Steem News

Steem Chugs Along, Gains 31% in 30 Days

Steem, which is a social network built on the blockchain, has advanced by double-digits in the last 24 hours while the broader crypto market trades in the red. Steem is up 15% to $0.38 on trading volume of $11.7 million. Over the past 30 days, Steem’s value has increased by 31%. Most of the volume is unfolding on crypto exchanges UPbit and Binance in the KRW and BTC markets, respectively. Steem has been gaining momentum since year-end 2018 as a platform for decentralized apps (dApps) across categories such as social, media and gambling. They attract content by paying contributors in crypto including the Steem coin. The Steem project was also in the center of a recent controversy surrounding a ban on a content creator on the platform. (GT)

3 days ago
Ethereum [ETH], EOS, Tron [TRX] and Steem’s Dapp performance over the year 2018

Dapp.com’s “2018 Dapp Market Report” provides insight into four mainstream blockchains; Ethereum [ETH], EOS, Tron [TRX] and Steem [STEEM]. The report dwells deep into the contribution of each of the aforementioned blockchains in DEX and Dapps ecosystems and also gives an overview of the individual markets. In 2018, Dapps flourished and reached their peak and the report calls it “Dapp Movement” even though the bear market had struck every cryptocurrency down. Over the year, a total of $6.7 billion in revenue was generated through these Dapps. DEX [Decentralized Exchanges] also became a core contributor to the Dapp market, as the report mentions that 40% of the total transaction volume for Dapps came from DEX. The report mentions that a total of 1,423 Dapps were developed at the end of 2018, of which, 1,045 belonged to Ethereum’s blockchain, 235 came from EOS’ blockchain, 97 from Tron, and 46 from Steem. The total volume of transactions of all these Dapps in conjunction came up to $6.73 billion and DEX contributed a total of $2.61 billion. Annual Dapp Summary Ethereum EOS Tron Steem Dapps: 1045 Dapps: 235 Dapps: 97 Dapps: 46 Total Active Users: 797,153 Total Active Users: 171,170 Users: 71,832 Users: 386,772 Transactions: 20,868,975 Transactions: 107,161,794 Transaction: 98,496,106 Transaction: 52,860,766 Volume: 4,998,320 ETH Volume: 939,209,910 EOS Volume: 36,394,015,674 TRX Volume: 7,471,405 Ethereum blockchain generated a total of $2.66 billion from 1045 Dapps in the year 2018 and 78% of the volume came from DEX. EOS, on the other hand, generated a total of $3.45 billion from a total of 235 Dapps and 75% of its volume came from betting apps. Tron generated $605 million from 97 apps and 98% of the total volume came from betting as well. Steem, however, generated $6.42 million from 46 Dapps. From the above, one can conclude that while the Ethereum blockchain ecosystem saw the most number of Dapps, it certainly wasn’t the one to generate the most volume. EOS blockchain had significantly lesser Dapps but generated the most volume from these Dapps. EOS was the one to generate the most volume from these Dapps, which was followed by Ethereum, Tron, and Seem. Q4 Dapp Summary A total of 258 Dapps were developed in Q4 of 2018 and these Dapps, put together contributed to a cumulative transaction volume of $2.96 billion. The 258 Dapps had a total of 211,358 users and EOS ranked the first in terms of the number of users, as it had a 69% contribution. EOS was followed by TRX as it contributed 17% of the total number of users, ETH had 13%, while Steem had a mere 1%. In terms of total transactions, EOS and TRX contributed 50% of the transactions each, while ETH did not make it to the list. EOS topped again in terms of volume as it contributed a total of 79% of the $2.96 billion, while TRX contributed 20% and ETH had a 1% contribution. Although Ethereum blockchain seems to have the most number of Dapps it should be noted that Ethereum had the first-mover advantage and Ethereum main net was launched on July 30, 2015. EOS main net was launched on June 9, 2018, Tron’s on June 25, 2018, and Steem’s main net was launched on March 24, 2016. The post Ethereum [ETH], EOS, Tron [TRX] and Steem’s Dapp performance over the year 2018 appeared first on AMBCrypto.

4 days ago
CoinGecko Yearly Report 2018: Stablecoins, Dapps, and NFTs on the Rise, Bitcoin Increases Market Dominance

CoinGecko published on January 15th its 2018 yearly crypto report. The 83 pages document provided valuable insights covering the downtrend that spanned around the last year, and its implications on the market. It featured 13 chapters and one Appendix section, summarizing all things crypto in 2018, from market dynamics and crypto exchanges to hacks and crypto theft that took place during the year. The remaining chapters focused on the rise of stable coins, the Bitcoin Cash split, along with analysis and commentary on relevant data gleaned about projects that have successfully launched ICOs in 2018, and the way that data had changed compared to the previous year. 2018 Crypto Market Dynamics and Crypto Exchanges The report crunched the numbers on last years sharp price decline seen in most crypto assets and estimated -78.85% to be the total cryptocurrency market capitalization drop in 2018. This was based on the top 30 cryptocurrencies by market cap. The document, however, stated that despite the downturn, trading volumes remained consistent throughout 2018. This has been explained by the increase in the number of exchanges and exchanges conducting trans-fee mining. A special emphasis was given to the serious decline in total market cap recorded towards the end of November before the slight recovery around mid-December. In fact, the total loss in value in Q4 alone was assessed at 44.25% according to the document. Nevertheless, Q4 allegedly saw a slight increase in trading volumes. CoinGecko gave a rundown on the 2018 returns of the Top 5 cryptocurrencies, which all recorded negative yields. According to the numbers put forth by the research, Bitcoin Cash was proven to be the top losing coin with 93% loss of its market valuation. On the other hand, the price of Bitcoin declined by 73%, Ether by 82%, Ripple’s XRP by 84% and EOS (the most volatile coin among the top 5 crypto assets) declined by 66%. Furthermore, Bitcoin dominance increased from 40% at the beginning of 2018 to 55% by December 31st. Interestingly, the controversial stable coin Tether ended the year as the 7th largest crypto asset. In fact, the document reported a significant increase in stable coins making it to the list of top 100 coins. Under the Crypto Exchanges Chapter, and based on the reported volumes from the exchanges themselves, CoinGecko gave a list of the top 30 exchanges by median trading volumes. Bithumb, ZB.com, and Binance topped the list while Purcow exchange was ranked as 30th. A closer look into the trading volumes recorded revealed that the rise and fall of trans-fee mining exchanges benefited the market around Q3 of 2018 when such exchanges were first introduced and subsequently surged in popularity making up 60% of the total trading volumes through up to Q4. Major Events Affecting the Market in 2018 The report gave an overview of the major events that had far-reaching consequences on the market in 2018 and published a full list of those events and related news articles in the Appendix section. The incidents were split among Global News and Regulatory Headlines, where CoinGecko produced a thorough report on most of what happened in the market during the last year. The document organized hacks and theft incidents in 2018 into a timeline of “crypto thefts.” It gave an estimate of $867.45 million in lost funds. According to the reported data, the total losses in 2018 alone represent over 50% of all the losses recorded in the previous years combined (Total losses since “crypto beginning”: $1.516 billion) Researching the ICO Landscape, CoinGecko reported a whopping 67.91% decrease in the “Average Token Return” among the 943 projects that successfully completed their ICO fundraising. In fact, a total of 1941 projects attempted to launch an ICO in 2018 as compared to 913 in 2017, with a slightly better success rate of 48.58% in 2018 (47.65% in 2017). The total amount raised by those projects was calculated at 16.5 billion, 3 times more than the previous year (5.6 billion in 2017). The report claims that reaching the hard cap has proved particularly challenging for most ICO projects in 2018. In fact, the percentage of projects that completed their offering and reached their hard cap dropped from over 53.32% at the start of the year to 10.42% in December 2018. The document explained the reasons behind that as stemming from a deteriorating investment sentiment, the increase in government regulations targeting ICO offerings, and the sharp fall in Bitcoin and Ether prices. 2018: The Year of Stable Coins The document defined a stable coin as a digital asset aiming to offer price stability to the market by means of mirroring the value of fiat currencies or other physical assets/commodities. In fact, by mitigating cryptocurrencies volatility, stable coins could represent an excellent means of value exchange. CoinGecko reported that the top 5 stable coins by market cap are all pegged to the US dollar value. Besides, 2018 was the year that saw

5 days ago
Steemit Social Network Bans Users Amid Censorship Resistance

TL; DR Steemit bans user account ‘thedarklord’ for attempting to leak documents exposing ‘truths’ about 9/11 The decision to censor account is faced with a backlash from users who claim Steemit went against their core value proposition to be censorship resistant and promote free speech Steemit blockchain utilizes a proof of stake consensus protocol, which naturally makes it prone to centralized decision making As we’ve discussed in the past, one of the most advertised benefits of the blockchain is its ability to prevent government censorship or any censorship from centralized organizations. To that end, many saw Steemit as the solution to the growing abuse of power by platforms like Facebook Google and Twitter, who time and time again have bowed down to the will of advertisers by censoring any user who shared even mildly controversial content. Steemit, a decentralized social network promoted itself as being the censorship-resistant alternative to Facebook. According to recent reports, it appears that the platform has failed to uphold this core value proposition. 9/11 conspiracies violate Steemit’s ‘terms of service’ ‘Thedarkoverlord’ is an account that belongs to a hacker group that has been trying to publish leaked documents that they claim expose hidden ‘truths’ about 9/11. The group had previously tried to publish the documents on centralized platforms like Pastebin, Reddit, and Twitter. Predictably, those platforms all banned their accounts (apparently due to pressure from Government agencies). Seeing as how they would never get their content published on centralized social media sites, the group thought that they would try their luck on a decentralized platform like Steemit. To their surprise, Steemit also banned them on January 7th due to a TOS violation. The ban action itself wad made by Steemit developer RedBeard and can be seen on Steemit GitHub account. RedBeard added thedarkoverlord username into a list that is located on a file called GDPRUserList. Source: Github print screen Whether or not you agree with the methods by which this group attained and has threatened to expose this information, the fact remains that according to Steemit’s original promise to uphold censorship resistance, thedarkoverlord account should be entirely free to publish their findings without being banned. User ban contradicts Steemit’s promises in the original white paper To clarify, thedarkoverlord was only banned from the front-end interface to the Steemit Blockchain, meaning that although his content can no longer be viewed on the Steemit website, it can be seen on other front end interfaces connected to the Steem blockchain, like Busy.org. This in no way excuses the fact that Steemit has blatantly gone against the promises made in their original white paper: “Steem is a decentralized network that is operated by witnesses in jurisdictions around the world. All user actions are publicly recorded on the blockchain, and can be publicly verified. This means that there is no single entity that can censor content that is valued by STEEM holders.” As one would expect, Steemit users were angered by the censorship and expressed their grievances on Reddit and on the Github commit page as well. How was censorship possible on a ‘decentralized’ social media platform? Although Steem claims to be a decentralized platform, the reality is that their consensus protocol is much more prone to centralization than truly decentralized Blockchains like Bitcoin. Steemit’s use of the proof of stake consensus protocol exposes them to situations where specific stakeholders can make decisions without full consensus from the community. This is a flaw that other proof of stake Blockchains like Ethereum are also exposed to. We are not sure if the decision to ban thedarklord was made by a Steemit user (or group of users) who staked a disproportionate amount of Steem tokens compared to other delegates. However, the rules of proof of stake most certainly allow for such a scenario to occur, which compromises the entire value proposition of Steem as a censorship resistance social media platform. Ultimately, Steemit may have to make some drastic changes to their protocol and terms of service to regain users trust. As the market sentiment around cryptocurrencies remains bearish, Altcoins like Steemit don’t need any more reasons for their remaining holders to dump them. The post Steemit Social Network Bans Users Amid Censorship Resistance appeared first on CryptoPotato.