Quote from: AlexGR on July 26, 2016, 09:09:42 PM

Quote from: iamnotback on July 26, 2016, 06:25:07 PM

Quote from: Lairew on July 26, 2016, 01:52:51 PM

this is so epic

Quote

Dan: Steem is one of the only platforms that isnt a Ponzi Scam.

https://steemit.com/steem/@dan/response-to-coindesk-article-steem-provokes-doubt-of-market-observers

I was going to comment on that here, but decided to let someone else do it first since my post count has been so high. My specific comment said something about the 80% premine with something like 40% going to a few guys on the inside. As far as I know from smooth's posts, that only 40% of the 80 - 90% "pre"-mine was allocated to free signups (and if their dysfunctional voting system doesn't cross the chasm, they will never reach to 20 million signups allocated which thus increases the insiders' relative portion of the "pre"-mine to greater than 40%).

Also the apparent 80% attrition rate means most (32%) of that 40% of that initial "pre"-mine will be unspendable (lost) money, thus decreasing the effective money supply (and market capitalization but coinmarketcap.com doesn't appear to realize this) increasing the insiders' share of the "pre"-mine to greater than 50%.

AlexGR, I should have wrote about this "lie" on my "Lies about Steem and Steemit".

Let's see it this way: Do I get any FB, twitter, reddit shared for posting? No. Do I care who controls their shares? No. Why would I care about who owns steem? As a user it doesn't matter (I have never bought steem except as a trader, so I don't see it as an investor).

Only for investors do these things matter and even then, we know that they are backing projects with ICOs, premines, centralization etc etc. They'll do their due diligence and invest accordingly.

You'll notice that a very significant portion of people joining Steemit mention the idealism of blockchains and how it could improve matters. They are planting some of their dreams (the hindbrain will tie this all together with "give me money!" and "we are speading love") in the idealism of "decentralization" (nevermind that they never study the fact that Graphene isn't so decentralized).

Eventually the realization will set in that "they got the yachts, islands, and dreams; and I only got this lousy Tshirt".

The insider percentage is very important because as r0ach points out, it prevents an aggregate market. When you have 50% on the sell side, it is difficult to have market. The insiders are either manipulating to the upside or they are selling pressure. It drastically reduces the chance for any other size to exit with liquidity. (You'll retort that they can't sell for 2 years, but I will say that no one else can either, so it is still 50% sell pressure every 104 weeks)

If this a was a corporation where a larger fish could come buy it, then it might be okay. You might be able to argue that Facebook will come buy the insiders' stake but then how do they run it as a blockchain without inhibiting competitors and open source.

You see eventually an open system will compete and win.

Closed system have inherent systemtic disadvantages.

I wouldn't be complaining if the insiders took maybe 5 - 10% and had it locked up until they issued the free signup accounts (validated as real humans who did not abandon their accounts). But the insiders get theirs no matter what happens on the follow through.

P.S. I am not attacking smooth. His stake is very small compared to the Steemit Corp and major insiders. Smooth is apparently one of the largest whales who wasn't an insider. Afaik, smooth had no input into the mining launch method. He is a bystander who saw an opportunity to mine. If we the political hacket MOB steal from smooth by saying what he did was wrong, then it is analogous to forking Ethereum to bail out those who lost to the DAO cracker. Changing the rules ex post facto, is the antithesis of fairness. If smooth had made loud noises during the ninja launch, it probably would have just forced Dan and Ned to do a premine. I don't think they would have changed to fair mine in any case, because note they relaunched when they didn't get the percentage of the tokens they wanted (due to a crash on their servers or something).

I do feel Dan and Ned deserve to make some money on this. They have done an important experiment and are demonstrating some aspects we are all learning from. And they will earn money on this. So it will all work out the way it is supposed to. The free market will balance out the outcome.

My stance is smooth got his reward for being very active and aware in the community and also for being a miner and involved with exchanges and generally being informed about all aspects of the finance side of crypto, as well as having a very calm, methodical demeanor and a high reputation in the community. I ignored that mining/exchanges/finance/trading side of crypto, because I am more purely focused on R&D and marketing (and also because my energy bandwidth has been too limited to do physical things such as mining or even cloudmining). Each of us has our strengths and weaknesses (or focuses).

I had some initial bewilderment bordering on bad feeling because smooth had sort of talked me out of taking Bitshare's group seriously back in 2015, when I was thinking about aligning with them. So I was a big shocked when he got rich from mining on theirs. But after more reflection, I realize he was sincere in all his communications with me and he simply saw an opportunity and grabbed it. I also realized I have to think for myself and can't put too much weight into any one person's analysis. But I still will read smooth intently. Also the more I study the design of Steem, the more I realize I wouldn't have been able to work with Dan. We would have fought. I would certainly have been kicked out.