About
This transcript is from the interview conducted by the SteemSpeak community hosted by @fyrstikken, Ned Scott @ned (CEO of Steemit Inc.), and the Steem community.
Notice
Statements may not be correctly transcripted. I've manually transcripted this and this is my first attempt to do so. If you have any incorrect statements, please feel free to comment and I'll update that incorrect statements.
Actors
Fyrs = @fyrstikken
Ned = @ned
Listener(s)
*Sorry, I couldn't keep track with the listener's voices so I just labeled it as "Listener".
START OF TRANSCRIPT
*SteemSpeak introduction audio plays
Fyrs: Ned Scott, great to see you on SteemSpeak. Welcome!
Ned: Fyrs, good to hear you again, man!
Ned: How are you?
Fyrs: I'm so happy to be part of this
Ned: So um... Fyrs and I thought we might have a Fyrs' side chat
Ned: Talk about some Steem ideas and the community. What do you think, Fyrs?
Fyrs: I think that this exactly what we need. Why don't you start with subject the number one.
Ned: Sure, yeah. so you know we had a little talk about, um... I was just in New York this past week. You know conversing with some of the brightest minds in the space and it really sort of brought to a head. Yet some of the ideas that we've been... You know kind of batting around in the Steem attend cage Q and one of them that irresistible than ever the idea of community tokens.
Ned: You know what I mean by that is that Steem has the ability to support "meta tokens" that are absolutely first-class where these tokens can be attached to account names. They can be issued by people who own an account name and they can take on properties that are entirely under certain parameters.
Ned: Parameters that would allow the tokens to function like Steem where they could have properties such as reward pools and curation rewards.
Ned: Potentially even the ability to be distributed to what we might call worker proposals. People who are developing applications or use cases for a particular community token or are going out and driving new users to that token embedded form.
Ned: We're seeing lots of world use cases for these or at least a lot of traction in the blockchain space.
Ned: Different tokens...
Fyrs: (inaudible voice) ...we can buy a nice house with Steem, on Steem platform on Steem blockchain.
Ned: Haha! Yes, I think that that could potentially be one of the first use cases. You know if you have tokens and we've seen other models of meta tokens on different blockchains.
Ned: Bitshares has you UIAs refers to User-Issued Assets. Omni has tokens on these based on Bitcoin as its counterparty.
Ned: Um... but no one...
Fyrs: This is the greatest thing I ever heard in my life
Ned: Hahaha! And no what's even better about it is no one in a space yet has tapped introduce the ability to have tokens launched that instantly begin to support community growth.
Ned: New business to form because one of the things that Steem has overcome is, it has a set of properties that are nuanced in a way that allow it to get over the challenges of the friction of tipping and it's one of the reasons that Steemit has been so successful as a young nascent company.
Ned: It is that this cryptocurrency that runs through it is easily transferred to other people by methods as simple as upvoting others and because the tips, the tokens leaving from...
Ned: The tokens pass to another person don't leave from someone's wallet but they leave from that general rewards pool and you know that gives it some additional viability.
*Ned asks to how to disable notification sounds.
Ned: Steem was proven that in the right ways that it happens more viability as a Community Builder and Steem has done a very successful job supporting applications like Steemit, Busy.org and chainBB because it flows through these applications in a way that supports an exciting and engaging user experience.
Ned: People aren't faced with the challenges and the frictions of tipping when they want to reward other people because tipping in this system doesn't come from their own wallets. It comes from general rewards pool and that's functionality that can be mirrored across meta tokens if they were to be issued on Steem. Other properties that would be carry with this is to centralized exchange.
Fyrs: So I'll be able to make a first token, a first coin and have it traded internally just like that. Just (inaudible voice) some clicks of a button (inaudible voice)... it will be picked on.
Ned: You set your parameters for the asset. You decide whether that asset is going to be something that can be changed over time or whether the properties are sort of immutable and based on the properties you choose. You know if you present it differently to the community and it would have a different purpose but as long as you own that account name "Fyrs". You can launch the "Fyrs" token if you have the domain name space and it's your right to launch that token will be the proposal anyway. And as soon as it's launched it would trade against Steem and potentially all the other assets issued the price to set right up.
Listener: For that would be the markets would have the pairings of other assets as well?
Ned: Yes, potentially they could. You know we're doing this first side chat and I really just wanted to sort of treat this as a way to (you know) just go through the ideas. This is proposal at best I think it's a very important conversation now because it's so clear that there's a powerful use case here
Ned: You know we're seeing the success of Ethereum right now where people are doing ICO after ICO and that's creating demand for Eth be a part of these you know these potential new projects. And the difference here is there's actually a lower barrier to entry to what we're proposing on Steem because on Ethereum, if you propose a new token you also have to promise along with that a new set of technologies. But on Steem if you were issuing a "meta token". This would be, I'm going to issue... For instance I would issue a token to build a sub community. To build a community around a specific topic and that alone is a business model
Ned: Attracting people around a common cause creates value for entrepreneur and for the community at large. (inaudible voice)
Listener: I like that. Sounds pretty cool.
Ned: So I like the idea that it's a lower barrier to entry for starting businesses because I think that's one of the biggest drivers for growth of the platform. The other thing is that's cool is this whole advantage of the bandwidth rate limiting of Steem. So anyone who issues an asset potentially you know has the same user experience benefits across you know new applications or inside their sub community where users of the asset don't need to pay transaction fees to go upvote different content. And that's a benefit that the on Ethereum.
Fyrs: So basically there's a big metal finger to Bitshares
Ned: Well, I don't know about that. You know Bitshares doesn't have that functionality of Steem. You know what we're proposing here are "meta assets" that potentially have reward pools where the issuer can choose how much of the reward is going to content creators, how much is going to curation, how much might go to worker proposals potentially.
Ned: That's never really been done before but certainly there's a lot of lessons learned from Bitshares. That you know I've learned participating in that system and you know we would certainly take advantage of any tech that's been built there already that you know that we can.
Listener: That be very useful for companies like Zapple later on when we decide to take in investors and be able to issue our own asset that we can keep the whole... keep track of. Then do dividends through the Steem Network.
Ned: Yeah, I can see how there would be much more synergy for a play like Zapple. You know you're building something on top of Steem it's only natural that you know the fundraising that you want to do would happen more closely and in the same economy.
Listener: So dividends will be possible?
Ned: And so um... You know I'm not a lawyer and going into dividends talking about.
Listener: So that means in the technology and the technology Bitshares about to add dividends to the system. So it's something to look into if you guys do go that route.
Ned: So dividends, dividends can be accomplished in a number of different ways but they can be accomplished pretty well despite (inaudible voice)
Fyrs: (inaudible voice) ...bot from my RSA like if you hold the first coin on Steem and I want to send 100 Steem divided on all the holders you know something like that.
Ned: It would just tip it proportionately to all the people who hold the asset and that would accomplish I think what you're looking for.
Listener: Yeah, if it's gonna be named... I think it should probably get away from the word "asset" especially anyone that's trying to start companies in the USA it becomes really really tricky.
Ned: You know I think if Steem adopts this. Certainly needs a very easy to understand...
Fyrs: (inaudible voice)
Ned: I was going with "community token" for a while as a name holder...
Listener: Even as would a "community token" be able to have its own reward pool?
Ned: Yes, so that's pretty much the... you know the primary value proposition here. It is that you know what we've discovered with Steem is, it has properties that are excellent for community building sub communities and sub communities with tokens. We want them to be able to take advantage of those same properties so these "meta assets" and these "meta tokens" would absolutely have rewards pools. That would be you know the primary reason to launch a token on Steem is it would get to take advantage. That functionality you would get to take advantage of the fact that there are transaction fees, those bandwidth rate limiting. And you'd be able to either you know use the token to build a fast growing sub community or you can even apply a new interface and build some new tech on top of it to give it additional value, add and faster growth
Listener: Could they have their own payout parameters? Like say that the person is posting on a community and they won't have only a six-hour payout period.
Ned: Those types of parameters would be possible. I think if this were to happen. There would be some moments with some inflection points where we'd have to say okay is this a scalable parameter. Does this parameter provide the issuer's or the user is the most bang for their buck. And is it scalable for this Steem chain as a whole. And some of these questions are still unanswered but I think parameters and the more creativity, more room for creativity there is the better. If that's you know one thing we've learned from Ethereum is if you're able to apply creativity to one of these tokens like the "EOC 20 token" then you can give the token more of a unique selling proposition. So I'm all in favor of pursuing those different types of parameters. Some of them I think we'll have more bang for the buck than other. You know for instance having the rewards pool as an option I think is one of the biggest value adds.
Listener: Sounds great. Just I think we would want to avoid one-size-fits-all because we have that already and expand that to more tokens the more parameters the better.
Ned: Yeah, absolutely. The one-size-fits-all model I mean you know like the UIA (User-Issued Assets) for instance. The challenge with the UIA is, it's best use cases to you know provide an asset that can be backed by a promise. It doesn't talk businesses to run you know that basically is stating that you have to have a business in the real world and connect it to the blockchain but with an asset like a "community token". It's different. It's issuing a token that immediately can start to provide a value proposition to new users. "Hey! Come and be a part of this sub community and earn for posting." You know it's all there, right on the blockchain, right on the internet. There's no IOU for an ounce of gold or anything like that it's a very fun and fast proposition to new users. (inaudible voice)
Ned: I think it's a game changer.
Listener: Time to go buy Steem before it mint!
Fyrs: Don't buy in front of me, man.
Listener: I have a question that's maybe a little unrelated. I mean it's related but it's not specifically on topic. Should I wait for that?
Ned: Well some other things we were gonna talk about in this side chat.
Fyrs: Yes, I have a little list of things we should go through and we can open for some questions. If you guys can write down your question as we go along and that'd be great the next thing on the list is "community tokens". But if you also wanted to talk about other things, Ned.
Ned: Yes, what did we have on the list? (inaudible voice)
Fyrs: Business-to-business (B2B)
Ned: All right. I think you know... you know... another way...
Fyrs: Delegated (inaudible) so it is possible to land out the Steem Power on an internal market.
Ned: Oh, yes. So you're gonna end up growing the Steem community is by building in tools that allow for business-to-business like profitable opportunities for people to go out and get other people involved in Steem. And one of the you know very well could be the "community token" because now you know... Everyone can kind of be a Steem consultant or a blockchain consultant and they can go to existing websites and say, "Hey! You know grab your domain name space and issue your token or integrate this token with your existing website and get rocking and rolling." And start you know giving your users a reason to come back and participate in post content and curate content. (inaudible voice) Steemit can do that but who's a part of Steem can do that and go out and pitch existing websites to be a part of it. Other tools that will make that B2B process easier and faster will be things like a comments widget. We're not there yet. (inaudible voice) I know a few people in the community have started working on it but our widget would be incredible because then you could go to existing WordPress sites or existing publications. Take for instance the New York Times and say "Hey guys! Replace "Disqus" with "Steemcuss" or "Steem Discuss" and let that be an iframe from whatever companies it is hosting it. I will issue a token for you know... Just take for instance the New York Times issue the "New York Times tokens" through it. New York Times could do the ICO.
Ned: You know what we saw recently last week actually was a company called Kik which is a messaging app that is brought in several million users if not 10 or 20 million users over their existence. They basically announced that they're going to do a token but they're launching an "ERC 20 token" and the details of the white papers show that they're actually only planning to use the Ethereum blockchain as settlement. They're planning to facilitate all of the cryptocurrency going through the app. They're planning to facilitate it through basically a centralized database and I mean that to me is a little worrisome. I would much rather see companies like Kik and anyone is going to follow their footsteps be able to use a technology that's fast enough and can scale with their application. So it would be our duty with "meta tokens" to go out and say "Make sure you're using technology that maintains the integrity of cryptocurrency and as it runs through your system its protecting users it's not being run inside a centralized service."
Ned: It's thing you could do that. So I think it's almost our duty to make sure that we pursue this proposal of "meta tokens" in a way that will provide safety, sanctity and functionality to the rest of the internet.
Fyrs: People have questions around this subject.
Listener: Yeah, I was wondering about the comment widget like would I be able to make a token like to (inaudible voice) all the hateful comments as with the "hateful token" and then filter out all the hateful comments.
Ned: The technicals here but with JSON metadata there's a lot of different ways you can tag content already. You wouldn't necessarily need a token to do it. A token is meant for price discovery, transfer value and that sort of thing but you know with the flexibility of the Steem blockchain. You might be able to achieve what you just described with tagging already.
Listener: Would there be a minimum threshold for token to be allowed to exchanged into Steem or what every single variant be redeemable instantly.
Ned: Well there's no real redeemability to agree. If you want to get an idea for how it works go to OpenLedger.info. That's one of the primarily interfaces to the Bitshares blockchain that will show you two centralized exchange and basically any of the assets issued on that blockchain trade against any of the other assets. It works similarly to that basically (inaudible voice) the "Nate (inaudible voice) token".
Nate: I don't remember...
Fyrs: The NEST...
Ned: Then, as soon as it's issued there's basically a market created between the NEST token and Steem. People just have to put up asks and bids and then the market starts to form and maybe some transactions happen and when transactions happen price is discovered. But there's no redeemability. Redeemability, basically means that there's a middleman who is promising to to make an exchange happen at a certain rate in an IOU but you don't in these markets have real redemption properties unless there's a middleman.
Listener: I think Steve have a question and he would like to hear three specific use cases for these tokens.
Ned: So community building as a business. Let's say that I've got the rare "Pepe accounting" on Steem. I want to build a community around rare "Pepe". I will issue the token. I make it a very decentralized token where the parameters can't be reversed. It's got a set inflation schedule and a rewards pool that you know issues 50 percent of the rewards to content creators and 50 percent to curators. Oh and then let's add in another 2 percent that goes to people who are doing work for the community or something. But the parameters can't change that the inflation rates are set and the rewards allocations are set. Now I can start to build a business around rare "Pepe" because maybe I own a bunch of rare "Pepe" and I'm incentivized to make sure lots of people come to this community and pay a lot of attention to the asset. Yeah, eventually if the community becomes big enough the expectation is the more attention paid to a token the more valuable it becomes. That's kind of the thesis would Steem. We always say you know growth is the primary thing. If we grow this thing every single person who shows up and participates in the system, brings their own tiny bit of speculation capital which could no guarantees but could increase the value of Steem. That same thesis could be applied to just about any asset whether it's a "meme token" or token that's created to circulate in a new application. It's true whether you want to build a new piece of tech in the new community or just a new sub community or new "meme" community on Steemit.
Ned: These can be big (inaudible voice) audacious goals that people bring to these tokens or they can be small little fun community tokens. The range would be wide. Other things people could do is they could potentially issue IOUs. They could potentially say I'm gonna issue a token and this token represents in a real-world business or it represents some redeem ability for some other asset. There's lots of possibilities.
Fyrs: Only the imagination is the limit (inaudible voice) here. So this will support a lot of middleware.
Ned: So, middleware, I think I put that on our list because on what we're doing at (inaudible voice). For the past probably five to six months one of our primary focus has on middleware. When we first started building Steemit, we were building it directly onto Steemd node and that was a great proof of concept. We showed that you could truly build a mainstream potential application directly to a blockchain but as we continued we saw more and more that we were going to need better organization of the database behind the website to make development fast and potentially super iterative. The concept called the Buffer blockchain which means you kind of take all the blockchain data and all the data you're getting from the website and you put it into a new format Maybe it's a MySQL database maintained by the company that's running the website.
Ned: That tell us a lot and we're in the process of finishing that up our database. There is called the SBDS. You actually check out development via Steemit @ GitHub. We're developing another tool called Hive which is sort of an interpreter layer between that database the buffer blockchain and the blockchain itself and the website. By developing these middleware tools were able to basically keep up the integrity of the blockchain we make sure all operations that happen on the website are still directly to the blockchain and then we can maintain integrity of all the data that's left over in the blockchain and from the website.
Ned: I think those are important things for developers to check out it's you know when you're developing something like Steemit and it's kind of the first time someone's built a mainstream application on top of a blockchain still a lot of problems that have never even been run into by other entrepreneurs. I'm just very excited to say that I have been working with the most intelligent people that I've ever met for the past year and a half and we're doing incredible work you know developing innovative solutions. I can't wait to see where we are once we kind of get through this infrastructure phase and begin moving faster on apps. Now that's not to say we're not doing awesome work. Our mobile development is really moving along at a fast pace now and I'm looking forward to mobile coming out as well but anyway I'm kind of going down the rabbit hole here and off of our scheduled track, Fyrs.
Ned: But what was our last thing on our list?
Fyrs: Well, we talked first about "community tokens", some "B2B tokens", ICOs community building business models
Listener: What kind of time frame would "community tokens" (inaudible voice) before or after the (inaudible voice)
Ned: I think "community tokens" may need a little bit of time but I do believe that they're incredibly important. We do have to kind of planned hardforks coming up and one has already been announced that's linear rewards which I think will be a very important milestone for the community. We'll have to see I expect that everyone who's a part of Steem should pay attention to that and give feedback as as the economics change we see what that does to community behavior. But I'm very excited to see what we learn from that night. I'm very optimistic that it's going to be a very positive change. After that, I mean there's still some more infrastructure stuff on the blockchain that I'd like to see get passed with regards to sign up costs. One of the remaining scalability challenges is in costs of sign up creation. We've been developing some very cool mathematical solutions to lowering the cost. They're basically through a innovation of account creation tokens in combination of proof of stake and proof of work but you know I will be posting more about that in the future. (inaudible voice)
Ned: ETA on community tokens. There's a lot of infrastructure that's already been built for it. We would probably take a lot of the infrastructure from Bitshares and then basically insert different properties for parameterizing these assets and ways that these tokens in ways that make them more like Steem or more potentially like Steem or more you know kind of variations on Steem who knows what else we'll learn from other experiments on "meta tokens". But yeah, it could be a little while away but I think in the meantime we can start to get people kind of jazzed on the idea. I've already been talking to several businesses who are super excited to potentially partner with this Steem blockchain on this and bring over existing user bases. I've had people approach me with very successful websites, an entrepreneur runs one of the most successful poetry websites was speaking in the other days like let's do it let's integrate, someone who's running one of the top marijuana forums on the internet basically had the same conversation with him. That's the proof in the pudding right there. There's huge demand for this people are looking at this and saying how can I get a token into my product and what "meta tokens" on Steem would provide is the easiest and most viable and most potentially successful way of integrating tokens across content websites.
Fyrs: You've heard it guys. Steem is the new pot coin and go buy, buy, buy!
Fyrs: How about B2B interface solutions?
Ned: You know we covered that a little bit with the idea of like a "Steem Discuss" but that's like another... it's something they could go kind of hand-in-hand with "community tokens". You know if you're able to kind of consult websites and say "Hey! I have an opportunity for you to to launch this token for your business, a currency for your community. They will (inaudible voice) ways and brings value to your business and I also have a widget that you can install beneath the content that the original post content of your website that basically allows you to get off the ground running."
Ned: In a matter of weeks, if not days that's just a very powerful pitch you know an app out-of-the-box business-to-business solutions for existing websites that's key to taking over the Internet and I sort of see that as the next phase for Steem as a community and I want Steem Inc. to be a part of that as well. So yeah, I mean you know if you're thinking about these things reach out with your ideas. If you're a developer by the way reach out, we want to know who you are, I want to talk to you. I love meeting you know everybody who's working on different Steem applications. Nothing has been more exciting to me in the last, my entire life than meeting all the talented people that have become part of this community and if we haven't met yet. I want to meet you.
Listener: I have a question for you I mean uh that I have a question for you.
Ned: Okay.
Listener: I do marketing and advertising for a living and some of my questions that are what you like how you plan to grow the Steem's user base and get more people to know about Steem and to reach out into different communities and bring gamers and if you have like an advertising plan to go ahead and grow Steem. Do you guys have any in the pipeline?
Ned: We absolutely do and in the past, we are very much still in the infrastructure phase. We are facing bottlenecks currently in the sign-up process and in a few other scalable capacities of the system. We're addressing those right now and they're sort of roadblocks to doing mass invitations to the public. We absolutely have the plan to go out and bring in thousands, ten thousands of influencers and bring them in and then have them bring their user bases in. But currently it, we can't handle it so we're in the last stages of getting through those challenges moving those roadblocks out of the way and as of out of the way we get to this moment where suddenly the floodgates are open. There's nothing holding us back from going out and getting you know the top influencers in politics and extreme sports. In just about anything, you name it, we can bring them in and they have incentives to then bring in their user base in. This platform will blow up overnight. Millions, 2 million, 3 million users, this is not a hard number of people to bring to an application. It's mostly a matter of timing and doing in a way that it is highly successful if we were to do that now and spend the dollars to do that now. We'd be bringing people in and then you know not being able to support them in the way that we want so let's get through this last set of infrastructure challenges and then let's bring in these millions of people. Suddenly be, one of the biggest names on the internet.
Listener: Oh, if you, if you ever interested. I've thought of some ideas once you guys figure out your infrastructure. I find some of the hardest things to explain to say something that's not really not into cryptocurrency as gamers or say your mom or your dad stuff like that. A simple way to go ahead and introduce them to see how they can get paid and a really easy put together well, just simple either video and you know to explain something complicated. I've basically found a way to make it pretty easy to explain and that's kind of my specialty. So if you remember my name and you want some ideas later it's the Hulk13.
Ned: Absolutely, absolutely and you know I appreciate that and what I would kind of encourage as well is that you know we are this community and everyone who's a part of this is obligated to do their part and it's not just Steem Inc. involved here and there's many businesses involved on Steem now.
Ned: As people have great ideas and are putting in work for the platform of course we want them to be rewarded for that and Steemit wants to help be a part of rewarding these people but the blockchain of the beautiful thing about it is it's built in a way that can reward people for bringing their creativity and their time and their energy to projects that advance the platform. So if you do have a plan for creating a video that would be effective at on boarding users you know that's something that you could potentially begin and T's to the community approach for the community could potentially be rewarded for it. We'd love to see you take initiative on it as well and then if you want to continue talking and working on together you can always reach me as well and we can take it further together.
Listener: When they're ready for it. Let me know.
Ned: In it is a little traction as well and show me something that's you know got a few of the first steps taken care of as that will only make it easier for me to jump in on.
Listener: Where's the easiest way to contact you?
Ned: Just get me on Steemit chat my handle is @Ned
Listener: I just send you a message. All right and there's like a question here. It says "How will the platform be able to serve millions of users from a technical standpoint?"
Ned: Standpoint. This platform Steem is one of the most advanced blockchain platforms if not the most out right now and basically it boils down to the networking code with delegated purpose. You think about it, there's 21 of these witnesses and every round a block production. What that means is you have about 21X compared to a centralized service if Steemit there were no blockchain and it's just running one node behind it that's what you're building. But with Steem behind it there's an additional sort of redundancy of 21 extra nodes carrying most of the same data and that causes things to be a little slower than usual because the nodes all have to agree that they're carrying all the same data but at the same time that is far more efficient than other blockchains out there. They use proof-of-work and other more naive forms of proof-of-state so it just kind of is what it is. This tech has been developed all the way back been iterated over time we've made some huge advancements on it with Steemit. We upgraded Graphene to chain base and that's been big for us as we go along. I expect that there will be small scaling challenges here and there. We are preparing to deal with those as we grow but you know we can get to those two and three million users and let's do that you know.
Fyrs: Absolutely!
(inaudible voice)
Listener: I just wanted to say thanks for coming here. First of all, and these I love everything that you're talking about here. This is exciting. There is the main question I have there already. You already touched on it just a bit but I'm very curious about the linear rewards. Do we have any kind of ETA at all on that? I know there's been some other things talked about for hardfork 19 but to me that seems by far the most important.
Ned: Yet linear rewards are the next thing coming up. It's all pretty much coded it's just a matter of getting code review from the witnesses and from other developers on the platform. I believe it's already scheduled I have to go back and check the dates but if anyone in here can confirm (inaudible voice) some of the scheduling has already announced on GitHub.
Fyrs: First witness is ready job soon as peer-review comes in safe we are upgrading so vote for first witness (*shameless plug)
Ned: That's good to hear so um yeah. I think that's the most of what we have on our list, Fyrs. I guess we talked about a bandwidth market. That would be interesting. Steem Power market but...
Fyrs: Yeah, of course, we have all these investors that have invested and how powered up because they want to of course gain on inflation but at some point gaining on curation becomes impossible with millions of users and communities and all that so having a market where I can say okay I have all this hundreds of thousands of Steem Power maybe somebody else can have better use for them for a while and I can put them up for renting for say two weeks and they have to pay me five thousand Steem Dollars to be away for a week or something like that.
Ned: So kinda says why can't we come promote Steem Power. I would just say I think that's exactly why we are upvoting. You allocate the Steem Power each posted that you upvote. Maybe he's talking about boosting it which is kind of what the idea of the Steem Power market is. You can kind of rent additional Steem Power for a limited amount of time. I think it's super interesting in many reasons we were talking about today because I actually got a proposal from a very talented C++ developer today basically suggesting that the Steem Power market could be developed off-chain today with the tools that we have in combination with other things like Escrow which is also on the blockchain. There's potential there. Talk to username act but look into developing that I know he was looking for a front-end developer who might be interested. There's a very clear business model there and being able to take basically transaction fees.
Listener: Sputtered out when you were saying the person's name
Ned: (unsure with the username) know he was looking for a fun and developer so if anyone here is interested in that project you know there's kind of a clear business model and you know our (inaudible voice) the type of super talented person who might be able to set the right direction for the project.
Ned: There's big possibilities there. There's so much on our plate guys. I couldn't be more excited to be here with you guys and this past year and a half on building Steem and Steemit has been amazing and I want to thank all of you.
Listener: Thank you. Someone who said "Did you guys do any simulations or penetration testing is raised recently to see how much throughput you guys can handle? It seems like the website isn't always snappy. Did you guys do something recently?"
Ned: The website, so the website's a bit different from blockchain scalability so the website we're constantly looking at speed and download times and all that stuff and we're actually quite advanced. We're super setup on AWS right now and you know all I can say is we're constantly looking at and constantly improving and we've got a great team that's working on that but it is different from the blockchain. Blockchain scalability is a little bit different.
Listener: So when do you guess Facebook will start using the "community tokens"?
Ned: (laughs)
Listener: (inaudible voice) after they buy out the whole blockchain.
Ned: Why doesn't someone get a little prediction market up and we can see where the market thinks.
Ned: Good job guys! Good talk! I got to look forward to being back soon.
Fyrs: Yeah, thank you, Ned Scott. Always a pleasure to have you and amazing information you (inaudible voice) once this sink in.
Ned: You know I had another use case. Another use case in my head, so I just want to get this out before I go so when I was at Token Summit in New York on Thursday. A username was named as Emanuel (unsure if it's the right username handle) came to me and he showed me these water bottles that had the Steemit logo on them. He said: "Yeah, I've been in Mexico I sell these water bottles promoting Steem and I thought that was amazing and he said had you know what I want to do? I want to have a bar code underneath all the labels that you know if it's scanned it gives the person's Steem". You know that just fed right into the "community token" idea for me. I'm like you know what you know maybe it's Steem but maybe it's a "community token" underneath that label you know it's the "water bottle token" or something like that there's so many use cases for these guys. You know if we do it right. It would empower lots of entrepreneurs and lots of businesses. So anyway, I wanted to get those ideas out because you know I think it's important for us to talk about it and one way or another we'll get it done whether it's through Steemit or some other you know developer force that appears for he blockchain. You know the more we decentralize the more people working on this the better.
Ned: If you're C++ developer, you know and you need any help getting started or any do some development on Steem, know I employ it and reach out to me or anyone.
Ned: Yeah, anyway good stuff guys!
Listener: Question about the blockchain. How many posts per second would you say the blockchain itself like I could handle right now if there would be like an influx of users coming in?
Ned: Talked about you know we talk about operations 1000 being up to a hundred thousand transactions per second but when you start to include you know the size of the transactions you know with posts they get larger and larger so it could be less. But if we're just talking about transfers of tokens then you know we talk about a hundred thousand transactions per second but no one's actually tested up that high but it's all theoretical. But either way you know, as we grow will solve it more and more scaling challenges. It should be fun ride.
Listener: It should be. Because I mean I can see this thing where you're pulling in as many posts from website like Reddit.
Ned: Yeah, so these are the challenges that we want to face. You know we want to be in a position where you know it's like okay can the blockchain handle 500 posts per second and we can do that confidently and that's about Reddit's rate I believe. They do about five transactions per second so being that moment looking back and saying we thought we could do it and we're doing it and if not you know then we're making all the improvements necessary to make it happen. But let's stay practical and let's stay focused and let's keep having fun. All right guys, I got to keep running. Again soon and have a good night guys!
Listener: Alright catch you, later.
Listeners: Thank you. welcome to the NED after-show. (inaudible voice)
*SteemSpeak audio plays
END OF TRANSCRIPT
TL:DR
An interview with Ned regarding about the new concept of "community tokens" and/or "meta tokens", B2B Solutions, bandwidth rate-limits, Steem Power rentals, upcoming linear rewards, future of Steem, and Steem related blockchain topics asked by the listeners in the interview.
Audio
If you want like to listen to the audio, you can check it at: 
Thanks
@fyrstikken for hosting the interview
@ned for participating in the interview and sharing his thoughts on Steem and the future of it