I am writing this article because for some reason I do not see controversial voices towards the recent update on the SMT proposal nor have I read or seen any in the discussions before.
I am looking to get convinced why I would be looking forward towards SMT's.
What is SMT
SMT is the model that allows user to create their own token on the Steem platform. Kind of ERC20 Tokens, but not really. They can be earned the same way like Steem with upvotes and downvotes mechanism. That is what it is all about. And you can do crowdfunding in Steem to distribute your token.
The roots of Steem
Let me explain for a second where Steem is coming from. So Dan Larimer and others had developed this high-frequent trading blockchain, where tokens could be created and traded. The whole design is based on Delegated Proof-of-Stake in order to enable high transaction throughput.
From there Dan Larimer and others trimmed this blockchain down so it would host text data (like blogs) and create this upvote / downvote mechanism into the distribution to create a reward for authors on Steem. So basically, Steem is a fork of the trading engine BitShares with emphasis on text / social media.
From my point of view (even though it did not have a great start) a brilliant move to create Steem out of BitShares - and this platform has really big potential.
But since two years I see that there is close to zero development done on steemit.com – the reason is the development of SMT’s. So what I see is that all the resources for this platform are dedicated towards bringing back a coin market into Steem.
The burden of SMT
I have a couple of negative points towards everybody launching their own tokens for their communities on Steem. I think this will divide the community as people will all be speaking in different coins instead of talking about the same thing - a system where you get rewarded by upvotes / downvotes. And steem is already a decentralized open-source community in itself, I do not see why not integrating those tools in the first place.
People will have to start running around converting all those different coins with each other instead of speaking one language (steem).
Crowdfunding with SMT
Crowdfundings should probably not be fostered to happen on Steem but also outside Steem (on ETH, with BTC or others) – the tools are there. So people can raise money to invest into Steem and their infrastructure but are not bound to the price of the token.
Release Date for the SMT
It was now announced for SMT to be launched in March 2019. So what I hear is that any development towards a better steemit.com seems also to be delayed to ... at least after March 2019…
Future?
From my point of view the most promising way forward for steem are platforms like DTube, Busy… you name them. And all those content authors coming from Medium, YouTube, Facebook and the likes aswell as authors that finally found a way to express their voice.
I still think steemit is in its current form close to the system I would love to see around. Sure, it needs some tweaks here and there in distribution, voting mechanism and bots but these are the areas that should be put emphasis on. And especially the UI /UX of steemit.com - so much nice stuff can be done these days. A concentration on the current platform could have a huge impact on social media and news reporting.