Who are the 1%?
According to statistics the 1% by net worth is anyone who has over $10,000,000. To be specific "$10,374,030.10".
As the price of Steem goes up there will be many accounts which will be worth this much. Because Steem is a "privacy-free" rather than "privacy-preserving" blockchain, this information on net worth is known. For instance we can look at the account of Dan Larimer @dan and see his Steem account is currently worth $7,401,473. This means his Steem account alone nearly puts him in the top 1% of America. Because the United States is one of the richest countries in the world this would mean Dan Larimer is one of the richest people on earth even now.
The 1% on Steem
What will happen on Steem when some accounts join the 1%? Politically speaking, the 99% may have different interests entirely from the 1%. On Steemit the 1% would be represented as the true whales (the whales with accounts worth over $10 million). The fact that there is no privacy on Steem would mean anyone can find out who is part of the 1% and this could actually produce a lot of risk and uncertainty. The good news with Steemit is that with enough time and effort it is still possible to earn your way up but is it still possible to go from an account worth $0 right now and bring it to a hypothetical account value worth $10 million dollars someday?
Can social mobility be guaranteed on Steem?
I am not sure the social mobility aspect of Steem will scale. It is actually becoming harder to earn Steem as more users join. So I would say the pyramid only becomes steeper with time or so it appears. If the economy around Steemit expands with SMTs this could be solved perhaps. In fact, I think SMTs may be the best way to maintain social mobility on Steemit for the long term. That said, it will be interesting to see how the community psychology of Steem changes when some accounts are not just whales but 1%ers while other accounts are 99%ers.
Questions
- Will we see a replay of the same sort of conflicts we saw with Occupy Wall Street play out here on Steem or will things be different?
- When the price of Steem hits $100 how much will your account be worth?