Leaders of the Free (blockchain) World

The last couple of weeks since the HF I have mentioned Resource Credit delegation quite a few times yet people still don't seem to fully grasp what that means for the Steem blockchain. However, off-chain I have been talking about it for quite a while but without really getting into what it might mean. @ned confirmed the coming delegations with no uncertainty on a post yesterday which is a relief so I don't keep sounding like a crazy person.

What he means by "no holdings" is no Steem which translates as FREE. I have mentioned this at least here in the last week but what it means is a new user will be able to walts onto the Steem blockchain through a number of locations (Steemit, Dapps, Communities), sign up quickly and get moving without buying one iota of STEEM. Free.

How will they get their free access? As @yabapmatt asked @ned:

This is what the delegation mechanism is for and why it is going to hold some serious expected value in the future. @yabapmatt is part of the @steemmonsters team but this doesn't mean they have a huge amount of Steem that thy can delegate to new users if each arrival needs 15 Steem Power. But, delegating RCs is possible without losing capabilities.

But even then they may not have enough RCs to delegate if they have 200k new signups. But if you remember the "cryptic" message from @ned 3 months ago, the answer is very clear.

I have ~25,000 STEEM POWER but I likely need no more than 1000 SP for my own actions on most days. That means I have a massive RC surplus, as will just about any normal user who has more than 1000 SP. What that Means is that if a new user needs 15 SP worth of Resource Credits to operate at a starting level, my account resource credits can go into a pool and power 24000/15 = 1600 new accounts. That is 10% of the unique real accounts transacting every week at the moment. So potentially, I can delegate my RCs to the communities I want to empower while keeping the entire vested potential of my account.

However, RCs have a magical ability that SP doesn't. They give bandwidth but have zero voting power which means the delegation can't be abused by micro mining curation or self-voting as there is no Vested interest held in them. This is what @ned means in the next excerpt:

"Much more liberal" means that onboarding can happen much faster as there is much less risk of abuse and, since the decentralized interfaces will be able to police their own delegations, they will be able to remove or severely limit usage through how much they delegate while with full voting power of their own (since delegating RCs doesn't limit SP) and that of their community, reward new users who do well. This means that the RC delegation can be returned from bad actors and eroded from the good, as they start to earn their own SP.

What this will create is the potential for a very large consumer class of user who might not be interested in earning but is interested in consuming the content that is created which opens up much more possibility to attract investors in as well as a very vibrant community.

Simple economics

From an economic perspective and as I have mentioned before, Resource Credits are in tension with Steem because they only exist on active Steem, that which is powered up. What this means is that if there is a value on Resource credits, this is a cost of Selling Steem. This should bring more active Steem onto the platform and have less on the exchanges whilst at the same time encouraging Steem to be bought and powered up. This pushes the price of Steem up which puts selling pressure on holders.

As they begin to powerdown to sell on the exchanges, this reduces the available pool of Resource credits pushing RC value up. Most likely, early adopters and whales won't mind selling some and small investors won't mind buying some for access to RC value. The larger accounts weaken in power a little, the amount of smaller grow and spread. This will also bring some kind of 'stability' equilibrium in time.

Invisible worlds

All of this can happen without any new user having to pay a cent nor understand any of the infrastructure upon which they will operate and interact. It can be free, simple and clean. Introduce SMTs into the mix and they could unknowingly leverage the power of Steem to earn SMTs on a platform without ever seeing or hearing of Steem at all.

Those with Steem however will have the best of both worlds as they will have access to additional capabilities like being able to vote and earn with multiple tokens, airdrops and delegate their RCs for a price. That cost is an unknown but if we consider that there is a potential market for many millions, the more that come on, the scarcer the resources become.

The FREE world

So, even though the early adopters will have advantage over newcomers (as is generally the case), all users can be empowered to join, interact and benefit from the STEEM blockchain capabilities with zero initial outlay because of the RC system. Holders can be encouraged to hold through value incentives, sellers will benefit from higher prices and buyers will be buying into a coin they can passively and actively earn from simultaneously.

As @ned said: "there’s no other chain with functionality like this"

and hopefully what that means is that when the infrastructure and tools arrive and people can finally get their head around what all this means, the Steem blockchain will not only be innovative and scalable, it will be attractive to users at every level of the ecosystem.

Resource credits empower the community to take responsibility for the growth and development of the platform as they further decentralize control and allow individuals and groups the freedom to build as they choose. A whole range of tools and apps can be developed without requiring Steemit stake to get off the ground as they can be built upon the RCs of the community instead and reward in an SMT. It lowers the cost and risk of development while limiting abuse at various levels which will hopefully see a blossoming and spreading of ideas and growth away from Steem and into the greater world.

Will it work?

_{Who knows?}

One thing is for certain though and that is the community is going to become a much more dynamic place and hopefully there will be more collaboration and intertwining of relationships to create a network and foundation to build upon. As difficult as it currently is for many people to get their head (and heart) around, the changes that have been made and those that will come have the potential to make this place a much healthier, productive and creative place in the future.

It is funny how two perspectives can see the same thing in such different light. In the two years that I have been here, I do not think I have been as positive about Steem before and, this is after 8 months of sliding prices, people leaving in huffs and all kinds of FUD being spread on a daily basis. I might be wrong about the future but, I am willing to do my best to see it out.

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]