Steem pyramid scheme revealed

[smooth]

@iamnotback

No one is making those speculators buy and hold all that liquid steem. They do it because they can speculate and are speculating. Either they believe there will be a price rise sufficient to justify the dilution they are incurring, or they are foolish and don't understand it. Either way, you are not being diluted (which is an actual word with an actual meaning: that your share of ownership of the platform is reduced) by inflation. Your investment may lose value because the platform as a whole does (dumb idea, poorly executed, etc.) but in that case, the liquid steem holders who are speculating by holding it will lose even more.

Also, it is very possible to sell your account at a discount. Posts are made to this effect on the Steemit thread semi-regularly. Many have done so. If you choose not to do so you are speculating on a smaller price decline than you would take by selling it (including the possibility of an increase of course), or you see value in the account name (which indicates and adds to platform value).

[iamnotback]

@iamnotback

No one is making those speculators buy and hold all that liquid steem. They do it because they can speculate and are speculating.

I have already explained to you that I am talking about aggregate demand:

Our original argument was about if there is any negative impact of the inflation on those who lockin. I am talking about the aggregate effect on all those who might consider investing long-term. Clearly there is a negative effect, because for example there can't ever be pump, because there is no incentive to accumulate at rock bottom and then engineer a pump.

You are saying there might be a few brave fools who think they can invest long-term in an altcoin and then cash out slowly over a 1 year weighted average. That is incredibly bad odds. It would roughly need to become the next Bitcoin. As you know, typically a wise speculator sells at least enough on the pump to recover their investment (and perhaps a double or triple), then ride the rest.

The aggregate demand for speculation is highly diluted by the inflation focused only on those who don't lockup for 1 year weighted average cashout, as proven by the fact the price is on a perpetual decline that is greater than what is offset by the increase in money supply, i.e. the market cap continues to fall.

Either way, you are not being diluted (which is an actual word with an actual meaning: that your share of ownership of the platform is reduced) by inflation.

Google says:

di·lu·tion
dīˈlo͞oSHn,diˈlo͞oSH(ə)n/
noun
the action of making something weaker in force, content, or value.
"he is resisting any dilution of dogma"

I am diluted (speculation option removed is a dilution) because the speculators (liquid STEEM holders) are, thus they don't speculate (there isn't sufficient demand from them to hold to make the price rise).

You can't compartmentalize that which is not orthogonal. Nature routes around your imaginary Coasian barrier.

Apparently this concept is beyond your IQ, because I have by now stated this several times and you are apparently just are not getting it.

(It is ludicrous for you to presume I don't understand the math of the relative money supply dilution given I had very long technical discussion in the comments of my blogs about that, which I know you read)

Did I write "money supply dilution" above or "dilution" which is a general term? My share of all potential investment demand is diluted by the removal the speculation demand.

Just admit you didn't grasp the concept. Does @smooth ever admit when he is wrong? How could I work with someone like that. Producing great work is about being not obstinate to facts when they are put right in front of your face.

[iamnotback]

The aggregate demand for speculation is highly diluted by the inflation focused only on those who don't lockup for 1 year weighted average cashout, as proven by the fact the price is on a perpetual decline that is greater than what is offset by the increase in money supply, i.e. the market cap continues to fall.

The following is not a logarithmically scaled chart, thus it appears the decline in the market cap is slowing down, but it is not:

http://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/steem/

Move the slider to the right and you will see the decline continues.

AlexGR and smooth, I am sorry that I must speak so frankly to both of you. Because both of you were the key people that enabled me to avail of the opportunity to get $6500 from Steem. I am not ungrateful. But it doesn't help you, if I lie to you.

I was mostly quiet for ~1.5 months, not biasing speculators one way or the other with comments lately. I think it is time to speak frankly. Enough pain has already been inflicted on those who were fooled. Again I am interested in discussing the design, because I am interested in improving it (but that won't likely happen within Steem).


Edit: since Oct. 14, it appears the market cap has declined more slowly than the price, but this doesn't appear to be widening. Thus is probably one some "one time" event of some fool pouring money into Steem, probably that Chinese n00b bagholder whale. Perhaps there are some deals being made made behind the curtain. Any way, none of that can help them. It is fundamentally flawed. Radical changes to the Steem blockchain to remove voting, inflation only on liquid Steem holders, etc.. is IMO very unlikely. Even @smooth seemed to state in comment of the prior 2 pages that it is difficult to get radical changes:

I'll definitely bring your idees to the attention of the devs if I ever have the opportunity to discuss this sort of thing with them. Understandably there isn't generally a large appetite for major changes, but the more their ideas are apparently rejected by the markets the more there could be some receptivity. Maybe (in fact there is often a tendency to dismiss short term price movements as not indicative of much of anything, and there is a lot of validity to that).

[iamnotback]

Edit: since Oct. 14, it appears the market cap has declined more slowly than the price, but this doesn't appear to be widening. Thus is probably one some "one time" event of some fool pouring money into Steem, probably that Chinese n00b bagholder whale. Perhaps there are some deals being made made behind the curtain. Any way, none of that can help them. It is fundamentally flawed. Radical changes to the Steem blockchain to remove voting, inflation only on liquid Steem holders, etc.. is IMO very unlikely. Even @smooth seemed to state in comment of the prior 2 pages that it is difficult to get radical changes:

I'll definitely bring your idees to the attention of the devs if I ever have the opportunity to discuss this sort of thing with them. Understandably there isn't generally a large appetite for major changes, but the more their ideas are apparently rejected by the markets the more there could be some receptivity. Maybe (in fact there is often a tendency to dismiss short term price movements as not indicative of much of anything, and there is a lot of validity to that).

Note there is another remote possibility. That is someone wanting to buy up enough stake to take control of the protocol, remove the inflation and somehow pump it. I find that to be very unlikely (for numerous reasons[1]), but I should mention it.

[1] They would need developers. They would upset the political applecart. Steemit controls 40%. Etc..

[AlexGR]

AlexGR and smooth, I am sorry that I must speak so frankly to both of you. Because both of you were the key people that enabled me to avail of the opportunity to get $6500 from Steem. I am not ungrateful. But it doesn't help you, if I lie to you.

I cannot take any credit for what you earned with your writing. I simply told you to register to bitch about Steem + get paid (unlike bitching in bitcointalk where you don't get paid ).

Speak your mind freely, I have no issue.

When I say the concept is valid, I mean the broader concept of people getting paid for their contribution.

The concept of perpetually paying rewards is entirely flawed. (Steem is fundamentally flawed in so many facets, and that is why I place 100-to-1 odds on its price ever rising again.)

Ok we'll have to disagree on that one.

Fundamentally there is no investment case. You are going to end up kicking yourself as all the others who invest-and-hold in SP.

My only investment so far has been time. Although I'm tempted to throw a few Bitcoins at it when the price is becoming attractive in order to multiply my SP, that would interfere with my experiment to see what I can do with that account without paying for it. Perhaps I might invest in another account so as to have it separate. Anyway I'll see what I'll do if the price goes towards the range I want.

What I'm often thinking is that one weekly power down revenue (in BTC) from a whale, in mid-July, would now buy them back all the SP they have powered down ever since. If, say, you sell 10.000 STEEM x 0.007 = 70 BTC. With 70 BTC you now buy back 233.333 SP. I mean the same applies to me as well - but obviously on a much lower scale in terms of numbers, but the analogies are similar.

Then take out 1 or 2 BTC and invest it in helping to fund me to Singapore to get cured. Get in on the ground floor instead of destroying your capital by invest-and-hold in a highly flawed design.

Speculation is about buying low and selling high. Not buying high on a flawed delusion and watching it decline perpetually.

I believe most disease is psycho-somatic. I have cured myself of things that I do not want to really expand, but anyway let's say they were extremely life threatening and 100% of the medical establishment would say that I required multi-thousand $$$ treatments.

I consider the human potential to be extremely high, but whether that potential is realized is contingent on what my conscious mind thinks and what myself does. If I accept medical help, my subconscious observes that act and registers that I am unable to self-cure myself. Thus I needed to prevent my subconscious from registering a subconscious admission of defeat. Let's say that I played multiple life & death gambles and I won. I trusted myself and I triumphed over my "problems".

What I can give you, is one tool that is extremely effective, even if it is deceptively simple: Focus on the word LIFE. Feel it. Repeat it. Feel it all the time. LIFE. LIFE. LIFE. Keep the concept of vitality in mind. "LIFE, LIFE, LIFE". Feel the words. Keep doing it. Close your eyes and do it for as long as you feel comfortable.

This is an extremely potent technique that can even deliver instant results.

[iamnotback]

Note still a looong ways from capturing the typical mainstream person who has no (even 2nd degree) relationship to crypto.

I'd speculate that 2nd degree connections are a good portion of the population as a whole...

I might agree except first we have to hurdle the problem that Steemit wasn't sticky with Asians (who live in Asia) and I believe ditto with Latin Americans, Africans in those regions. There is that one Chinese lady @sweetsssj who blogs daily.

Also Steemit wasn't sticky with the youth nor the middle-aged. The youth don't have the attention span for blogging (and that would to some extent include Asians, Latin Americans, and Africans since they are more childish and less sophisticated as evident by the TV programming). The middle-aged (e.g. myself) can't waste time on something not lucrative or important, unless it is for entertainment or philosophical.

You could easily just simplify this to say that it is [not] sticky nor appeals to almost no one at all!

Disagree. IMO, it is the positive reinforcement of the Millennials furball going on that keeps them pumped up with their self-delusion. Steemit does appeal to some faction of the ideological, spoiled Millennials (yet the retention rate is very low because Millennials like to get free money while spouting off nonsense).

There are some other egos being fulfilled in various ways I suppose.

[AltcoinScamfinder]

If you didn't realize that some shitty blog-spam platform with 90% instamine would be a scam. Then you deserve to lose money.

[iamnotback]

AlexGR and smooth, I am sorry that I must speak so frankly to both of you. Because both of you were the key people that enabled me to avail of the opportunity to get $6500 from Steem. I am not ungrateful. But it doesn't help you, if I lie to you.

I cannot take any credit for what you earned with your writing. I simply told you to register to bitch about Steem + get paid (unlike bitching in bitcointalk where you don't get paid ).

And I can still eat and work on my projects because you did.

I would much prefer action than complaining. Some discussing is good, to both be sure I am aware of all viewpoints and also so others are aware of mine.

The concept of perpetually paying rewards is entirely flawed. (Steem is fundamentally flawed in so many facets, and that is why I place 100-to-1 odds on its price ever rising again.)

Ok we'll have to disagree on that one.

Strongly disagree. And I am very confident you are wrong about this.

The perpetual earnings will come from competitive commerce, not blockchain money supply dilution. That solves the quagmire that otherwise we must choose a design that is either vulnerable to Sybil attack otherwise must be controlled by whales.

I am very confident I have the correct design.

Then take out 1 or 2 BTC and invest it in helping to fund me to Singapore to get cured. Get in on the ground floor instead of destroying your capital by invest-and-hold in a highly flawed design.

Speculation is about buying low and selling high. Not buying high on a flawed delusion and watching it decline perpetually.

I believe most disease is psycho-somatic.

I think I have explained this many times already, so it frustrates me that you and others still think this about me.

I was hospitalized in May 2012 for a perforated ulcer. I want you to read about what normally happens:

http://www.meb.uni-bonn.de/dtc/primsurg/docbook/html/x3617.html

So all the organs in my abdominal cavity were bathing in stomach acid for roughly 2 - 3 days, until the hole closed (my hole did not close within 6 hours!). Burning alive is incredibly painful when you don't have painkillers. If you want to know the feeling, go put your hand in an open flame and hold it there for 3 days.

Any way, being that I am in the Philippines, I didn't receive proper out patient care, and thus apparently it healed with some problems, such as potentially deformities (e.g. a "blind loop") or bad microflora infection that can't be eradicated.

The reason I know this is the case now, is because I got a diagnosis of NAFLD from a full abdomen ultrasound a few months ago, wherein they say that my liver and kidneys were roughed (sign of damage) and my bile ducts was sludge. I have dark inset around the eyes (didn't have this before) and this is a sign of liver malfunction. The filipino doctors weren't aware of the recent research has highly correlated NAFLD with SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth) which is explained because 70% of the liver's blood supply comes from the portal vein originating from the small intestine.

To give you further proof, I ate all-I-can-eat buffet on Sunday and I was in a lot of pain and discomfort (could barely stand up as we left the restaurant) because the food couldn't pass. I had extreme pressure. I have overeaten before this health ailment and didn't experience that level of pressure. (note I consider this yet another experiment to try every possible thing that might solve the problem, e.g. forcing food through).

My health issue is not imagined or caused by mental attitude. I do workouts and anything I can to try to restore my health, but there is a physical problem. And the symptoms are not just annoying but rather debilitating to cognition much of the time (reducing productivity to a fraction of the healthy cognition). And so that is why I am finally decided to go to a research university hospital in Singapore which specializes in this. I should have done this a long time ago, but for the longest time I was uncertain as to the nature of my illness (and that is another longer explanation). Recent events and awareness of certain information has homed in my understanding of my illness and made me confident to make such expenditures. I have no health insurance at all. I will be paying cash. I had hoped I would heal naturally as I am very athletic guy and had always been able to heal in the past from anything. But this one is physical and has to be dealt with physically by experts. No choice. After 4 years of trying every possible thing I could try naturally. Everything!

I have cured myself of things that I do not want to really expand, but anyway let's say they were extremely life threatening and 100% of the medical establishment would say that I required multi-thousand $$$ treatments.

Yeah blah blah. I said the same too in the past. Just wait. Life will deal with your hubris and mind-over-matter delusion.

If anyone can will power themselves through something, I can. I can do grueling things such as an Ironman competition. Some things are beyond the capacity of just being tough.

And yes, I also tried just sleeping a lot and not being tough. That didn't solve the problem either.

[AlexGR]

I think the real revelation of what Dan created is that most people are clueless in maths.

This is not a revelation and it is indeed a flaw. If you only want to appeal to math-oriented investors who think things through in that manner, then you are okay, but you won't appeal to investors who look at a price chart, see a declining trend and stop there.

Is this a fatal flaw? I don't know. In competitive markets small differences can lead to winner-take-all outcomes. A similar design that doesn't repulse less-math-oriented investors (and is neutral for math-oriented-investors) might do better. The higher cost of capital that results from narrowing the investor market is a disadvantage (likewise for cutting out medium-term investors as iamnotback has stated many times).

While I think changes will be coming at some point, to tune the economy, I also think that the rule which says "Simplicity is key" will again be overlooked. What they are trying to do is admittedly complex and trying to make it work while also making it simple (-if it's even a goal-) is not an easy task. However it's what will be required of them and whether they are up to it or not, may decide -in large part- the degree of success the platform has. As you say, small things can make a difference.

Most altcoins have developed a centralized pattern in terms of holdings over time, whether it is litecoin, dogecoin, etc. Small guys sell, big guys buy. It doesn't matter how these coins were launched, but the top wallets typically end up owning >50% of the currency.

That's because these platforms are all complete failures in terms of adoption and use (doge maybe wasn't for a while, but it is now). So it becomes an empty shell that exists only for speculation purposes. As such it is worth more to a large holders who can manipulate the price than to small holders who can not (at least as long as foolish small investors are willing to keep funneling in outside money and losing it by being manipulated).

In a platform that were actually used for something, there would be degree of wealth concentration, as you say exists in everything, but it wouldn't parallel most useless altcoins.

I was wondering what BTC does and googled it... If the link's data is accurate, I think RL wealth concentration affects even bitcoin to a very large degree.

https://bitinfocharts.com/top-100-richest-bitcoin-addresses.html

~20% of BTC marketcap is in addresses with >10k+>100k coins.
~22% of the marketcap is in addresses with >1k coins.
~23% of the marketcap is in addresses with >100 coins
~26% of the marketcap is in addresses with >10 coins

So 100+ coin addresses get 64% of the total distribution and 10+ coins addresses get 91% of the total distribution. I was kind of expecting it, but I wasn't really expecting that the addresses would be so consolidated. I thought there would be a larger degree of obfuscation with people using more addresses.

[AlexGR]

My health issue is not imagined or caused by mental attitude.

I wasn't implying that. All psychosomatic disease is very real. The psycho-part is just related to the cause. It's not meant to say that it is an imaginary problem.

"There is now sufficient data to conclude that immune modulation by psychosocial stressors and/or interventions can lead to actual health changes. Although changes related to infectious disease and wound healing have provided the strongest evidence to date, the clinical importance of immunological dysregulation is highlighted by increased risks across diverse conditions and diseases. For example, stressors can produce profound health consequences."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoneuroimmunology

In your case, the problem, after the ulcer, was healing the affected parts. If the underlying psychological issue that triggered the ulcer was/is still there, then the process of proper healing of the affected parts is also affected.

[iamnotback]

AlexGR, I am also speculating that severe stress in June to September 2012 was a potential factor in the incorrect healing. Several points that support that:

[redacted]

So yeah I am nearly certain stress played a role.

I don't have options to entirely avoid the stress now, both for financial reasons and also because no matter what I do, my body is not okay. Even if I try to sleep always, I get bad insomnia which is very stressful. Everytime I eat I get bad symptoms, which is stressful. I have found it less stressful overall to push hard on workouts, as these are the natural way to get the body to relieve stress. And workouts tend to keep me at a higher level of functionality than if I don't. Keeping my testosterone level up seems to be vital.

Having said that, I am on a slight upswing since some very significant changes to diet and workout regimen since September. But the slight upswing is not a cure (at least not yet).

[boomboom]

I believe most disease is psycho-somatic. I have cured myself of things that I do not want to really expand, but anyway let's say they were extremely life threatening and 100% of the medical establishment would say that I required multi-thousand $$$ treatments.

I consider the human potential to be extremely high, but whether that potential is realized is contingent on what my conscious mind thinks and what myself does. If I accept medical help, my subconscious observes that act and registers that I am unable to self-cure myself. Thus I needed to prevent my subconscious from registering a subconscious admission of defeat. Let's say that I played multiple life & death gambles and I won. I trusted myself and I triumphed over my "problems".

What I can give you, is one tool that is extremely effective, even if it is deceptively simple: Focus on the word LIFE. Feel it. Repeat it. Feel it all the time. LIFE. LIFE. LIFE. Keep the concept of vitality in mind. "LIFE, LIFE, LIFE". Feel the words. Keep doing it. Close your eyes and do it for as long as you feel comfortable.

This is an extremely potent technique that can even deliver instant results.

I have had similar experiences. In one instance I suffered a real physical trauma to my body that resulted in objective physical changes that were clearly visible on medical scans. Mind-body medical healing does not imply the cause of the condition is 'in your head', but rather that a potential pathway to healing can come from your mind. This is the key insight required for any experimentation imo. We all identify ourselves (usually) as the voice of the conscious mind, but we are aware that control over most of our bodily functions comes from other parts of the brain (the unconscious and/or subconscious mind). With mind-body healing the conscious mind attempts to 'communicate' directly with those parts of the brain/mind that have control over the 'details' of how our bodies work. It only sounds weird because of conditioning. Complex arrangements of atoms & molecules inside our brains created our conscious minds, all you need to entertain is the idea that the 'mind' can somehow submit instructions back to the collection of atoms & molecules that make up our bodies and organs when there's a problem. At this time in human history we still don't know how this conscious mind-body communication happens, but imo there's enough evidence to suggest that it does exist, and to me it makes sense.

With my injury, despite feeling embarrassed, I spend time consciously visualising 'healing' happening inside the damaged area of my body. It sounds crazy, but so did the idea of 'atoms' to most early 19th century scientists. The cause of the problem was physical, but the path to healing for me included some conscious 'thinking', basically giving permission to the autonomic processes in my body to make things 'better'. This doesn't require any belief or 'faith' that your problem can be repaired either imo, it's more about communicating your conscious minds 'desire' to have the rest of your body 'attempt' some healing. Imagine driving your car into a mechanic's garage. If you just accept that your car is broken and do nothing, it'll stay broken. BUT, if you think the mechanic might be able to repair the car you have to ASK. If you don't ask the mechanic to work on your car he wont, and you'll never know if he could make the car work better.

I believe most people don't try very hard to 'ask' their non-conscious minds for help with physical ailments, they're more likely to pray to god than sit quietly trying to communicate requests to other parts of their mind. It definitely can't hurt, but most people are frightened by false impressions of what mind-body medicine is about. It sounds kooky but it's really not. Real physical problems being healed by real physical processes where the healing starts from the conscious mind communicating 'requests' to the parts of the brain that control all the autonomic processes in our bodies.

[AlexGR]

Where's the upvote button when you need it

[AlexGR]

...

I think you need to find some way to reduce stress levels, even while not avoiding stress-inducing situations (avoiding them would be ideal). I don't know what it will be, or what it will suit you, but it's definitely a time-investment that will pay off in your overall healing.

Interestingly, when one is seriously ill, the mind usually goes into a "I-don't-give-a-fuck-about-anything" attitude. You can hear it in a patients voice, whether they are in a hospital bed, or at home with a flu. The automated mentality-adjustment is done in order to decrease stress, which normally acts as an immune suppressor (and body-repair suppressor).

[iamnotback]

In one instance I suffered a real physical trauma to my body that resulted in objective physical changes that were clearly visible on medical scans. Mind-body medical healing does not imply the cause of the condition is 'in your head', but rather that a potential pathway to healing can come from your mind.

You don't heal intestinal deformity with anything you can do with stress and mind. I have healed from many physical traumas naturally. Although I will say that my last option would be to get off the computer entirely for a month or months and be outdoors in the sun most of the day. I would like to try that but can't afford the downtime, so I mix getting out in the sun every day. And it is only recently that I've felt I could do this physically (at least since a very bad downturn in my health summer 2015).

I want to meet one person who had a blind loop or stomach bound to the liver who healed this physical deformity without surgery. I think that is physically impossible. It has to be cut.

Even severe microflora dysbiosys (e.g. Chron's disease) can't be cured even with antibiotics or any mental changes. Some people can cope with lifestyle and diet changes, but they are not cured. I am coping, but I am not cured. I have severe cognitive dysfunction due to systemic body inflammation and mitochondria energy starvation due to the toxins flooding into my liver and my immune system attacking the liver and surrounding organs (apparently... need to wait for the expert diagnosis in Singapore to have more definitive conceptualization). Our digestive system has to produce the energy for the cells.

The Singapore hospital I am headed to specializing in even for example FMT (fecal microflora transplant) if that ends up being the best treatment and the diagnosis ends up being bad microflora.

----------------


boomboom, I've prayed, begged, talked to my body, visualized healing, etc.. I tried everything, well just shy of staying outdoors every day for month(s).

[boomboom]

boomboom, I've prayed, begged, talked to my body, visualized healing, etc.. I tried everything, well just shy of staying outdoors every day for month(s).

Okay guys I am going to delete all my health comments after a few hours. AlexGR, please remove that quote about my ex and son. That was shared for current readers, not for posterity.

I really wish you well! mind-body healing is real imo, but it's not the solution for every ailment. I think going to Singapore in your case for medical treatment is very wise, and I hope you get good results man, you've certainly suffered enough for one life-time. Good luck

[iamnotback]

boomboom, I've prayed, begged, talked to my body, visualized healing, etc.. I tried everything, well just shy of staying outdoors every day for month(s).

I really wish you well! mind-body healing is real imo, but it's not the solution for every ailment. I think going to Singapore in your case for medical treatment is very wise, and I hope you get good results man, you've certainly suffered enough for one life-time. Good luck

Thanks. Agreed on all your points.

[iamnotback]

I think the real revelation of what Dan created is that most people are clueless in maths.

This is not a revelation and it is indeed a flaw. If you only want to appeal to math-oriented investors who think things through in that manner, then you are okay, but you won't appeal to investors who look at a price chart, see a declining trend and stop there.

Is this a fatal flaw? I don't know. In competitive markets small differences can lead to winner-take-all outcomes. A similar design that doesn't repulse less-math-oriented investors (and is neutral for math-oriented-investors) might do better. The higher cost of capital that results from narrowing the investor market is a disadvantage (likewise for cutting out medium-term investors as iamnotback has stated many times).

While I think changes will be coming at some point, to tune the economy, I also think that the rule which says "Simplicity is key" will again be overlooked. What they are trying to do is admittedly complex and trying to make it work while also making it simple (-if it's even a goal-) is not an easy task. However it's what will be required of them and whether they are up to it or not, may decide -in large part- the degree of success the platform has. As you say, small things can make a difference.

@smooth IMO you are overthinking it w.r.t. small differences leading to a runaway winner-take-all. Rather I think it will be a different concept that wins. IMO the problems with Steem are not small flaws that can be tweaked.

I don't think that investors and users misunderstanding the math of Steem has anything to do with why it is failing. Rather the entire concept is not only complex but it works against the desirable attributes such as speculation, adoption, ecosystem investment, etc.. We'll see if I am wrong when the first batch of serious ecosystem projects for the Steem blockchain are launched (again I am expecting the voting reward model and the 40 whales top-down control will limit the range of ecosystem projects).

And @AlexGR afaics there isn't some simple change that can made to change the trajectory of what currently appears to be Steem's failure. IMO it will require a totally different incentive system for onboarding and massive ecosystem reason for an acceleration of adoption. Meaning that there will be people creating new things in a free market of proliferation. Imagine the growth of the WWW from 1996 forward. It was the ability of the ecosystem to independently and without permission (permissionless system) put up websites and make investments in the WWW, that caused its explosive adoption and growth. Nobody owned and controlled the WWW. Everyone had the trust to build on the WWW and assume it would remain a level playing field (to some extent that trust is being eroded lately which is why the Internet is stagnating in some facets and we need new things which is why I am working on new platforms).

Why do you think I am creating a programming language. There is a lot of deep stuff that needs to be done to drive an ecosystem.

Ethereum developed a language, but afaics it didn't solve any problems that drives a huge ecosystem. In fact, it was reputed to be one of the aspects that encouraged the DAO bug.

The WWW was a new platform. A new set of protocols and languages to drive new functionality, i.e. HTTP, HTML, CSS, etc..

[Esphere.in]

We bystanders were able to get some crumbs. I got about $6500 out of it, so I am grateful because I would have been entirely depleted of funds by now otherwise. Steem funded me to fight on longer. So I am very grateful. But that doesn't mean I should lie about the reality I see. All of my blogging activity on Steem was sincere.

you got around $6500 from steem and are you calling yourself just a bystander .how on earth did you make this amount and if you could shed the light it would be awesome

[iamnotback]

We bystanders were able to get some crumbs. I got about $6500 out of it, so I am grateful because I would have been entirely depleted of funds by now otherwise. Steem funded me to fight on longer. So I am very grateful. But that doesn't mean I should lie about the reality I see. All of my blogging activity on Steem was sincere.

you got around $6500 from steem and are you calling yourself just a bystander .how on earth did you make this amount and if you could shed the light it would be awesome

I @anonymint boarded the train during the height of the pump so most of my earnings came from the 50% of payouts in SBD that can be cashed out immediately. And because I wrote some posts which were about some technical aspects that were very in tune with what was on some of the whales' mind at the time, so they upvoted me. And this I think caused curation bots to upvote me, because they saw that other whales were. And of course I owe probably at least 33 - 50% of that to @smooth's gracious upvotes, but afaik he only upvoted that which he felt was worthy content (and he upvoted a lot of content, not just mine). I have also returned the favor by stating clearly that I think @smooth has invested in trying to make Steem work. That he wasn't complicit in any plan to do a sneaky mine. And I also commended him on being resourceful and mining ~2% of Steem during the sneakymine when the rest of us were asleep.

So all-in-all, I guess it was a ROI from being around for 3 years doing unpaid technical research on crypto. And the fact that some people know I really, really needed the help. And some decent writing from me (although nothing to brag about).

Perhaps also very minorly because by participating instead of complaining, I think it was perceived as I was helping to move more adoption or investment towards Steem. In fact I may moved more investment into Steem than I took out (yet I have no way to measure that), although at no time was I trying to deceive anyone. Was just the way the ball bounced as we were all learning in the heat of the moment.

@jl777 earned a lot more than that and he only boarded a week or two before I did. Those who were blogging from the start ended up with $100,000+ at the peak.

Edit: read this also: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1567519.msg15828614#msg15828614