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!