I just don’t know about adding another thing such as a “token” just making things even more complicated. This kind of thing will also have to have some kind of value? I assume mining at first would be easy and over time the required amount of time to mine that token would increase or decrease depending on Steem value.

Consider me crazy but why can’t they just starta new accounts in debt? Their votes would hold 0 value. Their true price of admission is giving back to the community in the form of content. After all that is what Steemit is all about. Your content is what is adding value to Steemit overall. Over time from being active there upvote would increase from being worthless and void to hold some value.

If they cant start at a negative balance then give them a token that they have to payback from creating content. Steemit is about engagement and creating content. We have moved beyond mining I don't see a need to bring it back.