Today, @empress-eremmy posted about crossing the 500 SP threshold into Minnow-hood. Congrats. What I liked was the title, They say minnow, I say whale. I thought I would write a little post and some thoughts about a potential future here.

I had to cheat a little for that screenshot and power her up myself as she hadn't powered up yet. Sorry ;)

But, I thought tonight I would quickly run through some numbers:

35

That is the number of whales with their own 500K SP, not delegated. Blame the whales means blaming 35 accounts.

277

This is the number of Orcas, those that have over 50K+ SP. There are quite a few accounts in here that are alts of whales though if you cared to do a little digging. Some of them are autovoters and do a very good job of it.

1729

These are the Dolphin accounts with 5000+

8458

These are the accounts that have over 500 SP. The minnows and up.

10499

Accounts out of ~1.2 Million with more than 500 SP. Many of these are alts, many are bots, many don't post, many don't vote, many are effectively dead but, they have 500+ SP. These are the one percenters. Congrats @empress-eremmy, you are now one of the privileged.

_{Since I am not @abh12345, I took the numbers from this site and calculated them manually. https://mysteemitfriends.online/ownSP.php}

If we took 2500 SP as the average size of a minnow (it is lower than this in reality), combined they have 21,370,000 Steem between them and if they all voted together would have a ~$1000 dollar vote, $10,000 a day. Not bad if they all voted. What you will find though is many of the active ones have a lot less active VP (voting Steem power) as they delegate here and there. No issues there, your stake is yours.

From @penguinpablo stats today

As you can see, since March, the number of 'posts per day' have almost halved but, there are still ~30K posts per day. Let's half that to take out the automated and spam posts and there are Still 15,000 posts. That means that for all of them to be seen by an account over 500 SP, every account must read 1.5 posts every day. If you want to have a look at that stats page, have a look around the 489 SP range pages and you will see why some don't read or vote. There are many of those type of accounts around.

But, these aren't the numbers I want to talk about really, they are just some to think on, food for thought so to speak. What I wanted to draw some attention to is the title of @empress-eremmy's article today. They say minnow, I say whale. I am pretty sure that when I crossed the 10k SP mark, I became a dolphin, now it is 5000 SP. At what point is a new Orca?

For a lot of Steem's life, the price has been around 1 dollar making the lowest Orca worth about 50,000 dollars. However, when prices were at the all-time high of $7+, my account was worth over 100,000 dollars. Yes, it is 20 now and I have 25% more Steem but... such is life. Was I an Orca? No.

But just think. For someone to become a minnow today from zero, it will cost them, ~375 dollars US. At the all time high of 7, it would be 3500 dollars US. That means that if 1000 accounts wanted to buy and power up to 500 SP from zero today, it will be 500,000 Steem and cost 375,000 dollars. At the high, it would cost those 1000 accounts 3.5 Million.

If this place does ever happen to mainstream, and a million accounts buy 10 Steem at 10 dollars, that is 100 million worth of Steem. Sure, we are potentially a long way away from having that happen and, we are potentially never going to get there but do you get why some people see the value in buying a little Steem at 75 cents? Of course, as people buy in, the price will raise accordingly and many will sell also.

What some newer people don't seem to understand though is that the Steem paid out each day is dependent on the price of Steem. The higher the price, the harder to earn Steem even though values of payouts might rise. What this means is that with more people in and higher priced Steem, the Steem distribution will be wider but, it will also be lower to individual accounts. If Steem price is 10 for example, it means that a 10 dollar payout will get 0.5 Steem and / 5 SBD or 1 Steem at 100% power up.

What that means is at 100% powering up, a new account would need 500 posts averaging 10 dollar payouts to earn enough to become a minnow with 500 SP. Right now, 500 posts averaging 10 dollars would get 7500 SP and create a dolphin.

If mainstreaming happens, the minnows today are going to be seasoned veterans and not just be in the 1% but be in the 0.1%. They will effectively be classed as dolphins, the dolphins become orcas, the orcas whales and the whales...uh... Gods?

I know there are a lot of ifs, ands or buts in this but, if someone really has a long-term view of being here they have to consider what that actually means and how they approach it. Each day, there is an amount of Steem in the pool, the price is low and, there are 50% less posts to compete with each day. Factor in that many of the bot posters are likely still posting regardless of price and the real competition for the pool has never looked better. Are you posting? Engaging? Or, are you waiting for prices to go up?

_{I don't mind if you are waiting...}

It is going to be very interesting to see how the dynamic of this place changes when 100s of thousands more active people come on board and spread across the Dapps. Should I say if? Nah, go long....

The people with a few hundred SP now are all going to be well and truly in the 1% of value holders here (currently there are only 4779 accounts between 250 and 500 SP) and have a great deal of power as both individuals and communities who may work together. What I really look forward to is seeing how a few thousand minnows are going to handle being treated like dolphins and orcas. Will they remember their roots and be Jenny from the Block or... Kanye West?

_{Upvote me deer?}

I know, I know. What nonsense post but, for those who do think there is something here like I do, it is sometimes good to consider a few of the numbers involved. We often spend so much time worrying about what others are doing, earning or what not that we forget that if things do happen to work here, pretty much everyone actively involved today is going to be in a much better economic position than today. It does suck to see the abusers and it is going to suck even more to see them benefit heavily because of their abuse but, we do all have a chance to build something worthwhile here and, we do all have a chance to benefit from it.

It isn't guaranteed, it is definitely going to take more work and, it is definitely not going to be easy emotionally as there are going to be many, many ups and downs but... it is possible.

Now, having said all of that. Even if it doesn't happen, even if mainstreaming never takes place, there is still value potential here in many other facets of the Steem blockchain. You might think you are earning some nonsense stake on a valueless pool today but, it might not be the case tomorrow. Even if it is, isn't this a damn fun game to play?

The other thing that people rarely factor in here is that blockchain and cryptocurrencies are very, very unlikely to disappear so those who do the learning now in how they all work are going to be well ahead of the curve and have potential to create entirely new careers in multiple areas.

There are more potential ways to earn here in the future than posting alone and, no one said that the revenue streams we may have access to are confined to Steem alone. Blockchain technology is going to run through just about every business sector in some way, ready?

Anyway, this is much too long for what it is but, this is me so...

Goodnight.

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]