In a few weeks, @dan will supposedly release his "Steem Killer" on EOS. The company he founded after leaving Steemit, BlockOne, is heavily promoting their event #B1June. One can only assume that the #6 blockchain, according to Coinmarketcap, will try to expand its reach beyond the EOS gambling & gaming dapps that currently dominate the DappRadar Rankings.
Gambling & gaming are nice & all but if blockchain wants to truly achieve mass adoption, then the key is obviously to solve for blockchain media. The fact that I am writing this on Steemit proves that Dan Larimer intimately understands this truth. To extend this point, the top 10 dapps on DappRadar cannot boast the daily active users (DAU) that we find on STEEM.
According to the latest post by @penguinpablo, more than 45,000 accounts transact on the STEEM blockchain every day. And that doesn't even count people who just come to Steemit.com, Busy.org, or the @partiko app just to read.
While it is certainly the most used blockchain in the world, according to number of daily transactions as tracked by Block'tivity, EOS still has a long way to go in terms of providing real value to its transacting consumers. The event on June 1 is likely to address just that issue.
While we're on this subject, let's take a look at the Blocktivity league table and give @dan some props:
He has been intimately involved in the creation of 3 out of the top 4 most active blockchains. That's positively Jordanesque. Kudos!
Maybe the best summary of what may happen on June 1 can be found here at EOSwriter. If you wanna read just one quote that hints at all the possibilities, you can just read this one from Yves La Rose of EOS Nation:
Yves is one of the more sane people I've ever encountered in the space. At a meetup in Shanghai earlier this year, he didn't even appear aware of the price of EOS, much less BTC. His organization is focused on creating value for its community members. And that's the way it should be. We are still so early in this industry. Those of us involved with projects need to find a way to tune out the moonboys screaming for pump & dump trading action and just hunker down and build blockchain-based ecosystems & communities that provide utility value to token holders. It's hard, but that's the way we're gonna deliver the societal change that blockchain can truly deliver.
It's not about $3,000 bitcoin or $20,000 bitcoin. It's about changing the world, or whatever little niche each blockchain project chooses to focus on, for the better. 1% at a time.
For me, if the B1 event on June 1 moves the blockchain community as a whole any little bit further along toward this goal, then I am for it!
But what do Steemians want to know about this event? How would a B1-backed meOS social media platform built on top of EOS affect the value of STEEM?
In the initial stages of meOS, I think it won't be a problem. Why? Decentralization.
EOS is the most centralized token in all of the blockchains. Let's take a look at the current EOS Whales:
That's 90.85% of the total EOS supply in the hands of its top 15 holders. I know some of these accounts are exchange hot wallets but, uh, that's not decentralized. Not one bit.
Honestly, however, that's to be expected. Blockchain is supposed to be decentralized, I know. But the reality is, if blockchain-based systems are going to compete with the FAANG-BAT systems that currently rule our digital lives (and disrupting these mega-corps should be the main goal IMHO), they need to be shepherded by powerful incentivized for-profit entities. True decentralization of token supply can only come later in the roadmap.
We know this because of the STEEM experience. Here I point to some great posts by @exyle and @taskmaster4450, who both spend a considerable amount of time on their blog talking about STEEM-specific issues.
According to this post, near the beginning of the STEEM blockchain the rich-poor gap was very pronounced. It wasn't as bas as EOS currently is but whales still owned 75.44% of the token supply on 8/1/2017:
The end of the most recent month has seen a remarkable change in the distribution of token supply in the past 21 months. At the end of April 2019, whales only owned 53.16% of the STEEM token supply:
That's substantial progress over the past couple of years. And it is most likely what EOS is trying to replicate by introducing a social media dapp. As Steemit has shown, there is no better way to distribute tokens fairly than by encouraging active participation via incentivization by token reward. All the other means we have encountered via blockchain - mining, transaction mining, staking, delegating, etc. - have all lead to more and more oligarchic systems.
If we want oligarchy, we might as well just stay in the fiat world, where the distribution of wealth in the United States is bleak and getting bleaker:
So I think it'll be a couple years before meOS can actually compete with STEEM in this all-important aspect of token supply distribution. It just takes time for a blockchain to be properly "seasoned" in this regard.
That being said, obviously the STEEM price is suffering due to the anticipation of the introduction of the "Steem Killer." To me, this fear presents an interesting "buy the rumor, sell the news" opportunity. The "rumor" being STEEM will be killed and the "news" being it will actually take some time to build up a social media dapp with 45,000 DAUs and a somewhat fairly distributed token economy.
How many months of logging into meOS will the top trending post be "Come gamble on EOSdice" or "Bring your friends to trade on Huobi" or "Stake your EOS with eos.fish"? Or whatever... It's gonna be spam city from all the big EOS whales for a while. And that will only worsen the Whale Problem, at least initially.
I have no doubt that @dan and B1 will figure something cool out in the long run. But it will definitely take time. That is just the nature of blockchain development. Rome wasn't built in a day and all that.
Even in a world with a robust meOS ecosystem, that certainly does not spell D-O-O-M for the STEEM blockchain at all. Social media is a space where many ecosystems can thrive simultaneously. Just look at Tumblr being acquired by Yahoo for $1.1 billion back in 2013.
The point is, for Chrissakes, let us please have a few social media platforms in this world not owned by Facebook or Tencent!
I'm still thinking about this issue and would love to hear any thoughts about #B1June, meOS, or the future of STEEM. If you have something to say, please comment below for STEEM rewards!!! 👇👇👇
As always, PEACE! ✌🏼
