rate. Again, STEEM is the currency, not the dollar. However, one acquires the STEEM is not relevant. What is particular in this situation is how much STEEM is needed to get a MVest.
STEEM is the currency on this blockchain. People like to think in dollars (or Euros) but all that matters is STEEM. At present, there is only 27% of STEEM available on the open market. The other day I wrote about SMTs and the zero cost transaction function of steem. This exists because bandwidth is what is charged, not each transactions. And, you guessed it, all bandwidth is priced in STEEM.
Please tell me what will happen when a couple of high traffic sites develop their own token on the steem blockchain. Presuming they have hundreds of thousands, if not millions of visitors, they are going to have to acquire a fair bit of bandwidth. The last thing any site wants is people to have to stop using the features because he or she is out of bandwidth. Therefore, sites are going to have to load up on STEEM. Yet 73% of it, based upon the number I could find, is locked up in SP. That seriously reduces the supply of available STEEM.
Supply down, demand up....what happens to price?
Oh, and by the way, your MVest that is worth 487 STEEM today, will be worth 500 down the road...then 600....then 700. At some point, when you do decide to power down, not only will the price of STEEM, most likely, be substantially higher, the amount of STEEM you get per MVest also will be higher than it is today.
Isn't it nice to get paid for doing nothing?
Steem Power...just another way we are getting paid on the steem blockchain.
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Pictures by google images.
