No, I think SBD was clever, BUT lots of bollox in the whitepaper made people believe (people like believing shit rather than researching) that it was some kinda "stable"coin - it isn't (wasn't). Just one sentence describes what it really is, which is a debt to steem designed to stabilise the system STEEM price in the event of external collapse. The system then generates an algorithmic price. That won't stop a fall to zero, but will slow it down as it creates arbitrage ops. I've written lots about this - very few understand it, even fewer believe me (but I am not the messiah so their faith is misplaced anyway).
I was not on the Blurt team at the start and, personally, would not have removed the secondary coin - for the reasons above. I don't care if people find it "confusing" - if we took confusion into account we would have no insurance, mortgages, pensions, derivatives etc etc ;-)
Having said all that, what steem and hive have both since done with their secondary coin is very different, but both show that SBD/HBD can both be manipulated. As this is not an issue on Blurt, I haven't bothered investigating further what is the simplest tweak to mitigate any negative effects of such manipulations. The SBD one is perhaps more interesting as I don't think there was any code change - just that the SBD market has been taken over.
Think of the secondary coin as a Tbond compared to the main coin. ;-)
Thank you for the excellent explanation. I get your point about confusion. With that thought process maybe we'd all still be back in the stone age! haha
It's clear this is something you have done your homework on. I and many others have not. Having respect for you and your opinion; if you think it's a good idea than it most likely is as long as it's set up correctly. It seems like you would be the right guy to ensure it's done right if it was ever introduced to the platform.
After being on Blurt for about a month or so, it's becoming very clear that you are a true asset to this place. Very glad you are here. Just don't go double-u on us now ;)
Have a great day, and I'll be in touch!
I'm losing track of time, but must be 5 years ago now... 2017? probably.
Unlike most people (I'm assuming) I wasn't looking for a place to make money from blogging - I was looking for a crypto construct that attempted to have a viable internal economy! very few of those, even now ;-) So I found Steem from doing that search.
Once I'd figured out how to earn STEEM from blogging (comments and then more comments, folks!!) I started to look at the economic setup - how to make money from money! Sadly, I saw that it was largely based on pigs at the trough economics... and every "improvement" made it worse. I still think such an internalist cryptoeconomy may be feasible, but I also see great resistance, even from those who may benefit long-term, that it may be easier to start something new rather than morphing something existing. The blockchain is also as complex and delicate as a mechanical watch that it is way easier to break things than fix them. Anyway, that's my background to all this.
To add, the "making money from money" idea came from a very practical problem: how to support a growing community of users? just giving people votes doesn't work as the number of hungry feeders grows faster than the available pie.
;-)
hence, I constructed a community fund.
So I didn't have to beg to anyone, nor become dependent on anyone :-)
One gracious investor did step up, and we've been friends ever since.
Thanks for taking the time to share this with all of us. Very interesting. My experience is quite different. I was looking for a place to share my story and travel photography, and insights into the lifestyle of a perpetual traveler as well as ad another revenue stream.
I never even heard of bitcoin until about the same time I heard of steemit in early 2017....basically I was too busy venturing through the world and intentionally limited my computer time to basically just emails and trading (traditional markets).
I'm a real outdoorsy adventure loving kind of guy....never one for the "screens" too much. Apparently that lifestyle choice had me falling short on amazing opportunities like getting into crypto earlier, but that is OK. I got in early enough and I'm not complaining.
What you say here makes so much sense...
"The blockchain is also as complex and delicate as a mechanical watch that it is way easier to break things than fix them."
On that other blockchain no name needs to be mentioned, one of "them" we're bashing blurt how there hasn't been any or many forks. Just reminds me of what you say above. Also reminds me of what you say below here as well.
"Sadly, I saw that it was largely based on pigs at the trough economics... and every "improvement" made it worse."
Your last comment below reminds me what we need more of.
"So I didn't have to beg to anyone, nor become dependent on anyone :-)
One gracious investor did step up, and we've been friends ever since."
This is key isn't it? People helping other people each with a role they play. Like a symbiotic relationship in the animal kingdom. One of my best friends @teamsteem, maybe you remember him, certainly was an amazing supporter of the platform, helping the price rise and increase membership. His mega up-vote power came almost entirely from a surprise delegation. The guy totally surprised him and dumped huge steem power into his hands completely out of blue. This is just cause he was a smart "teamsteem" player that was good for steem, and good for this person's investment.
Not really sure where this is going. But I certainly enjoy learning from what you have to share and conversing with you. I'm currently building a position in Blurt, and will start doing things similar to @randula in terms of delegation and encouraging others to come to the platform. I'll continue to devote time to help this place grow, even if it means more screen time! hahaha Frankly I'm starting to become very fond of the people here and enjoying my time on blurt.
It's a much different angle than my days on steemit/hive where I was just a travel blogger networked with other travel bloggers. It got so boring over there, cause I know if I spiced things up and shared anything of what may be considered a controversial opinion I was at risk of down-vote. So here I feel the freedom to speak my mind without worry and it's refreshing to say the least.
I'm enjoying my new roll and with a far clearer understanding of how things work here internally and economically. I'm looking forward to a very bright future here on blurt. Let's just not fork this place to death and turn it into something unrecognizable a year from now. ;)
I too think the OG SBD was smart... Would have been smarter if the allowed the SBD system to open up for other ideas like what Steem-Engine eventually gave us.
I think something similar could happen here on BLURT with a variety of Backed Dollars built by the communities.
Like smart media tokens only real.
BLURT backed Dollar
BLURT backed ruble
BLURT backed yen
Etc etc ...
oh OK, your focus was on the word "Dollar". I kinda just took it as a unit-currency, in that the blockchain coin price was in USD - had the chain been priced in BTC, then they would have had a SBB secondary coin.
Not sure how multiple secondary coins would help on chain, but I see your point of spreading out the concept to other fiat, or even other cryptos.
The algo I did like was removing the witness price feeds and being an internal calculation - everyone else I've ever spoken to hated that!! lol.
I'm actually very glad you understood what I was tryna say.
A BTC backed Steem was EXACTLY what I was expecting back in the day. An ETH-Steem whole have been great too and probably fueled better internet resources like Storage and stream distribution. But theses wanks can only conceive of money... Dollars for dollards IMHO 🤬🥓
Rather than NEW shitcoin... Communities could have built back better. I should have the ability to manage multiple coins from a Steem/Hive/BLURT wallet .. but that's just me.