So, I know HF21 is the main topic of discussion. I literally just hosted a forum on it. It's uploading to youtube, and I'll be sharing it to d.tube shortly. While I'm waiting for the file to process I wanted to share a relatively simple thought early in the SMT design process while this thing is on my mind.
BURNING STEEM!
Eth vs Steem
I posit that one reason that ETH is expensive is that every single transaction takes gas. That puts a continuous demand for the token. That's a good thing. The problem though is I have personally often found ETH to be a really frustrating token to work with. It's timed out, my gas experience hasn't been great, and feedback on games and user base on games is that paying a fee every time you want to do something in game isn't a great experience. The alternative of building your own chain before you get to build the game itself isnt' great either.
Steem has a pretty great user experience at the blockchain level. Things are fast and free. As a cryptocurrency the price is shitty. I think in part it's because there's no burning of the token.
How to rectify? SMTs!
We do this on steem-engine and it seems to work well.
To create a token you burn 100 eng
to make it stakable you burn 1000 eng
To make it delegateable you burn 1000 eng
The cheap token uses the least amount of database space. As you increase the functionality the price increases. By doing this people go to the market, purchase the cheapest steem from the weakest hands and burn it. That's good for the price of steem. These are also events that really only happen once per token, effect business owners and not end users, so we still get the ease of use.
What about steem-engine and smts?
Just to be clear I'm pretty agnostic. We look forward to making interfaces to allow you to create SMTs. We look forward to helping you list them. If you create a Scot you'll get listing for free and get charged for running the tools. If you create a smt you may not get charged for running the tools, but you'll be charged a listing fee.
SMTs are coded at the blockchain level. There's benefits and weaknesses to that. I think an SMT, a SCOT run off of Scotbot, or a Scot run off of a future planed smart contract might be the most beneficial in any situtation. My aim is to support all of them on Steem-engine.