RE: The Great Steemit Debate: Tone Vays vs. Jeff Berwick "Ponzi Scheme or Paradigm Shift?"

Great video, I really enjoyed it. Just a couple of quick comments on Tone's points:

1. I got the strong impression that he only considers a blockchain a blockchain if it's based on proof-of-work. It is true that the Steem blockchain is mostly based on proof-of-stake. But I think the generally accepted definition of a blockchain is a description of functional characteristics such as immutability and shared consensus, not the use of proof-of-work as the means of arriving at that consensus.
2. Tone doesn't seem to fully understand the economics of the inflation and powerdown feature. I don't really blame him, it is a bit complicated. But this issue has already been analyzed by posters here plenty of times, and I speak from personal experience when I say that if you power down, your Steem Power does go down and it goes down pretty linearly. The inflationary aspect of the coin doesn't prevent this or even mitigate the loss from the power down as long as around 90% of Steem is held as Steem Power (which the system was essentially designed to encourage as an equilibrium point). The inflationary aspect of the coin primarily impacts people who hold their coin in Steem (e.g. people who hold it in liquid form to speculatively trade it). So the only way a Steem Power holder could manage to make back more Steem Power from holding it in Steem Power while simultaneously powering down would be if most other participants decided to keep the Steem in liquid form. So far, if anything, the reverse is happening, and most people are keeping their Steem in Steem Power.