This article is going to be the start of a multi-part series detailing how some things people are focusing upon are not issues and will be resolved within a couple years all on their own.
There is a major shift taking place on STEEM and I am not sure many are aware of the ramifications. Power is being shifted around which is making some of the areas of discussion mute. Nevertheless, people continue to focus upon the now so I figured I would explain what I see.
Part of being a technologist/futurist is to realize where things will be in 5-10 years. Of course, this is not exact and many factors come into play. That said, we can see general trends along with pace of advancement to begin to estimate what is going to occur. For this reason, a great many of the problems that are debated today will be non-issues in a decade.
On STEEM, we have the same thing. Each month I post a report about the shift in SP that is taking place. We are now seeing something amazing taking place.
I chose @tribesteemup as my example because this really epitomizes what I believe is happening.
What is @tribesteemup you ask?
I will summarize it as such: it is an application of love.
@tribesteemup is a voting block that rewards the spread of love, positive outlook, natural cures, and spiritual matters. It not only upvotes these topics but it also engages in the spreading of love through the curation.
How is this the future of STEEM and what does it have to do with current issues?
Here is the voting chart over the last month for this account.
@tribesteemup has 9300 SP in their account. This makes this account a Dolphin. However, there is a bigger point here. This account votes like a Whale since it was delegated 1M SP. So, even those this is a Dolphin account it is behaving like a Whale.
As the voting chart above shows, @tribesteemup does not self upvote. And what is one of the biggest complaints on STEEM? That the Whales don't vote for anyone but themselves (or circle vote). Here we see an account that is spreading the SP around.
This is why I call it an application of love. It is helping to usher in the Age of Abundance.
Another one that is doing the same thing is @fulltimegeek's bot brigade. For those who are not aware, this was an Orca who took 300K SP and opened up 100 Minnow accounts with 3K apiece. This is an automated upvoting system which votes 10x per day for a total of 1K 100% upvotes. These bots do not post so there are zero self upvotes. Yet we have 1K votes going out per day at roughly 18 cents. This equates to $180.00 in upvotes a day from this one individual that is spread out to hundreds of Steemians.
Neither of these examples are platforms in the sense there is something they do other than spread upvotes for participation.
There are other applications that are doing something similar with the votes although they are platforms. I will use some that I mention recently.
@steemhunt is a Dolphin with 15K SP. This app votes like a Whale with 1.7M SP delegated.
@actifit is a Minnow with 1190 SP; votes like an Orca with 110K SP delegated.
@dlike is a Minnow with 530SP, votes like a Dolphin with 9300 SP delegated.
All of these have very few self upvotes (under 2%).
As for some of the others:
@dtube: Orca 70K SP; votes Whale 2.2M DSP
@dlive: Orca 63K SP: votes Whale 2M+ DSP
@dsound: Dolphin 35K SP: votes Whale 980K DSP
@busy.pay: Orca 51K SP: votes Whale 500K DSP
Once again, these platforms spread the votes around to people using their platform with little self upvoting.
Take @actifit: this account gave out 168 upvotes for those who posted at the 10K movement level. Each vote was worth roughly $.33 apiece. These upvotes went to average Steemians who are not the heavy hitters on the blockchain. A big difference from the $.02 that many smaller accounts mention receiving for their posts.
There are 36 Whales on the STEEM blockchain right now according to @arcange.
@arcange/steemit-statistics-20180831-cn
Yet here, off the top of my head, I came up with 6 accounts that have Whale voting power AND are voting content across a broad spectrum of users. This is somewhere around 8.5M SP in voting power. I am sure there are many more accounts that are doing something similar: passing a lot of votes around while voting at a much higher level because of the delegations they received.
There is another application that will be coming online in the next few months called 1UP. This is a project by @flauwy. The sole purpose of this application is to provide communities with a SMT through which they can reward quality content. This is an additional bonus that goes with each upvote. Hence, content creators have a way to make even more money on a post since they will not only receive 1UP tokens but STEEM.
And do not think for a second that this initiative will not seek out delegation to make the upvotes from the account even more powerful. That is one of the primary means to enrich the community.
Which brings up the final point: where do you think a lot of the delegation comes from?
Many initiatives are paying out Smart Media Tokens in exchange for delegated SP. Obviously, the ones who can take advantage of this are the larger accounts with SP. So what do you think happens when larger accounts are tying up SP in projects such as I just mentioned that upvote users on the platform? That voting power gets spread out.
One final question: what do you think will be happening when, instead of 5 applications, there are 150? Or 500? Or 1000?
Over the next couple of days I will be putting up a couple articles with numbers that bear out what I think the answer to these questions might be. Certainly, the trend is established.
Ultimately, SP is shifting via delegation from the larger accounts to applications that are upvoting a broader range of content creators. This will only expand as more applications are released on the STEEM blockchain. As it does, we will see more accounts accumulating SP and people begin to use these new apps.
Once again we see, it is all in the applications.
If you found this article informative, please give it an upvote and resteem.