Thanks to everyone for all the voting and excitement in round 1 of voting. We started with 27 awesome designs!

We had 7 designs that had over 20 votes in round 1 that will advance to Round 2

Round 2 will run a bit differently. There has been lots of discussion that voters don't necessarily reflect the likely buyers or past buyers for the round. Therefore we wanted to ensure that people that are genuinely interested in the project and will be buying the round are getting their voices heard. Since we are crowdfunding the project and every dollar raised will go directly against the cost of the coins we felt it was fair to have a mandatory donation to vote. You are essentially just making a small prepayment towards your future order of the round anyways.

This means you have to make a donation to @steemsilverround for your vote to count.

1. Minimum donation amount is 1SBD. (1 vote each, regardless of donated amount)
2. Votes are cast as new comment with your choice. (upvote of comments will not count).
3. People that have already sent donations from the goodness of their hearts do not have to make an additional donation and as an added bonus they will be rewarded with a double-weighted vote.

Current donations received are as follows;

A few things to consider before voting

Please remember that the wining design will be be used to the reverse or tails side of the coins and the obverse will remain unchanged from last year and will be the design above, keep that in mind when you are voting.

Also please remember to consider the design carefully and what it means and stands for and not solely the image, I have including any accompanying story provided this time. The sketches will be cleaned up and balanced before heading to the mint. We will also have an opportunity to make final adjustments to the wining design. So if there are slight things you want changed but otherwise really like the design please keep that in mind as well.

On with the eligible designs, in no particular order

#1, by @bearone

What in means in her own words;

Steemit to me is all about community and that is represented by the MINNOWS. Yup the minnows. No dolphins and whales this time, just the minnows.

I feel it's important that we remember what it's like to be a new fish swimming in new waters.

The SWIRLS represent the constant movement and changes on the platform.

This constant change was emphasised when I took a week off for The Move, when I got back this week I found so many new things going on within the communities I am a part of. I was only semi gone for a week.

The 'CHANGING TIDES' when you look at it, looks like it's propelling the "Steem" logo towards the full moon.

This is exactly how I feel about Steemit. It's just a matter of time before the tides change and people really embrace the next generation that we represent.

The RIPPLES represent our interaction with each other and how we have the ability to touch each other's lives.

I find this especially true in my time here. It has been my pleasure to have come across many beautiful souls and because of Steemit, we are able to touch other people's lives outside of the platform.

What we do here, now, makes a difference wether we realise it or not.

The long WAVES represent the dips and gains, the ups and downs, that we as a community go through.

The STARS...
"Reaching for the Stars. Going to the Moon."

Lastly. You would have noticed I revamped the STEEM logo.

Honestly? I was having issues getting the proportions right to make it look exactly like the logo so I sketched in a rough outline, which ended up sticking because it reminded me of the 2001 Space Odyssey Monolith.

Which in this design seems so appropriate, as the Monolith, in the movie, triggered a shift in evolution.

Steemit certainly is the next step to evolution.

#2 by @ideaman

The design in his own words;

I noticed in the contest post that they were going to keep one side of the coin in the same format to give continuity to the coins as they are released every year. The steem logo is incorporated in this so I didn’t want to just use the logo as the centerpiece in the drawing.

So I decided to look to the white paper for ideas. Towards the end of the paper there is a section about blockchain based attribution: "Under blockchain-based social media, a creator or author would always be able to point to a public record and timestamp showing proof of their content origination."

So this was cool and something I wasn't really aware of and I thought a light ought to be shined onto it. I encourage you to read this section of the white paper if you haven't already. If we look up attribution in the dictionary it states "the action of ascribing a work or remark to a particular author, artist, or person."

I did my best to represent attribution by using the archetype of the water bearer. In this case the water that she pours into the stream represents the content. The stream represents the blockchain. You'll notice that she has two water vessels. The idea is that ideally we don't want to dump everything onto here only the things that are of quality. Which is also shown by the "magical" up-vote icon that floats above the stream.

The second component I wanted to celebrate was the diversity that I see on this platform. This is represented by the fruit and flowers in the tree (I really tried to get those bananas just right lol). Now horticulturally speaking this makes no sense but don't worry it's just a drawing. The gnarly tree represents the core team responsible for steem in the first place. which is why I patterned the tree off the basic shape of the steem logo turned sideways. This is why the stream/river falling down a tall waterfall because steem didn't invent the blockchain. The blockchain is sort of like a programming element like earth or water. The waterfall mountain is a tip of the hat to all the individuals that have made contributions to the development of the technology.

This design was also an attempt (possibly failure) to not rely so heavily on the nautical theme that seems to be present in the steem universe.

#3 by @welchstacker

The design in his own words;

So I've called the idea THE COMMINI-TREE (community) for obvious reasons, it's based on the tree of life pattern. So sit back, grab a cold beer and allow me to take you through my thought process... Hold tight, it's a mine field of random thoughts!!

So the tree is meant to represent growth, not only as an individual on Steemit but as the platform as a whole. It needs strong roots and will continue to grow bigger for as long as its foundations are strong!! Told you it was cheesy..

The design of the coin itself, I feel needs a chunky rim to it, very similar in size to last years one. It gives a good balance to the design inside and leave plenty of space for writing around the outside.

I have the words "from small acorns might oak trees grow" but I'm happy to change that. Could go fancy and change it to Latin or go for something completely different.

My design shows the root system with many fingers. Each finger could have a different word etched inside. Words like: quality, content, knowledge, effort, platform, steem, input, sharing and time.

These are the things I feel help create a good, strong foundation to most things and in particular steemit.

The tree design has many branches and these were to represent the things steemit has to offer. Each branch could have individual words etched on them.

Words to include: community, hope, progress, truth, individuality, freedom, friendship, prosperity, love, family, blockchain, strength and social to name a few.

I loved last year's design and would like to use the idea of minnow to dolphin to whale as part of this design. So my thought was, as you progress further up the tree, you move from minnow to dolphin in to whale. There can be a few leaves scattered amongst the branches too. There should be a lot of minnows around the lower branches and get slightly bigger the higher up. These could be mixed in with dolphins and overlap as you go up. There should be less dolphins than minnows and obviously less whales than dolphins sitting at the top. There should be no whales at the very top(leave a tiny space of free branches) as who knows what the future may bring.

I am also OK if you take the minnows/dolphins/whales away and just have leaves.

#4 by @ricko66

The design in his words;

As I take care some of the Steemit communities Thailand, Laos, and Morocco it gives me the idea about the way I see Steemit, a community-driven site and crypto and the way we are making people from all around the world communicate and become friends. I get some other ideas but I try to keep it simple. So here is my silver coin and two pictures of the design process.

First, the design represents nodes like style connecting different parts of the world, countries, cities, and individuals. Second, the reason why I put Africa in the middle of the coin is just to get all the continents visible and I feel like the earth cannot be modified. But logically the middle must be the USA as Steem comes from there. After working a few hours on the design I forgot to speak about my choices. Thank You.

#5 by @orionsbeltbuckle

#6 by @mariae

#7 by @dandesign86

Votes will be counted in 7 days when this post pays out, and if there isn't a clear winner we will move to a final head to head round of voting!