I have talked to a lot of stakeholders about their concerns for Steem. One of the things that has come up a lot is the fact that we are too dependent on Steemit, Inc. to develop hardforks and other significant changes to the Steem blockchain.
This creates a few problems:
- If for any reason Steemit, Inc. were to up-and-disappear, there would a very large void to fill as far as continuing the development of the blockchain.
- If the community really wants a change to be made, but Steemit, Inc. does not see it as a priority, then we don't really have any good options to make the change happen.
Steemit, Inc. is a very important stakeholder and participant in our ecosystem, but they are not the only stakeholder/participant. The community should not have to rely on them to do 100% of the blockchain development, nor should we expect that they are going to work on every change we want them to (unless they agree that it is a priority).
The best solution to this problem (IMO) is to get more talented community developers working on changes to the Steem blockchain code.
This is where I come in :) I have been spending a lot of time learning how the Steem blockchain code works, and have have been figuring out how to develop changes for the blockchain.
Today, I submitted my first pull request to implement a change as part of hardfork 20! (Details below.)
My views on community developers
I do want to make it clear, that I do not see myself (or other community developers) becoming a replacement for what the Steemit, Inc. developers are doing (at least anytime soon). I fully expect that that they continue to be one of the major contributors to the code for the foreseeable future.
Since they are still the ones who are doing most of the work on the blockchain code, my goal is to work with them as much as possible. My plan is to work on changes that add value in addition to whatever they are doing. Part of this includes trying to develop my changes in such a way that causes the least amount of disruption to the changes that are already in progress.
Over time, I hope to increase my skills, so I can work on more complicated changes. After I become more proficient, I also plan to write a 'blockchain development tips guide' for other developers who are interested in learning to do this as well.
Where I see this heading is that a situation where the Steemit developers and community developers are co-existing and both making positive contributions to the Steem blockchain code.
SBD Print Rate Change
As many people know, SBD has been trading above $1 USD for quite some time now. There are a lot of theories on this, but basically what it boils down to is that there is more demand for SBD than there is supply.
One of the things that is contributing to that, is that the way the SBD print rate works.
If an author chooses 50/50 rewards on their post, they get 50% of the post as SP, and the other 50% as "liquid payout". For the liquid payout, this typically comes in the form of SBD, but not always..
Currently the rules are:
- When the STEEM/SBD debt ratio is between 0% and 2%: The blockchain pays the liquid portion as
0% STEEM, 100% SBD. - When the STEEM/SBD debt ratio is between 2% and 5%: The liquid portion of the payout linearly changes from
0% STEEM, 100% SBDto100% STEEM, 0% SBD. - When the STEEM/SBD debt ratio is greater than 5%: The blockchain pays the liquid portion as
100% STEEM, 0% SBD.
Because of this, when the debt ratio is above 2%, we are currently printing less SBD even though there is still clearly enough demand for SBD to support the peg at/above $1 USD. This also puts unnecessary downward pressure on STEEM, because we are adding additional STEEM supply to the market, even though we could still be paying authors in SBD.
I submitted pull request 2503 to include a change in HF 20 that updates the rules to:
- When the STEEM/SBD debt ratio is between 0% and 9%: The blockchain pays the liquid portion as
0% STEEM, 100% SBD. - When the STEEM/SBD debt ratio is between 9% and 10%: The liquid portion of the payout linearly changes from
0% STEEM, 100% SBDto100% STEEM, 0% SBD. - When the STEEM/SBD debt ratio is greater than 10%: The blockchain pays the liquid portion as
100% STEEM, 0% SBD.
This will accomplish two things during times when the debt ratio is between 2% and 9%:
- There will be less STEEM printed, which means less downward pressure on STEEM whenever SBD is still trading above $1 USD.
- There will be more SBD put in the hands of Steemians.
When will these changes take effect?
It is important to make clear that even though I have done the development for these changes, they will not take effect unless they are accepted by a super-majority (17/21) of the witnesses.
Also, because my PR is attempting to merge these changes as part of HF 20 (which Steemit is developing) - it will still be up to Steemit, Inc. as far as whether or not to accept these changes as part of the hardfork and merge them into the "official" repository.
I plan to do my best to work with the appropriate parties to try and get the changes accepted and into production. Please be aware though - there is no guarantee they will.
What's next?
Next I plan to begin working on changes for issue 2022. This will update the beneficiaries payout logic to pay beneficiaries using the same payout option that the author selected, rather than always defaulting to 100% SP. There are more details in the GitHub issue for those who are interested.
As mentioned above, I am also collecting a list of "lessons learned" through this whole process, so I can put together a tips guide for other developers who are interested in working on similar changes.
I have a few ideas for changes that I will work on next, but I will wait to share more details on them until I get more input from stakeholders and am ready to take them up.
Hey @timcliff,
First of all you have my respects for the work you put into steem and the fact you are working to improve steemit from a community stand point is awesome. You are one of the names I read comments for under dev posts.
For SBD do we need it to be a dollar? Would it be better to give it a use and let it go as high as it can. If the value goes up then people on steemit are getting two coins that are worth a lot and will make double the money. Unless there is a reason we are better off with a dollar coin?
If we are going down this path, then why have SBD in the first place? Why not just simplify the system (since lots of people complain about the complexity) and just have STEEM?
I think we should just have Steem.
The peg use case seems to have failed.
And like the other poster says above, pegs don't really work. Governments use them for completely other reasons. Meanwhile the complexity drives away many prospective users.
I agree. The challenge would be to convince the community to drop the SBD. You might have to do a buy back of SBDs.
The complexity and the fact that trading crypto to crypto is a taxable event in the US and possibly elsewhere. So if someone has to get paid in SBD to maximize the return from a post, but has to trade it for STEEM to get more SP and influence on the platform because they're a good little steemit citizen, then boom, they'd have to hold it for over a year to minimize the tax damage. It is a ridiculous system that creates huge tax burdens for no reason other than a convoluted desire to achieve what currencies by design in open markets cannot do and it certainly scares away many possible investors who are rightfully worried about the tax burden because of how the two coins are generated and need to be traded all the time.
Exactly, I agree with this, we should get rid of SBD, it adds unnecessary complexity which most people do not understand. Post rewards should be in STEEM and STEEM Power only. The SBD peg to USD will never work as is designed. If people still want a coin on the STEEM blockchain that is pegged to USD an SMT can be created that works similar to BTS, but even that is not guaranteed depending on the economic situations that can occur with USD...
Pegs don't work, won't work, never work. I agree that trying to keep something's value locked in at a certain exchange rate is pointless and history tends to show that pegs are meant to be broken. The only reason why SBD was originally designed to be a dollar is because the makers of BTS/STEEM thought they could be the shiny new dollar-pegged coin on the market that would draw all the investors who wanted something that could hold its value. Obviously that hasn't panned out very well for BTS/bitCurrencies and SBD, and every coin designed with that in mind has had its peg broken, or had to take extremely shady measures to maintain the appearance of a stable peg.
No
SBD are not "pegged" to a dollar in a traditional sense. They are redeemable for one dollars worth of steem. You can't break that kind of peg, if steem goes down in value you just get more steem for each SBD and if it goes up you get less. Obviously holding SBD has more risk than just holding a dollar because there is a chance that no one will want the steem at any price. that is why the SBD pay a yield for holding them. SBDs are much more like a convertible bond then a dollar pegged crypto.
Yes, you can break the peg by making steem go to 0, which is a possibility. It went to near-zero and stayed around there for a good while actually. I'm holding SBD in case we get a huge break to the downside and get more than 1 steem per sbd again and feel like it would be disingenuous of me to invest in any other blockchain at this point with my steemit earnings.
No
no? does that mean you disagree? if so please explain.
That is not breaking the peg, that's breaking STEEM. the SBD would still give you $1 worth of steem which realistically i dont see ever going to zero. Sure it could go to near zero but someone some where will still give you something for it. even if it's 1 billionth of a cent then it just give you 1 trillion steem for it. But like i said the risk of it being worthless is why the SBD rewards you with a yield.
Now that ive read most of these comments i still fail to grasp the point of SBDs, except that it adds more liquidity into the ecosystem. Why exactly is it trying to be pegged to the dollar? Whats the underlining purpose of that? Stability? I dont think you can have that.
Couldnt you just have free flowing SBDs? Without pegging it, make it just a debt instrument?
I know posts payouts would change somewhat, not sure what effect that would have, but i just dont see a point in peging it.
SBDs dont have any use STEEM doesnt already fulfill for the average user.
What i want to say is that i dont get it. I really do not get the peg.
SBD shouldn't even exist, it adds nothing. You could just used liquid steem for any case where sbd is used.
Yes it does! It creates a currency. Steem is not a currency, if you want steem to matter in any significant way Sbd needs to work.
Vote bots accept liquid steem, STEEM is a currency. What is the functional difference between liquid steem and sbd?
in order for something to be currency it requires stability, else not useful for commerce. steem is an asset sbd is designed as a currency. sbd has design flaws which is why it does not work as currency either currently. Tim is trying to fix these.
I'm glad to see someone actually saying what I was thinking all along: the real "currency" is the SBD, whereas STEEM is more like a security / asset. I actually see STEEM as a sovereign bond of the "Steemia" - the virtual country where people earn and spend SBD (the internal currency)
I agree. But SBDs add liquidity to the ecosystem. Any debt based asset does.
If it wasnt for SMTs id be for SBDs remaining but with SMTs coming tbere really is no use for them. The peg only seemed as a gimmick to me.
This!
A concern: isn't 10% the threshold at which the USD peg is abandoned?
It's been a very long time since I looked at the mechanics of this stuff, but I recall that when the debt ratio hits 10%, the peg switches from targeting 1 SBD = 1 USD to targeting MarketCap(SBD)=0.1*MarketCap(STEEM) or something similar.
If I have the details right, this means that your proposed change will continue printing SBD right up until the peg is designed to break. Your changes increase the aggressiveness of the pegging mechanism, and seem like they could add significant amounts of risk to the STEEM ecosystem in the event of a prolonged market downturn.
You are correct as far as the 10% limit. It is not necessarily catastrophic to pass that point though. It just means that SBD holders would get less than $1 USD for conversions if it passed that point. It is a linear reduction down, so at 11% debt limit, SBD converters would only get slightly less than $1 USD of STEEM for their conversions.
I did add some additional thoughts on the same subject in reply to @bacchist's comment above.
ping...
?
ping...
Personally I would continue printing SBD forever. I don't think there is a need to limit supply when the market is overvaluing it. Let's say someone will buy $1 bills from you for $2. So you sell them as many as you can get your hands on, or do you sell some limited number and then stop?
The purpose of the 10% limit is to cap the backing of all of the outstanding SBD at 10% of STEEM's market cap (considered a 'safe' amount) regardless of the amount of SBD in circulation. So if the market wants lots and lots of SBD with less and less backing, why not give it to them?
Yep!
LOL. Good questions!
However, imagine how whales of Nubits feel now that the per unit value is 0.44 Usd. Some of the owners of the Steem Dollar are not responsible for this problem. If I can just convince high schoolers here to start blogging, I bet I can buy Steem Dollars for one peso each.
NuBits promises a value of $1 and it hasn't delivered. SBD doesn't really promise that any more (since I think it was HF14), it promises a peg price that is conditional on the value of STEEM. If STEEM's market cap isn't enough to support the amount of SBD that exists, SBD holders are explicitly taking price risk. If they don't like that they should exit SBD. I find SBD's promises to be a lot more honest and reasonable than most of the other pegged coins which don't make explicit when they will no longer sustain a fixed price.
NuBits didn't have another coin to shit on. I agree with you that SBDs can be printed indefinitely. It just results in downwards pressure on STEEM. I have no issue with anyone at Upbit or elsewhere buying SBDs over a dollar if they're just using it as a fast trade. The peg is really only maintained to the downside as long as STEEM's ability to trade over $0 remains.
That's not correct. NuBits has NuShares which is the staking token and much of the backing for NuBits, much like STEEM/SP (though there are also important differences).
If the alternative were printing nothing, then I would agree. But it is not, so I don't. The alternative is printing STEEM to pay rewards. Instead of some of the SBD being used to buy STEEM and power up (which channels the overvaluation of SBD into the STEEM price through added buying power), some of the printed STEEM is sold, resulting in downward pressure on the STEEM price.
Not printing SBD (and instead printing STEEM) when SBD is overvalued is pretty clearly a negative for STEEM. More selling of STEEM, less buying of STEEM, less/no 'bonus' buying power for STEEM due to the SBD overvaluation. There is no advantage to it, except to SBD speculators. Steem itself pays the price to enrich them. That's a foolish course of action for Steem stakeholders.
I see, I didn't look into nubits too much, just thought their dumb bot attempted to buy things, and I assumed it was with more nubits, which just seemed idiotic. That sounds about as dumb as I first assumed though.
I mean, people are going to prefer whatever benefits them, and I don't have a large stake in steem so...
Simply put, because I don't trust the market's risk management skills. In the medium-to-long term, undercollateralization almost certainly leads to peg discounts when the price of STEEM falls.
Peg discounts are otherwise handled by the system and indeed if you look at the price history there have not been significant sustained discounts ever (apart from a short time 2016 when few people understood how it worked). Premiums are not otherwise handled by the system. The only way to resolve a premium (which do put a very high degree of risk onto SBD holders; someone buying/receiving SBD at $5 is at risk of easily losing 80% of their money, and indeed this has happened) is by issuing/selling more of it.
Furthermore there is no real 'risk' here, in the sense of risk to the overall system. SBD regardless of the amount issued is capped at 10% of STEEM's value period, which is so small it is actually less than many one-day price moves. Any additional issuance of SBD just means that SBD buyers are voluntarily accepting some of STEEM's price risk. I see no harm in that. It actually addresses one of the frequent criticisms of pegged assets, which is that they are making an unkeepable promise to always maintain a price. SBD doesn't do that. It promises to maintain a price as long as STEEM's price/marketcap is high enough.
That's exactly right, and the missing piece I was forgetting about. It's not like SBD is at risk of a total collapse if too much is printed.
Is this idea feasible?
https://steemit.com/steem/@freebornangel/we-can-t-go-to-the-moon-without-creating-demand
I'm not entirely sure I understood it correctly but to me it looked very much like the STEEM-to-SBD (also known as 'reverse') conversion idea which has been proposed by others (perhaps you were not aware of this and reinvented it. I believe it is feasible, but: a) The coding for it is somewhat involved as it requires both designing the details of how it would work in every situation as well as coding it, which requires a new operation and other code changes (along with associated testing); and b) I'm not sure it has enough support to get adopted at this time (though it might).
Except its not a conversion, its a sale.
The steem is not burned, but added to/replaces the inflation created by block production.
We could burn an amount equal to what the blocks produced to lower overall inflation to match demand, if that is desirable.
The procedes from sales goes to the sp holders, witnesses, and authors in the percentages now used.
This turbocharges sbd creation buy selling them directly to anybody with one usd of steem.
As determined by the x day average.
In order for sbd to be adopted there needs to be enough of them to matter.
15m barely makes payroll at one pro hockey game.
With none left over to use for concession sales.
Nobody can buy a jersey because all the sbd went to the players.
By selling them directly supply can meet demand.
Tether has ~2.5b? in circulation, with luck we can match that.
By putting the steem derived from sales into the inflation pool, all stakeholders benefit.
I know there isnt an actual pool, and i dont know how to tie sales to block production like regular inflation, but i was thinking a bot to power up the 25% that gets paid in sp, and adding the balance to the rewards pool.
What i am unsure about is what happens when demand drops and the price of steem goes down.
Existing sbd would have been paid for with one usd of steem, except those paid out as author rewards which have time value attached.
Does the peg hold or does steem defaulting cause sbd to crash, too?
Right now the usd is down 98% but it is still accepted more places than silver.
I guess the trick would be to get enough into circulation that sbd holders refuse to take the loss and continue to use them in commerce on par with the usd.
Okay so you are proposing something like the hyperinflationary model which existed earlier in Steem. That is, greater STEEM supply, but a lot of it distributed back to stakeholders so they don't lose ground.
The three problems I see with this are:
Overall I think destroying STEEM to create new SBD demanded by the market is better (sending the price of STEEM on an attractive upward trajectory instead of downward, reducing inflation instead of increasing it, and encouraging, or at least being neutral with respect to, speculation rather than punishing it), though both may still have some issues.
If there is not enough demand for STEEM and its market cap drops, the peg will not hold. There is no substitute for a platform that attracts and retains investor interest.
Perhaps get rid of sbd and give payout in steem and not in steem power. Users have the option to use it for whatever, exchange or increase steem power.
There is not consensus for that change.
I've been out of the loop for some time, so I haven't followed the development of the platform as much as I probably should. Has there been a change to stop the breaking of the "peg" at debt ratios above 10%?
I expressed my concerns about it when it was implemented quite some time ago... my thoughts on it can be found here:
https://steemit.com/witness-category/@bacchist/witness-petition-do-not-abandon-the-peg
If this is implemented, it will likely cause the debt ratio to increase with the additional SBD production. Have there been any relevant changes, or will it still be potentially catastrophic?
No. The 10% limit is still in place.
Yes, that is somewhat the intent. The market has signled (through sustaned high SBD prices) that the current 1-2% debt level is not enough supply. This change would allow the market to increase the supply pretty much all the way up to the 'haircut' limit.
With the new market conditions that have opened up around SBD, there is a lot less of a concern with the 10% level being catastrophic. If it starts to get "too close" to that 10% level for comfort, SBD traders will (logically) sell - which will put downward pressure on the SBD price. With enough downward pressure on the SBD price to push it back to $1 USD, this will incentivise conversions again.
Anytime SBD is trading at or below $1 USD, the market essentially has the option to "override" this change by converting an equal amount of SBD each day as gets printed, which would have the same result on the market as the blockchain printing 100% STEEM in place of SBD.
I see where you're coming from here, but I think it's a bit optimistic. By the time enough "extra" SBD has been printed to drive the price of SBD below $1, the debt load will already be in haircut territory. The change you've implemented increases SBD production when the debt load is already high relative to the 10% threshold. The debt load is very sensitive to STEEM price fluctuations... I think this change will add significant systemic risk.
Please note that it's really the haircut itself that I find objectionable. Your change is only problematic because the haircut exists.
I think the haircut is less systemically broken then the print limit. The haircut shifts existing price risk from STEEM onto SBD holders. If they don't like having more risk, they can sell, at which point the SBD price will drop, SBD will start getting converted and its total supply will drop. It at least tends to push SBD in the right direction. The print limit is the opposite: If SBD is overvalued, then it doesn't get converted, the supply steadily increases and then printing stops, which makes SBD more scarce and potentially drives the price even higher (WTF?!).
I understand you have expressed concerns about the haircut but personally I don't see it as a problem (other than potentially impairing the utility of stable SBD at some point, but we are so far from that now, not something to worry about at this point).
Has the idea of implementing reverse conversion of STEEM -> SBD been abandoned? Seems to me this proposal is just a band-aid fix that gives more tolerance/flexibility but makes any systemic break harsher.
I would not say abandoned but it is certainly more complex and farther away from being implemented and deployed (if ever).
I agree with you that reverse conversions (or something like it) would be more effective in maintaining the peg but this doesn't make this proposed change a bad idea. I believe the print reduction is probably the most broken part of he peg system in Steem. I would remove it altogether, but failing that, increasing the limit is certainly better than not doing so.
As far as I can tell reverse conversion would have similar results in terms of any systemic break, indeed possibly worse. I'm not sure what you are suggesting there.
Why are we not doing this, and hat can we do to move this forward?
I guess I am referring to the "haircut" scenario where the peg really ends up potentially a lot lower than $1 USD.
A couple of months back I wrote about The Coming STEEM DOLLAR Purge but I now realise I got it wrong. With a haircut dynamic in play the downside limit to SBD is effectively gone and we could totally downward spiral in a negative feedback loop.
thank you @gentlebot
If it takes that much SBD to bring the peg back to $1, I don't necessarily think it is wrong to print that much.
The SBD traders who are holding (and buying) SBD all the way up to that point are the ones who are taking the risk, and they are the ones that will get harmed if the peg drops below $1.
I hear you, and I don't want to downplay the significance of the point you raise. There definitely is some risk with this. With the way the SBD economy has been working though, I don't personally consider it a systemic risk though.
If we pass the 10% haircut limit, let's say even to 20% - that is a risk for SBD holders. In this (hypothetical) scenario - SBD could drop down to $0.5 USD.
The question though is what would happen to it after that. While it is completely hypothetical/unknown, it is somewhat likely that traders would see it as a significant buying opportunity - possibly long before it reaches that point.
I think the important thing that we have learned is that the market is not really looking at the SBD->STEEM conversion rate at all (at least currently) with regards to the value that is placed in SBD. Speculation is playing a much more significant role.
In that case (1 SBD = 0.5 USD), should SBD holders not be able to convert to one USD equivalent of STEEM?
No. If we pass 10% debt level, then SBD conversions would pay out less than a dollar worth of STEEM. At a 20% debt level, it would pay out 50 cents on the dollar.
SBD will never below $1 because you can burn it and receive $1 steem in return.
If it goes below $1 people can make a profit just by buying and burning it.
No.
I'm so very excited to see development coming from outside of Steemit, inc. Well done, Tim! I'm really looking forward to reading about the details of your experience through this process. Though the code changes seem straightforward, I imagine the amount of time and effort that went into figuring out which nobs to tweak (and why) took quite some time.
I was wondering what your thoughts are about someday having a community or foundation owned "official" repo for STEEM? Something I've seen block.one do for EOS that impressed me was require the block producer candidates to figure something out on their own as the official repo. A whole group was formed with a token, voting, and everything to create governance around who can control that repo. Eventually, I'd like to see STEEM move in that direction so we could move forward with some changes without Steemit, inc being concerned about the liability while still being free to take upstream changes from them as needed.
Thanks for putting in the work on this.
Eventually it might be the right step to take, but definitely not now. We need a lot more people (outside of Steemit, Inc.) who know the code, understand how to work with it, and are in a position where they can determine what changes are good/bad before we could do something like that. (Baby steps.) It would be a great place to eventually end up though.
I'd be in favor of something like what @lukestokes suggested even now. Bear in mind nothing about creating governance for the repo means that the bulk of the work and decisions wouldn't continue to be made by Steemit employees. Any sensible governance system would vest those authorities and responsibilities with people having the necessary skill, experience, and expertise, and for now that is Steemit employees.
Of course, setting up something like that is a big project, couldn't happen instantly, and would require one or more people to take it on as a significant effort.
We have a model we can follow with what the EOS community is doing. It is a big undertaking, but a worthwhile one as well. Ideally, it should be done by non-witnesses to be as neutral as possible. The EOS example is done by those who have committed to not being block producers. I don't they'll be auditors either. For it to work well, it should be as independent as possible. Like anything in this space, if it doesn't provide value, it will ultimately be forked/ignored.
Agreed. We'd definitely don't want code changes being made to the official repo (regardless of who controls it) unless they are experts with the best interests of the whole ecosystem in mind.
damn, i was not aware of all the behind the scenes stuff that is going on with Steemit. sounds complex AF
Tim, you're great!
At least you've started a discussion that must be started.
Wait, what is the STEEM/SBD debt ratio?
The current STEEM marketcap is $590,466,641 (based on a current price of $2.29).
There is currently 14,404,365 SBD in circulation.
14,404,365 / 590,466,641 = 2.44%
Thanks for explaining!
I like the initiative, but I haven't been convinced that anything should be done to restore the peg at all. I'm not sure we need anything more than a soft-peg.
By itself this change is not really going to fix the peg. The majority of the time the debt ratio is such that this change will not make any difference. It mainly eliminates the reduced SBD supply during times when the debt ratio is above 2%. The past few times when this has occurred, it hasn’t made economic sense.
Certainly, you're not saying that this change will have no effect whatsoever. If you were saying that, then this change should not be done.
We think the number of times this ratio has presented itself lately, it has worked against the peg. I haven't seen any numbers to support this assertion. One could show that the supply was affected adversely. That's academic and I'm not talking about that. I'm wondering if there is any way to show that SBD buying power was affected adversely by black-swan protection code. I don't think that can be demonstrated. There's too much volatility.
So, in reality, this change is to affect a perceived issue. And that's what I haven't been convinced about.
All I was saying is that the broken peg is a much bigger issue, and this one change alone isn't going to fix it.
The real protection against the "black swan" event is the 10% 'haircut' which is unaffected by this change.
Rather than argue for the change though, I will argue against the converse. In a case like we have today, why is it good to be giving authors a portion of their rewards as STEEM? Wouldn't it be better if they were receiving SBD instead?
I've spoken to authors who joined during a "liquidity crisis" when they got all three currencies in their payout at once. They liked getting the STEEM so they could immediately power up. Of course, they would have gotten a better deal if they were paid in SBD and traded it for STEEM. But that was more complication than they wanted to deal with and when the liquidity crisis was over, they felt a little inconvenienced.
So yes, in terms of price action, the SBD payout would have been "better" economically. But in terms of convenience, it was worse, to them.
Terms like "better" need context.
Hehe, true.
^ subjective value opinion, but to me that is a better option than convenience :)
Anyone who doesn't live in a country that sensibly allows tax-free trading between currencies should appreciate liquid steem over sbd if they immediately power up with it.
Great initiativw, @timcliff! STEEM needs an independent community of developers!
One specific question: what's happening with all generated SBD? If we are continuous adding new SBD to the 14.5 millions, faster than STEEM (broken pegging to the USD), already we see that the debt ratio can go in only one direction...
Unless users convert, it just piles up. Nobody is converting when the price of SBD is above $1 USD.
The debt ratio is not necessarily only going to go up though. It depends on the STEEM price too.
The questions and comments are great. The response to each suggests a well thought out proposal. But, unfortunately, I lack the knowledge to evaluate its specific merit. Nonetheless, I do agree with @timcliff on the need to have greater depth in developmental options. This is to not to diminish the Steemit.com role, past, present or future. But, the need to expand the developmental pool by encouraging more "talented community developers to work on changes to the Steem blockchain code", can only lead to increased options, wider discussion and less dependency.
This is a great development and thank you again for being an example. I was listening to a couple of witnesses complaining about SteemIt, Inc the other day and I asked why they didn't start to write some of the code also and see if SteemIt Inc would incorporate it into a drop. (fork)
I don't have a strong opinion on this change to SBDs, but I want to give you kudos for being part of the solution and setting an example for the community.
I'm really interested to see how this plays out!
Thanks @timcliff!
This is a little tangential but I was looking at your github comments last week and saw you were interested in changing beneficiary rewards so they don't always pay out in SP. I just wanted to express my feeling that this would be a great change, and probably one that would get easy support. I hope that's something you will pursue adding to the codebase.
Working on it next :)
I like the initiative, but I haven't been convinced that anything should be done to restore the peg at all. I'm not sure we need anything more than a soft-peg.
Perhaps instead of this change, maybe it would be better to just say, if the market value of SBD is greater than $1.50 USD pay 75% liquid/25% SP and with these current rules, the well paid bloggers can dump more dollars on the market.
Really nice post, I completely agree with you. Steemit Inc. shouldn't do 100% of the work, it's nice to see you stepping in. As for beneficiaries getting rewarded with the same payout option, I hope this will happen soon ! I've never really understood why it wasn't like that, seems weird.
I wanted to read this post due to Hardfork word in title and after reading i want to appreciate you because, i am not an developer but i know they are the core of any digital platform and i know how much they strive hard to improve some aspects or creating many applications which can bring effective usability. And i really wanted to appreciate you because you took one step forward and taken the responsibility to come up with the new developments and also you understood that everything should not be pushed or expected from one entity when there are many contributors, what i like is, as you said we have to search potential developers and contributors to push the Hard Fork and this way the engine of developments will move forward effectively.
And thanks for sharing the Print rate information and all numbers because literally speaking i was unaware of this stuff and good know it. And you are an super thinker and you are keeping an eye on 2022 and also as you said you are going through the updates of more payout options. So i want to wish you good luck and i hope and wish that your hard work will be attain it's goal.
Thanks for sharing this post with us and wishing you an great day. Stay blessed. 🙂
Thanks for taking the time to make the contribution and do some of the heavy lifting with regard to code alteration... While your changes make sense on paper, it does not account for the huge circulating supply on Steem already on the market, what people fail to realize is the Marketcap of Steem is inflated given that Steem is added that does account to monetary exchange, for example, 100 USD trader base on 50 Steem at price 2 dollars would give figure of 50 times 2 which would give it 100, that 100 trader can bring market cap 1000 if the seller wants 10 per Steem. But we also have to account for Steem models that basically pays in Steem, but there aren't typical buyers willling to support that price, crisis comes when everyone wants to sell (prolong period), then your 10% calculation would sink the market by that factor.... I know most people don't like to hear it but we don't have volume/liquidity to support the high Steem price we are trying to achieve, the most market appropriated approach would be the print SBD base on the market rate, this would significantly dry up supply of Steem as less Steem and SBD would be printed to support Steem demand... The major issue here, some tough choices has to be made, Steem supply is to large, SBD high price isn't the problem... We also risk killing the enthusiasm high SBD comes with and turning off traders, its a matter of combing between these two worlds but Steem trading volume even before the market downturn has been pitiful... What we should focus on is getting Steem trading volume up to that 100-300 million trading volume, and work with 1 USD as a flow rather than set in stone, if we should use Tether as reference it typically has trading volume of 3-5 billion USD roughly translating to 2.5 billion circulating Tether... Base on those numbers realistically Steem would need to have Marketcap of at least 125 billion to support SBD... I am saying this to say, our targets should be getting Steem trading volume to realistic 100-300 USD trading volume, trying to print more without thinking of rough times like we are experiencing now, would make this a recipe for disaster, for me working with a floor and taking advantage of purchasing more Steem to soak up supply or cash out may be more prudent rather than these over zealous witnesses scaring traders.... Another thing we have to change here is our attitude, we can't have witnesses talking about dumping Steem on the market and Stinc would be doing the same, what kind of moral does that leave... The system presently isn't robust enough to deal with abuses, so even that takes away traders.... Once again thanks for your contribution
Sorry, but I do not understand your com. Also there are a few things that you are saying which indicate you do not fully understand how the STEEM/SBD mechanics work. I suggest reading the whitepaper if you haven’t already.
There are a few comments where I responded to a few concerns which sound similar to what you are raising.
Thanks for your response, I think I rest my case on this matter I would continue to power down, there are a few thing that you are saying which indicate you do not fully understand how the Steem/SBD mechanics work. I suggest reading the whitepaper if you haven't already that's a good enough clue for me
Good luck guys....
I am trying to understand what your concern is, but I’m sorry your comment is not clear.
I think... and please Daudi correct me if I'm wrong. I think what he was trying to imply is that if we force SBD down, the speculators that we depend on (in his opinion) to prop of the price of Steem and SBD would lose interest on this blockchain.
Maybe, because the volume of steem is low already (most of steem is not liquid, its locked up) and without volume runs can't happen in a sustainable way.
So, maybe (i'm reading the comment again for the 10th time) the argument is that by keeping the SBD low volume as a debt token against Steem we are creating a "false" scarcity of some sorts, thus enabling possible pumps on a low market cap crypto (which of course is how it works).
Again, I say... If I'm wrong interpreting that comment, I'm sorry. It's not very clear.
I happen to understand very well the argument for a pegged asset and the value it could bring to the commerce aspect of the blockchain. However, I'm of the idea that having some liquid rewards be speculative could be enough incentive as to bring speculators (we need them, we don't sell ads) to participate of the space, thus giving us liquidity.
So, I happen to think. that what Polymath said above.
Which is something apparently you proposed yourself might be more in the middle for most, and won't make some Steemians run to the hills in fear.
Just my two cents... Hopefully I made sense.
Thanks for trying to clarify. It sounds like he is reading way too far into this change. It should have minimal influence over anything related to trading volume, and there is still plenty of room for speculation. It is a relatively minor tweak to correct a condition that seems to be against the best interests of stakeholders.
I appreciate the kind reply Tim, I for one think that as much as this is important, because it obviously is. The biggest shift on the platform needs to be cultural. But that is a conversation for another day, for another post.
I happen to think lots of the organic demand for steem might come from an app than anything else that we could tweak on the code.
Case in point Steem Monsters. I never played magic the gathering, but I happen to think that the Steem Monsters game is going to fix this lack of organic interest (from regular Joes actually investing) we require for runs to be sustainable and it will offer a viable model for mainstream adoption...
Time will tell, but 12k in sales in a week is pretty bullish to me.
In any case, thanks again
Cheers
this is really bad . but steemit is really not so much helpful
Interesting idea. It seems like the price of SBD always being higher than indended is a black eye on how well the software works. When I think back on pitching Steem as a platform, I often run up against the confusion of SBD when it’s trending 300% of where it should be.
I'm glad I took the time to read this. I'm thrilled to see contributions from witnesses and community outside of Steemit, Inc. This part in particular gets me excited:
Yes! Can this grand Steem experiment please be a working model of co-creation between a corporation and a worldwide community? 'Cause that's what I think it will take to make this thing thrive long-term.
I'm looking forward to hearing more about what you're doing. Hope to listen in on SteemStar Network tomorrow. One thing I'd like to see is greater rewards for witnesses who are not in the top 20, but who are contributing value to the blockchain. The rewards for witnesses drop off pretty sharp. I'd be interested in hearing your ideas around that subject, and how you see the witness roll developing as more witnesses step up.
I agree 100% with the fact that more developers aside from the Steemit Inc. developers need to lend a hand to the development of the blockchain. If that is done it will accelerate the growth of the blockchain.
Am a developer myself; if your putting together a team do let me know. Am in.
Your best bet is to take a look at the issues in the GitHub repositories and see if there are any you are comfortable tackling.
The steem repository is the one for the blockchain, but developing for that can be a little difficult for some. The condenser (steemit.com) repository is probably an easier place to start.
I'll look into it; thanks.
Like you've rightly pointed out, development to steem would be quite slow, if we wait until Steemit Inc. decides on a hardfork. It's a good thing that you are making these changes, @timcliff. Thank you.👍
While I'm trying to understand the mechanics of how SBD debt ratio increases, the question that comes to mind is how do we know that SBD debt ratio has reached that 'haircut' limit of 10% before we begin to see it lose value below $1 (assuming 17/22 witnesses agree to the change in the code you've made)?
@maryfavour.
The debt ratio is
the amount of SBD in existence/the marketcap of STEEM. I replied to another comment in this post with the exact numbers for that calculation.The intent is not really to make it reach the 10% 'haircut' limit. It is just to allow SBD to continue being printed unless/until we reach that point.
The market will reach whatever SBD price it reaches based on a lot of factors.
Your intent, regarding the action on SBD should it reach that 10% 'haircut', is understood. I'm glad to have learnt something new from you today. Thanks once again.
@maryfavour.
Congrats with submitting your hardfork pull request, @timcliff! It's great to see development from outside of Steemit Inc., and I hope we will evolve into a platform where we see more community development.
I don't know enough of the technical stuff to really know how this will affect anything, but I trust the witnesses to do the right thing for Steem when it comes to the voting.
Best regards from @valth
I believe this line is backwards. Should be 100% STEEM. I like the contributions you are making, I think they will help us to continue to move forward.
Corrected, thanks!
Glad to see you taking the initiative on something like this.
As far as I can tell most people do not understand the implications of having a very high SBD and the downward pressure that it creates on Steem. In fact, many minnows seem to think we're going to have another $15 SBD and they're quite excited about that.
As a stakeholder with what I consider to be a significant amount of Steem I am definitely not interested in an SBD that ruins the value of our actual currency Steem, and thereby creates volatility and doubt in the platform itself.
How do you get the STEEM/SBD debt ratio?
This is already answered in a response to another comment to the post.
For many years, the Argentine peso was pegged to the dollar. Now, this broke but while it was able to keep the peg, it was convenient for people to be able to rely on the value of the peso.
@timcliff, you have been here as long as I have. You know, the Steem Dollar was for a long time at $0.80. Now the Steem Dollar had gone to over $18 each before and has been well above a dollar for quite some time.
Those who are against the peg are happy to point out that they do not last forever but that's okay.
Wow great post @timcliff , thanks for all that you do for the community, glad to have always voted for witness! I hope your SBD print rate change gets implemented . I also agree on some comments that we should just drop SD and simplify things especially with mass adoption. Keep up the great work , upped and resteemed!✌👍👍👍
that's interesting, so there would essentially be more SBD created so it would be worth less and less STEEM created so it would be worth more?
That’s the idea :)
there seems like a lot of advantages to these changes, is there a reason not to make them?
Yes. There are some other comment threads in reply to the post where these are discussed.
one thing I see as a potential problem is that it already takes forever to earn 500 STEEM and buying it costs well over a grand so that's already a lot, but whatever, the slider is not that important, thanks for your work to make this thing work better.
Thanks for the update, can STEEM be supported by an hardware wallet like the Ledger Nano S ?
@jesta has already developed one - search for Vessel.
Vessel is a Desktop wallet, I mean Hardware wallet.. something like this, to do transactions with an external hardware device.
Ah, sorry - I didn’t catch the distinction. Yes, a hardware wallet would be cool :)
Sounds interesting @timcliff although the technical bit is a bit above my pay grade. I do feel, however, that more people being able to contribute would be helpful.
When you say 17/21 witnesses are you reffing to the 21 witnesses that appear at the top of the table? Do the ones with less power have no say in how the blockchain is developed?
Thanks for the SBD/Steem payout ratio information. I was asking another witness about that today so now I don't need his answer. 😁
For a hardfork to take effect, 17 / 21 of the witnesses need to vote 'yes'. The 21 witness votes come from the 20 top witnesses + 1 backup.
Backup witnesses do get a 'say'. They can contribute to the discussions, and express the way they plan to vote.
If a backup witness is voting in a way that the stakeholders like, and the top witnesses are voting in a way that the stakeholders don't like - then the backups may be voted in as the new top witnesses.
Thank you for the explanation @timcliff.
Whilst this is true in theory, from what I've read about the amount of power the top 20 witnesses have and how they vote for each other, it doesn't seem very likely that this could ever happen in practice, as things stand currently.
Until very recently I thought that witnesses got their spots in the table by number of votes. I didn't realise that power voting came into play.
Given that scenario it's hard to see how smaller stakeholders could really get themselves heard. 😊
Don’t believe the FUD. It is definitely possible for hard working witnesses to work their way to the top by adding value. I’m actually one example ;) as is @followbtcnews and @jesta.
If you read the whitepaper, that is somewhat by design. It is not necessarily that they have no say, but the voice of the larger stakeholders is intended to have more weight.
Thanks again for the information @timcliff.
I was already voting for you before this conversation (I must have read something good about you somewhere 😂) but I appreciate your responding to my misgivings in a kind and thoughtful manner. It is not always the case! 😁
I haven't read the whitepaper to be honest but the post I read about the implications of the top 20 witnesses voting for each other was a statistical one by someone I trust.
However, if it is
that is indeed good news, especially as we have some new community focused witnesses such as @steemcommunity and @danielsaori joining the fray!
@followbtcnews and @jesta already have my vote too so I must have read good stuff about them as well! 😁
Since you made your post I notice we are now being paid in Steem again and now I know why! 😊
I had never understood why some people wanted the 1sbd per dollar peg but now I think I'm starting to get the reasoning(still not convinced tho).
I completely agree with you about not being too depedent on steemit inc and curators getting their payouts the same way the author does. Wish you luck :)
Would you ever want to use a non-fiat currency for anything other than speculation of its value?
So according to this plan the value of sbd will likely go down closer to $1 but we will be receiving more SBD?
Well it is not really possible to predict the value of SBD, but it will slightly increase the supply. Users will be receiving more SBD in the cases where it would normally pay out a portion of liquid rewards in STEEM instead of SBD.
The bad news is you would get less when you convert your earnings to bitcoins because for a given post reward that SBD portion would be worth less than it is to today.
@whatimadoing exactly! You got it spot on!
I've seen a lot of people complain about the fact that SBD that was supposed to be pegged to $1 no longer is, but I don't see why the complain, I think it's beautiful the price of sbd. I for one don't see the need to stabilize it at $1, it's even saddening to me @timcliff
I guess that first you will have to resolve some conflicts :)
It is great to see community members who open pull requests on the Steem github, it helps its growth!
And as a question, you have written:
but at the end shouldn't it be:
Yes, corrected. Thanks!
Think this might be a typo...
Fixed, thanks!
Tim thank you for making a change here which is the best approach I have seen to SBD not being pegged to $1 USD and giving us hope here that if something did happen to Steemit Inc as witnesses we can continue developing and improving the blockchain!
I will resteem this post soon!
@timcliff, I really appreciate and respect your work on this matter.
When Steemit accounts go to many millions, there may not be a need for a 100% SBD reward system. In fact, a 50% reward may be too much. Another point is the simple fact that SBD is above the peg is because people want to buy it and trade it. Those investors that have been boosting the price might not be happy with a change. In some cases, they may be relying on the rules to remain the way they are.
I still like what you are doing for Steemit. We need more people like you.
This sounds like a great change to make to improve the health of the two coins. After just finishing my computer science undergrad, I am looking for projects to work on in my free time and had never considered attempting to submit changes to a project of this magnitude! I am definitely going to look into it!
Wow, a lot of comments here on SBD, pegging, and whether we need any of that anyway. I've thought about it a bit, but nothing new or insightful enough to add on that front.
What I appreciated about this article was a look at the process behind developing the blockchain.
It makes sense that the best solution to the problem you pose is the search for talented developers to work on the changes to Steem's blockchain code.
I hope that your offer is heard I mean the extraction request to implement a change as part of hardfork 20.
It would be interesting to be able to read what you plan to write a 'blockchain development tips guide' for other developers who are interested in learning how to do this too.
Good luck and success!
Wow this is incredible...You deserve an accolade for this homie. Shows that someone if not everyone, is still concerned with the future of steemit. You have said it all man, its left for the development team to heed to the suggestion given by @timcliff
It's great to see you trying to code for steem. I wish all witnesses tried like you. Keep improving steem!
The fact that SBD is never pegged is cause its trading on the market, once you put a currency on the market its hard to maintain it as pegged value to something, it's impossible. And I agree with the other folks above, higher SBD contributes for better Steem gains, because when SBD is high a lot of people change SBD for Steem and then they power up, they have a chance thanks to SBD to get a better stake hold on Steemit.
Removing SBD will affect bad on the Steem coin, when you take SBD from people they will be forced to power down because they have to life from something and thanks to SBD they can cash out and spend them outside the crypto market. I think the current system is perfect and any change on it can cause a damage to this community.
This is not really accurate. If SBD were removed (I say 'if' - there are really no proposals on the table currently to actually do this) users would be paid in liquid STEEM instead of SBD.
any dates for HF20 ?
@steemitblog said "early Q3 2018"
Ok
Thank you
The way that STEEM, STEEM Power and SBDs work is a thing of beauty! Yes it might seem complex to an outsider but it is a great system. I just dont think people get how it works. SBDs aren't really suppost to work as a dollar pegged crypto but they are more meant to act like a convertible bond. I guess this will have to be my next article. Thanks you for being an active and contributing member to the community! i will follow you and i hope you read my article when i write it i'd love for your feed back.
I agree, this is the most sophisticated financial system I've seen implemented natively in a blockchain. I've sat through an explanation of MakerDAO on ethereum and at the end the guys were very proud ... until I've told everybody in the audience that what makerDAO strives to do on Ethereum is already, out of the box, impemented by Steem, with 0 transaction fees and no need to wait and pray that the clogged Ethereum network validates your transaction ....
if you can successfully gain and convince atleast a greater part of the community say 80% and above then you can be thinking of approval and trending issues about that. you are on good footing though. hardwwork pays
Wow its nice. Steemit is a decentralised platform so if only a certain group of persons can work on the success and developement of tye blockchain then i think it defeats that fact.
Its a good thing that you have decided ti help out and u can see how suparb your update is. I just hope they lool into it and accept your submitted proposal.
Keep up the good work you doing around here @timcliff. We need more persons like you around here.
Very good approach, I am fully with you on the need for the community to step up and live the "decentralized" idea in full - not only decentralized operations but also a community of developers that is decentralized and generates new ideas faster than in a centralized setting.
With the "selection mechanism" of the witness approval vote - which BTW happens where, in github or in steem.chat or is it simply by upgrading the code they run ? I'm curious how things work during the transition period - when some witnesses have upgraded but others not - what happens to a specific payout then depends on what version runs on the node that processes the "author reward transaction", right ?
Witnesses 'vote yes' for a hardfork by applying it to their servers. It will only take effect if 17/21 witnesses (including the 20 primary and one backup) vote yes.
Thanks. Now imagine a 0.19.5 which inclides your change is available. Some of the witnesses start applying it. We are in a round where some witnesses (say 5 of the first 20) run 0.19.5 (with the modification) and the remaining ones (15 plus the backup) run 0.19.4 without the modification. Some "author reward" transactions come up for processing for the next block and one of the witnesses who has applied 0.19.5 is up for signing that one. What happens there ? In theory the author reward should be processed with the rules of 0.19.4 because your modification hasn't been approved yet by 17 witnesses. But because this witness has applied 0.19.5 his results will be different, his block will be considered "out of consensus" and thrown out, is that correct ? Which indicates that witnesses are well advised to do the coordination "out of band" in a chat so that the disruption is minimized, correct ?
That's not really how it works..
It is just a technicality, but the version numbers are based on whatever hardfork version it is in. A change to 19.5 can not be one that causes a fork from a previous version of 19. If it is a hardfork, then it will be version 0.20.0.
Whenever there is a hardfork, there is a specific point in time where all the nodes will switch if there is at least 17 'yes' votes.
If I apply hardfork 20, then I am voting 'yes' for that change. Even though I am voting yes, I am still processing blocks in 'hardfork 19' mode unless/until 17/21 witnesses accept, and the hardfork occurs at whatever time it is scheduled to happen in the code.
Thanks, does that also imply that if by the time HF "X" is scheduled to happen in code there are less than 17 witnesses signalling "yes" then the HF fails ?
correct
I think steem should only have steem ,one currency. Steem power and steem dollars seems like twisted effort for staking and pegging value... It probably might have caused steem to be undervalued .
Love the logic behind 'not the only stakeholders'. Also am impressed with your solution for the 'sbd/steem printing'. If I have a say, I'm all for that.
Hello @timcliff, congratulations for your talent, for your selfless work in improving Steemit every day. Since for their work and dedication, we obtain significant gains that help us every day, we also develop our skills and creativity every day and show our knowledge to the world. Thankful, God bless your talent.