Steemonomics: Is Inflation Too High?
Short Answer: No
But it's about 113% per year!
Right, but 90% goes to steam power holders. Thus, they only experience an inflation rate of around 11-12% if they are completely inactive on the platform.
I've mentioned vests before, and I believe that they are very important to understand when assessing the value of Steem in the future. They represent your "share" in Steem. Your share stays constant, aside from the 11-12% inflation which goes to content creators and curators.
Well, clearly this is a pay-to-play model and you'll need to invest a fortune to keep up with that inflation rate.
That's actually not the case at all. By simply being consistently active on the platform as only a curator with a good amount of Steem Power, you can pretty much rack up enough curation rewards on a daily basis to keep pace.
Let's take a look at a breakdown with the help of @jesta's http://steemstats.com
As mentioned on the site, the percentages may be a little bit off. However, let's use these numbers for our example, even if they are likely on the higher side.
I'm currently earning about 73 SP per day via interest. That means I'd need to earn about 8.5 SP per day to keep up with inflation.
How am I doing?
I wasn't even active yesterday, aside from a blog post, and I'm still averaging nearly 7 SP a day. I also don't even try to game the system. I don't wait until 15-30 minutes, I just let the up votes fly whenever. If I tried to vote to earn, I could easily keep up with inflation.
Of course, you can also post as well, and may earn enough from your content to not only keep up, by blow past the inflation rate.
One may look back at the stats above, and say that I am earning ~500 Steem per week, while my power down rate is ~130 per week and think that this system is rigged so that one receives infinite Steem. That is not the case. Your Steem will deplete after 104 weeks so long as you are not active, as your vests are what are being withdrawn. This means that your withdrawals will go up each week in order to keep up with inflation.
When inflation goes specifically to special interests, as is the case with fiat currencies, the inflation pool only ends up benefiting a few at the top. But when inflation is distributed based on participation and subjective valuations, then everyone has access to the inflation pool and the benefits therein.
Some content creators will do exceptionally well on this platform over time. Their vest earn-rate may surpass your steady perseverance. However, your share of Steem will not be diluted, so long as you are active.
Personally, I am closing in on nearly 1/10,000th of vested Steem. That may not seem like much but if the Steem market cap were the size of Bitcoin my 13.6k SP would be worth about $1 million. I know that seems crazy ambitious, but it's not really, especially when you consider the value behind established large social media platforms. For example, Facebook's value is about 50X larger than Bitcoin. Clearly, the sky is the limit.
Remember, Steemit is only the first application for Steem, and there are many more incredible things to come. We shouldn't limit ourselves to the value of Bitcoin or social media platforms when looking off into the future. We should be aiming for something much, much bigger. We may not get there, but we have a real strong foundation here for something extraordinarily special.
Inflate on!
Good explanation of the inflation question. Being active is the key. And, finding the free time.
Such a good point - inflation from the Fed goes directly to powerful clients of the most prestigious banks in the world.
Are the minnows getting this inflation, too?
I've been here several weeks and received no interest, and side from one notice that I got SBD 00.00 interest have heard nothing about it.
If this is the case it's no wonder they drop out quickly.
We are getting shafted from both ends.
You're not getting shafted. You are on a site that gives you rewards for the value you can create. It takes time to get attention, but there are many projects like @curie working on that. The only investment a minnow needs to make is time creating and engaging, which is completely optional, of course.
You can invest to get to a tier that will provide curation rewards right now, but it's very important to remember that if Steem is significantly undervalued, then minnow accounts today will be able to generate better rewards in the future, since the daily Steem rewards would be worth more in USD, making your vote worth more in SBD.
I'd also emphasize that this is an experiment with no real promises that has only been partially unveiled since it is still an early-evolving organism essentially. I'd wait a year or two before writing it off, while also using this as a fun platform to create and engage with people if you don't want to invest in order to generate significant curation rewards.
Ok, so I don't get curation awards until I cross a threshold?
I don't get the miniscule amounts attributed to my vote?
That is difficult to swallow.
If I was at least getting my fractions of a cent then I would mathematically grow, albeit never enough to break the glass ceiling.
Can you tell me what this threshold is?
Really it's only because Steem is worth less than $100 million. If it was $100 billion (or ~20% of Facbook), your vote would be worth the same as a 6k SP account today, which would be ~.02 SBD.
As far as the current threshold to actually push .001 SBD, I'm not sure. I push close to .05 SBD, so I would guess you would need 1/50th of my acct, or ~270 SP (.79 MV) to push .001 SBD with the current price of Steem.
As a non-investor, influence currently needs to be earned through creation/engagement. However much creation/engagement one seeks to produce is completely up to them. Just like how much one chooses to invest.
Also note that as posts get bigger, your vote pushes more and more. I have an attempted miner account, @boomer, which can push pennies when a post is over $10.
I actually posted under it because I'm messing around with Streemian XD
Confirming this is me btw :)
I noticed that, too.
Sometimes my vote added a lot, sometimes a little, and sometimes it took away.
Ok, so when I get around $100sbd I will start seeing my input, but until then do I get the fractions, or not?
You need to get to about 270 Steem Power. SBD doesn't add influence. 270 SP costs about .21 btc, or $130 USD, currently to get to the .001SBD minimum threshold, if my rough calculations are correct.
Until then, yes you can still get curation rewards. Go to your wallet, then click rewards, then curation rewards, and you can see that you already got a couple. You can get more by voting between 20-40 times a day on posts that will become popular, within the 15-30 minute window. You won't get much most of the time, but you will likely notice a little trickle after a while if you keep that activity up.
I've voted most of dollar vigilante and barry cooper's posts early, but I've only gotten one curation award, I don't understand what was different about it.
I've voted a lot everyday, my voting percent is near 80.
you need a lot of steem power to gain interest the more you have the more you make.... for example whales are making minimum 200 steem power per day...
So, it is mathematically impossible for me to be a player that isn't sanctioned by the top?