I supported BTS because I think decentralized exchanges are needed. Gox, Cryptsy, Mintsy, the list of exchange defaults will continue to grow. The community just doesn't yet realize how bad a decentralized solution is needed. I would like to think that I am more forward thinking than most, and I thought people would eventually realize decentralized solutions are ideal and Bitshares would eventually be a big success. I'm still not convinced that won't happen some day. Bitshares was the first DEX-centric cryptocurrency project, and I support any cryptocurrency project aiming at solving this problem. BTCD's PAX has promise, as does SUPERNET and B&C Exchange. I will support those projects just as much, but they are all mostly vaporware, and for some reason those projects aren't trolled as much as Bitshares so there is never really a need for me to come to their defense.
I helped jl777 just a little bit on his upcoming DEX work. I also came up with a way to improve further on what I had suggested to TierNolan and jl777 in the "cut and choose" thread. These are true DEX where you trade CCs for CCs, not pegged assets representing them.
My understanding is that Dan's Open Ledger is not a DEX. You can only convert pegged assets on the blockchain, then you need to use some centralized or federated entities to get the actual CCs in and out of the Open Ledger system
Nevertheless, I think DEX is not that needed yet when you can trade CCs for CCs quickly using ShapeShift or Poloniex and withdraw quickly avoided most risk of defunct exchange. Traders who maintain a balance, need high liquidity of centralized exchanges.
I'd still like to have the true form of DEX.
I support STEEM because it is different from other cryptocurrencies with the social networking angle. It has a chance to be reach the masses more so than any other cryptocurrency.
I also see maybe that potential but not with Streem's current design. They got some things correct but IMO some things are very wrong.
The single biggest problem which can't be fixed in Steem is that everyone will have a motivation to cash out to a better unit-of-exchange eventually, because there is no way to force any merchants to accept only STEEM tokens. Thus there will be no demand for STEEM from the outside. Thus no way to fund paying for the content that doesn't debase the investors.
I see a potential solution to that, but (I realized a few hours ago) it requires that no tokens are given to free signups. Steem can no longer do that because they promised the 57 million coins to new signups. This has stopped me dead in the water and I can't move forward on improving Steem unless I can find another solution (doubtful and looks very bleak).
It also solves a problem that I have always thought needed solving... kicking back profits of social media web sites to the users that make them so valuable.
There isn't enough profit per user to make it worth it for users, unless only some superstar users get it all.
The business model of Steemit is not what you think. It was never to make blogging a lucrative endeavor for most users. It was to entice a million users to signup and then to sell CC commerce to them. But the plan is deeply flawed for the reason I stated.
Legacy social networks are like sweat shops, but worse considering they don't provide their users with any wages at all.
Users of social networks get paid in terms of their social rewards, not monetary.
To build better social networks is about enabling them to better leverage the social rewards (which btw can include helping them upsell things to their fans which is monetary but not the normal profit of a social network).
There may be better social networking cryptocurrency designs, but I don't trust that they will be implemented in a sufficient amount of time... they are vaporware.
As I said, you have some valid reasons.
Until they are actually released, I will continue to champion Steemit. Which brings me to my next point...
Dan can actually deliver working cryptocurrencies which are mostly as advertised in the road map or whitepaper. There are way too many projects to name that are perpetual vaporware. Dan has a good team that helps him too. SVK, in my opinion, can make some of the best looking modern user interfaces I have used in crypto.
Yes I see their coding (and even some design) talent.
But somehow Dan always messes up the key salient parts that make or break the project. How is that he always does that? Seems to me to be habitual.
As you imply (which is correct), my habitual issue is I don't code regularly any more. The reason is well known. I am not 100% healthy. (I may be healthy enough now to ramp another serious coding phase, but I've said that before in recent times)
Dan is also a creative and hardworking guy, as evidenced by his Github account. He is never happy with the way his project exists. He is always scheming up some way to improve them, and as I said a moment ago... he can actually deliver on the improvements and get them into a release. He always seems to come up with some good ideas as to what direction the project should go. He is dedicated to improving his projects, as evidenced by how much Bitshares improved from 0.xx releases to the Graphene release.
Sounds exactly like a description of myself before I got old and ill. (I think the issue is mostly ill, not old but I am not sure as I was never old and not ill).
The only reason why he left Bitshares was because the Bitshares stakeholders didn't want to fund his development efforts any more. Mainly the Chinese stakeholders were very vocal about that.
What happened? I thought he was in control? Did he not have the most stake?
DPoS governance turned into a clusterfuck right?
I am sure he will continue working on Steemit for years to come. He is at least invested for 2 years, so I expect to see a lot of improvements during that time frame.
Seems likely unless something else steals its market and/or it implodes.
At the same time, I was very critical of Bitshares within the Bitshares community. There were a lot of people that don't like me over there because I was always speaking my mind, a lot of the time going against the grain of whatever groupthink was popular at the time.
Lots of arguments in crypto. I don't have the answer on how to prevent them.
