Hey Steemitsters!
I am Trace Mayer an early Bitcoin pioneer, evangelist and investor in core blockchain infrastructure including the largest merchant processor Bitpay and largest safe [never been hacked] exchange Kraken. I also host the extremely popular Bitcoin Knowledge Podcast.
Lately I have been hearing a lot of amazing things about Steemit from popular Steemsters I listen to including Jeff Berwick, Charles Hoskinson, Domi and Charlie Shrem. So, here I am checking it out :)
Feel free to post some questions and I will try to answer as best I can. If things go well then in the near future I will likely do an AMA here!
Verification:
— Verification for checking out@Steemit and plan on making my first@SteemitPosts. - TraceMayer (@Trace Mayer) August 18, 2016
Glad to see you here. What does it take to get SteemDollars traded against USD and EUR on Kraken? I wonder why they have added Ethereum so early and haven't mentioned anything about SteemDollars yet? Do you know who to contact to discuss further steps?
Hello Xeroc,
Trace Mayer’s arrival on Steemit is certainly a Big BULLISH signal. A Kraken adopting of Steem would be one more Huge BULLISH signal.
Bellow, you’ll find the answer I got from Kraken’s support team regarding your question one month ago. You can join them here: support@kraken.com ( the service is excellent, fast, friendly, polite…)
I’m very happy with that exchange! Very wise at decisions making, like for instance with the ETH/DAO/ETC issue. I was glad to receive my ETC for free after the fork… all exchanges are not that fair ;-)
Could Trace’s membership incentivise Kraken to make it’s mind about Steem ? I hope so
Cheers,
Josh (Kraken Support)
Jul 14, 06:58 PDT
Hello,
Thanks for the suggestion, I will make a note of your request, but to be clear we don't have any plans to add it at this time and are only considering it as a feature request that we may or may not accommodate.
Best,
Josh
Kraken Client Engagement Team
Your request (number #) is currently marked as "Solved". This means we think your issue has been resolved. If your issue is not yet resolved, please let us know by replying to this e-mail or visiting the support page at https://support.kraken.com/hc/requests/#.
Nice to see you on here Trace! I told Andreas Antonopoulos about Steemit, on Twitter, and he immediately replied by unfollowing me. Some have eyes to see and some don't. Your eye-sight sir, is 20/20
A mind is like a parachute; they both have to be open to work. And what better way to understand something that to get practical experience by using it? That method sure helped me a lot with figuring out Bitcoin!
Hah! Nice. Well, I've tweeted at Andreas multiple times about it (again today, in fact), and he hasn't yet unfollowed me. We'll see. Has he made any public statements about his views on STEEM/SBD/Steem Power/Steemit?
He catches hell from the maximalist side anytime he says anything remotely positive about anything not-bitcoin.
Probably playing the long game on this one.
Interesting. Makes sense. Muh tribalism! It impacts us all.
Prior to Steemit, I had zero interest in any other altcoin. Nothing else had a mechanism to overcome the huge network effect bitcoin enjoys, regardless of how superior the technology might be. With 3 second confirmation times, 100k transactions a second throughput, AND a mechanism to grow the network with everyday users who've never touched cryptocurrency before... that's exciting stuff.
Oh, btw, I got in a twitter discussion earlier today which included Tone. He favorited this tweet which I thought you'd enjoy. ;-)
Disclaimer: I am just a bot trying to be helpful.
Well played :D
As a bitcoinclassic dev, the only think I disagree on with him is him claiming that Etherium is not a competitor to Bitcoin. Otherwise he's a nice guy and has good ideas.
ps. I just joined; see my welcome post for details on who I am ;)
No idea. It seems the STEEM/SBD/Steem Power, etc. is different from the underlying article posting technology which seems like more of a competitor to Medium, Reddit, etc. Really I need to spend some time reading the whitepaper to get a better understanding of how everything works.
In short:
steem is like having an assent in an decentralized platform.
Steem is inflated 100% per year. From that round about 90% goes to steem power holders 5% goes to curators, 5% converted to steem dollars as post reward.
(not mentioning the miner / witness reward)
steem power is steem that is ¨trapped¨ for at max two years (in average 1 year) . Steem power equals the power of your voting influence, urrently mainly used for distributing the post reward and electing the witnesses that take are of the blockchain consensus.
Steem dollars are pegged to the dollar and should in the long run give a stable currency to do commerce. The witnesses decide on the interest on steem dollars, currently it is 10% per year. Steem dollars can be exchanged to steem equal to the average steem price of one week. This conversion takes one week.
That it, have fun!
Here a great picture to explain:
thx @deepsinergy
https://img1.steemit.com/0x0/https://ipfs.pics/ipfs/QmcD92oakBiGWr5Uu5tvy3a45zqPVKUT7dhr8RCm4RjPmz
https://steemit.com/steem-help/@fran2k/steem-network-asset-classes-steem-steem-power-and-steem-dollar-explained-in-one-chart
The white paper is a great read. I actually read it twice. It's not just tech, but includes some economics, psychology, and philosophy as well. Just be careful though, it hasn't been updated. After reading it, it's a good idea to go through the steemit blog and dan's blog (along with, possibly, the releases on github) to get a feel for what has changed since the white paper.
It may take a few sittings, but it is well worth the read. Rather ingenious designs and incentive schematics.
About halfway through it. Very creative and could be a very elegant solution to many problems. Extremely exciting.
hi @tracemayer , nice to meet u here
Good to see you here Trace.
I'm an indirect investor in Kraken through Bank 2 the Future.
Been an admirer for a while now.
Keep it up man! BTC 2 da mooooon!
(pretty soon too, WW3 should do it.)
upvote for u here, welcome
You are going to have to bribe him just like every other "big" name on here.
He might me a little miffed that steemit wallet has 3 cryptos but no room for bitcoin . I know I am.
Glad to see you hear amigo!
My favorite anachist!!!
the man with the magic voice, just pierces right thur
A big welcome @tracemayer really pleased you have joined Steemit. To the readers who feel this post is overpaid because of lack of content, I voted because Trace has done a lot of good for Bitcoin, his passion and enthusiasm is certainly contagious and he is well respected and has a large following in the Bitcoin community. So in this case I didn't vote for content, but rather in the excitement of having a person who have introduced so many people to Bitcoin, who may do the same for Steemit.
+1 Wish I could upvote but I keep getting an error in the browser :(
Lol that's ok, you're over cooked it.
Thanks for joining the community! Your expertise and different perspectives regarding the Bitcoin and blockchain related world as well as your public identity I believe will definitely benefit the Steemit community as a whole in the long run.
~ Np
Nice! Wondering when all the other Bitcoinstars will follow?
When they get off their yachts and land their planes? ;)
Welcome @tracemayer feel free to ask for help from anyone in this community. Excited to see what you will bring to steemit.
Haha!
:) Glad you appreciated my humor. I like to do a creative photoshop picture for some of the newer big names to arrive and add a little flair of welcome. Wonder what your future posts will bring. I'm relatively new to your work, but I do find you fascinating.
Thanks.
Here is an impromptu 50 minute talk I did on Bitcoin that seemed to generate some good discussion.
So, that should give you an idea of the type of intellectual horsepower, ability to organize the information and make the case. Of course, I am not sure it gets any better when I actually have time to prepare ponder, organize and prepare remarks ;) It will be fun applying some of it to Steem. I have already finished the whitepaper and consequently started gnawing on it. I find Steem incredibly innovative and disruptive plus the potential to solve some major pain points.
That's awesome I will let you know my thoughts after I finish watching my little nephews this morning. Looking forward to it.
I found this video fascinating. I wondered if you could touch on the following. You said that their are those with affiliate marketing for amazon that are not able to be payed in dollars, but purse.io allows users to input their wishlist and and have others buy the items for bitcoin. Does that not in a way take money away from those who earned it? (I realize that they are essentially worthless to those who possess them, but shouldn't they receive fair compensation for their work and not take a cut of 20% by needing to trade gift cards for bitcoin?) Just wondered if you could touch on this briefly.
I found a lot of content absolutely fascinating that you touched on. Can you also provide a link that shows the proof that the us is printing trillions of dollars? I'd love to show some people this who do not have any interest in bitcoin
Down-voted for excessive payout.... excessive in IMHO.
Nothing against the content itself, just 100 or 250 equally good posts being paid less than a dollar(or 20) today because of such overpay.
Disclaimer: I am just a bot trying to be helpful.
Hi @tracemayer. I'm a big fan. I like you because you think deeply. Could I propose we have a skype and discuss Steemit, record it and then each use it as a podcast episode for our respective audiences? You can find my podcast here: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCryptoverse new but growing.
Sure, sounds like a great idea.
I'll follow up with you on Twitter. Much obliged.
I'm a big fan Trace and have been for a few years now. I've got a question, do you think that a number of alt coins are starting to find a niche in the world marketplace? Thanks
Yes, there are many alt-coins finding various niches and that is extremely exciting plus gives a ton of opportunity for profits to be made!
Welcome, Trace, good to see you here. Take my Up Vote! :)
Thanks!
Great to see you here Trace!
hey man its Me Zack that BussBoy at Phil BBQ from 20009 who made you that SIlver Video remember? I just heard your podcast from 2 days ago! WOW I just sent you an email, hoping you could remmeber me and help me out i am struggoing to start my own bitcoincrypto currency business and havea craigslist ad for san diego and have a new person a day calling me asking how to start with bitcoin and altcoins and mining! ! It would mean so much if you could actually upvote my articles that I think you will like! !
Please let e know if you have ay work for me inthe crypto world I can help you with! glad to see how succesfl youve become since I met you in 2009! I just emailed you from zackza@gmail.com !
welcome to steemit @tracemayer nice to meet you 8]
Welcome, Trace! Heard you on anarchast. Good interview. Upvoted and following as I look forward to seeing good content!
Good to see another blockchain pioneer, here!
Sure, sounds like a great idea.
Welcome at steemit Sir! I am a newbie at everything bitcoin and steem. But the idea of getting paid for your ideas' beyond awesome. I'll be following you and others to learn alot.
#nothating but guaranteed this post will make money! Well known people coming into steemit.com basically bring their audience with them! Welcome aboard trace!!
Network effects for the win!
Welcome Trace. Good to have you here. Long time follower. Enjoy your work on How to Vanish, Run to Gold, and also enjoyed your book The Great Credit Contraction. I look forward to following you in Steemit!
Welcome to the community Trace, oh you didn't tag: introduceyourself
Noob mistake!
Hey Trace Why hire steemit? have you readed the white paper yet?
That is an excellent question. No, I have not read the white paper yet but probably will when I get some free time. So far I know pretty much nothing about it other than what Berwick and Shrem have told me. Sure seems very interesting though and I think the current journalism, content creation and advertising model is massively screwed up and ripe for creative destruction and innovation.
Perhaps Steemit will fill that role? I probably need to do some research and then write an article about it.
Welcome to Steemit Trace!!
So fun!
I will be watching for many answers to many questions.
Great to see you here Trace.
By the way there are some academics now writing about blockchain powered decentralized organizations (not necessarily DAOs but can be) as an institutional technology that can positively shift total factor productivity shifting beyond what centralized, hierarchical organizations can accommodate.
Have you come across others (non-academics) especially in the VC space discussing this? And in general what are you thoughts on this?
I'm a VC and I'm thinking deeply about this.
It's potentially very disruptive to our business if rather than raising several rounds of investment, developers can issue their own token on a blockchain and open up to anyone. There's a bunch of reasons this makes sense for both entrerpeneurs and end-users and I'm thinking a lot about what the role of a VC is as this is changing.
I have come across some in the VC space but it has all just been ethereal concepts so far. I think asymmetric cryptography used via applied financial cryptography has the potential to completely change the way society organizes. And I have been saying that for years.
I wonder if Steemit will play a role in this regard? I need to do more research and perhaps write an article about it.
Trace, it's so cool that you are here. Gotta say your podcasts and various speaking gigs are always listened to by me immediately. I really like your combo of calmness, intelligence, and your unique ability to inspire us that the crypto future can be awesome if we choose to make it so.
Thanks so much for the review.
Welcome aboard, Trace! I've greatly enjoyed your interviews and commentary of the years. So glad to have you here on Steemit!
Thanks! Really interested to see how this whole Steemit thing really works. I think the whole social media and journalism space is ripe for creative destruction and innovation.
This looks like it could disintermediate the advertising structure built on top of and around media outlets... at least that's my prediction :) Welcome to the party!
Small thanks in Steem, big thanks personally for your podcasts getting me involved in the Blockchain. Out of all the podcasts and youtubes, you built the most coherent case for owning Bitcoin. Thanks again.
Thanks. I hope you are one of my earlier audience members who was about to get some Bitcoin in the early days. I love getting the voice recorded thank-yous about how my work has completely changed people's lives. Many people never have to 'work' again; which I think means they can focus their time, attention and efforts or more important things!
Not until the 200's, but at least it wasn't the 600's. Thanks again.
I love the interview with crushthestreet!
TRACE!....Best podcasts EVER! Welcome mate. Big fan!
Luv @daycrypter.
+1! Thanks!
@tracemayer I trade on Kraken everyday and it's one of the only exchanges I trust. I look forward to your AMA.
Wow ! Hi @tracemayer Welcome !! Can't wait to see your future commentary here on Steemit. Your views and insight have been an education and inspiration for myself and so many others. Keep up the good work !
Thanks!
Welcome to Steemit! I'm pretty new here myself! Its interesting to see so many people/blogs/etc I've followed outside of steemit making a presence here!
Cheers!
Have to stay on top of the latest and greatest technologies, which means investigating a ton, or one can rapidly become irrelevant!
Welcome aboard.
Welcome, Trace.
Great to have you. All blockchain Enthusiast Welcome! :)
welcome! :)
Welcome Trace Meyer! upvoted
Welcome!
I was looking forward to see Trace on Steemit :-)
More government deficits can only help bitcoin!
https://steemit.com/money/@vee.kay/u-s-federal-government-deficit-last-week
Trace welcome
Welcome and great to have you here! So... any personal funds in Mt. Gox?
Thanks. Nope, no funds in Mt. Gox, ever.
Well done!
You sir are a bitcoin maximialist, if there ever was one. You can cash out the Steem dollars now, the Steem Power will come out slowly over a two year period. I expect the Steem dollars to hit and stay at parity with the USD soon, though. Why don't you post links to your episodes here?
By the way, you can mark people as followed. When you do, you get thier posts in your feed section. I M going to add you now. Podcast software doesn't show anything new from the bitcoin knowledge podcast, I check my feed here from time to time while waiting.
That is a good idea with some of the episodes and I think I will do it with some of the best ones. Been on semi-vacation for the summer so no new episodes since around June I think.
Welcome Trace!
I'll love to read your review on the Steem economic system once you get familiar with it ;)
Making my way through the whitepaper. Going to get some practical experience with it also. Then do some more research. I would prefer to have a little understanding about something before I try reviewing it.
nice
Ok, someone explain to me how a post like this is worth 4k at the time of me posting this?
There is no added value in the post, just piggybacking on past successes with very little even written in the post? I am just curious because I see some fucking amazing artwork, stories being shared, detailed guides on this website getting no reward. Then to see a post like this get this kind of reward? Am I the only one seeing a flawed system here? Or is Steemit really just going to be a group crypto orgy forever?
Making my way through the whitepaper but only about halfway through. Page 20 is where it starts discussing how payouts to posts work. It seems to function on a quadratic formula for votes and according to Zipf's law. That means that widely upvoted posts, which is meant to capture the subjective valuation of lots of people for a particular piece of content, will generate the most revenue.
I suppose as applied to this post what it seems to indicate is that a lot of people really enjoy the content I produce and they are upvoting this post in order to attempt to entice me to create more content on Steem.
When it comes to 'piggybacking on past successes' I think you may need to change the perspective that those past successes are a form of reputation which forms a basis of capital. I remember what it was like to create amazing stories, guides and other pieces of content and not make much from it besides a loyal audience. And now that loyal audience follows me because I gave them so much for free.
Thus, the influence of reputation or audience can be thought of like a piece of capital equipment that multiplies the effort and results in greater productivity. In other words, it enables me to dig holes with a backhoe and bulldozer while other people who have not earned an audience are digging holes with a shovel.
And I have not even marshalled hardly any of my other resources like my email list, podcast distribution, etc. I find Steemit very exciting because it changes many of the incentives for content creation, journalism, social media, etc.
Of course, the answer to being more productive is simple: add more value.
The difference between feelings and facts. I just watched a preacher and a scientist have a discussion. Of course you are both right. I believe that over time the high quality posts will win out but in the mean time this is still a blockchain platform where crypto folks dominate and Upvote crypto content.
@tracemayer fully true, you did a lot in the past, so you giving some steem dollars is making you part in the further success in steem and of course honoring the great work that you have done!
Yea the ¨quadratic formula΅ could need some improvement. I would be more in favor of a linear one, because its more fair.
I am not sure a linear one would be 'more fair' than the quadratic though.
Whitepaper page 17: "Inother words, the reward is proportional to votes squared rather than votes. This mirrors the value of network effect which grows with n squared the number of participants, according to Metcalfe’s Law."
I do think it would be good to include in the votes squared some type of function to take into account and weight based on the voter's reputation. Kind of like how in SEO a link from CNN or Bloomberg is worth more than 10,000s of links from nobody websites.
I really like how Steem has framed the question though. From the whitepaper on page 16:
"The first step in rewarding millions of users is to commit to distributing a fixed amount of currency regardless of how much work is actually done or how users vote. This changes the question from being “Should we pay?”to “Whom should we pay?”and signals to the market that money is being distributed and is being auctioned off to whoever “bids” the most work."
"Inother words, the reward is proportional to votes squared rather than votes. This mirrors the value of network effect which grows with n squared the number of participants, according to Metcalfe’s Law."
That part in the whitepaper sounds strange to me. Metcalfe’s Law is about telecommunication networks where the connections count not about how valuable a blog post is. Metcalfe’s Law could be used to value the steem platform itself or to value a currency, but not to value a blog post. The value of a blog post seem to be linear, not quadratic.
If a post about how to cook a cake reaches 10 persons 10 persons will know how to cook a cake. If it reaches 100, 100 know how to cook a cake not 10000, also the quality of the cake stays the same no matter how much can cook it.
The discussion about the post could be worth more if more engage in.
But even for that we don't need necessarily an exponential payout, because so or so the more votes you get the more visible you are the more votes you get etc...
Not to speak from the follower you get...
This in itself is exponentially, so why make it double exponentially?
Currently your voting power is linear to your steem power. This sounds fair, because in the end its a part of your steem power that is redistributed as post rewards.
Nevertheless the idea of having your voting power increased with your reputation sounds promising. This would also reduce the Self Voting problem.
You have my vote for that!
Just to clarify, I wasn't trying to undermine what you have done or have accomplished in other formats away from Steemit. I am more or less trying to understand what I see as a flaw in the current system in my opinion on how revenue is dispersed. Can you honestly say "this" post deserves a 4-5k payout? Considering each post has its own value all other factors other than what is in the particular post is what the value should be based on. Of course, there is value in "loyalty" and a "following" but when it comes to the system of reward a simple, Hi, I am here, a lot of people know me and follow me doesn't really deserve that kind of payout, does it? What about authors like myself who mostly ghost write? Do we not deserve a reward for our work simply because we ghostwrite or use a pen name under the public radar?
The last few weeks I have noticed a trend towards "elitism" and the beginning of what I would refer to as a power struggle between the knowns and unknowns (all of which in a lot of instances have plenty to offer that deserves a reward within the system) starting to poke it's head on Steemit. If it stays on this course, I don't believe Steemit will grow into a massive social media site, but of an elite crypto world social media site, which could be alright if there are enough people to sustain it I guess. I prefer to finally see all kinds of content creators, writers etc finally get paid and rewarded for their work. You said it yourself, it has become common to have to give away your work for free, I surely hope Steemit finally changes the thinking of the world in this regards.
As to your statement about being more productive by "adding more value" - value is subjective and based on individual's perception, the problem I am seeing here on Steemit is there aren't enough voters with similar interests to content creators that hold similar interests, thus leaving many feeling empty. Of course, this isn't "your" problem, it should be a Steemit community issue to tackle for the longevity and good of the system as a whole.
On a side note, your new post "podcast" post is great and deserves its rewards. I enjoyed listening to it.
It is become SteemTradition that intro posts rain MadSteem.
Did someone say orgy?