Why you should consider Steem as a blockchain/cryptocurrency for your project/startup/business

in #undefined5 years ago (edited)

In the land of blockchains, new projects are emerging weekly. Some provide new value-propositions, some not so much. But generally speaking, technology is continuously improving and being innovated and blockchains in 4-6 years will be way more advanced than they are today.

Many blockchain projects will fall behind and become unusable/redundant. Similar to how a smartphone from 6 years ago, is far behind in comparison to what's the standard nowadays.

However, even with this knowledge of some blockchains becoming obsolete in a matter of years, there is no reason to wait or to postpone blockchain integration within your already existent business or new startup.



Blockchains in 2019

As I'm writing this post in the mid-July of 2019, there are incredibly useful blockchains available, capable of much more than the average business needs. Of course, blockchains will be better in the future, but you can always switch or expand later.

Many are providing different use-cases. Some are offering smart-contracts (such as EOS, Chain Link or Ethereum) and others are application-specific such as Steem & Cosmos - just to name a few.

All of them are used in projects and to say it up-front: there isn't a blockchain perfectly suitable for every purpose.

Which to choose?

Generally speaking, choosing a blockchain matters less than you might think. 99.999% of businesses around the world are completely centralised, without any real transparency. So choosing any blockchain, is better than the status quo. In the end, it's about you (the developer/team/company) and what your skillset is/what you feel comfortable with.

Some are more difficult to get started with, but offer more in return, while others are faster to get into and sufficient for the majority of use-cases.

Questions you might ask yourself, are:

  • Do I need a blockchain which supports custom smart contracts (hard-consensus) or an application-specific blockchain with soft-consensus enough?
  • Do I want to support multiple blockchains?
  • Do I need my own blockchain or is it enough to create a sub-token (like ERC20, EOST & SMTs)
  • Am I able to sustain development in low-level programming languages (such as c++) or is it more realistic to code in JS, GO or Python?
  • Do I need to tap into an already existent community (such as on Steem) or is my marketing budget high enough? (You could even do both!)

Those are some of the questions I, for example, would ask myself when starting a new project, where blockchain is a requirement. Let's take the hard vs soft-consensus question for example.

Hard Consesus

On Steem, there is hard consensus in the form of smart contracts, integrated into the base Steem code. For example voting, posting, transferring or even the conversion or trading of SBD to STEEM is being "secured" by the DPOS consensus layer. (With SMTs these will also be extended towards sub-tokens.)

This essentially means that all of these actions are protected with very high reliability by the Steem network. If you're starting an internal trade on Steem with SBD for Steem, the network will make sure everything goes smoothly, instead of some centralised entity running away with your money.

Soft Consensus

If you're familiar with Steem Monsters or Steem Engine, you know that these are working with something called custom_jsons. Simple messages on the blockchain, which are stored on the decentralised ledger.

The base transaction is secured as well via DPOS consensus, however, the JSON part of it can contain anything you'd want. In the image above, I've sent this transaction to claim my PAL rewards.

Now, whether this happens is outside of Steem's control. Instead, the JSON part of the custom_json transaction is what we'd call soft consensus. The app (Steem Engine) is responsible for taking the correct action, in this case claiming my PAL rewards.

Technical example: running a node application which streams the blocks in real-time and takes the appropriate action when encountering a custom_json with correct id & required_auths.

Since the base transaction is processed via Steem, I'm always able to refer to this transaction, stored on the decentralised Steem ledger, for example, if rewards are not claimed.

In comparison, on Steem you can claim rewards as well, but this is a hard-coded smart contract.


In the end, there is no perfect answer which consensus mode is best. As always it depends on the project & needs. Also remember, the more decentralised/hard consensus something is, the less flexible, dynamic and harder to scale it is.

So, why Steem?

Alright, alright. But why should you consider Steem for your project/business?

Short answer: Because it works!


Long answer:

If you're anything like me, you're looking for products that get the job done.

I recently bought myself a new iPhone (after 4 years of using my old one), not the newest, but the one before that. Reasons were: it's fast, the OS is smooth, the ecosystem is great and it gets the job done. (I tested every other new phone on the market, but wasn't satisfied with the rest, even if specs were better on paper).

And Steem is somehow very similar. There might be other blockchains better on paper, but that's doesn't mean it's better nor that it's the right fit for you.

Here are a few key facts about Steem:

  • Strong Governance: Steem Witnesses are a transparent interconnected web of human entities protecting the blockchain dynamically and securely. I can vouch for it, as I'm a witness myself and the communication between us is exceptionally good. If there's ever some kind of security flaw or need to upgrade, updates will be rolled out in a matter of minutes/hours.

  • Simple And Cost Effective Soft Consensus: Running smart contracts can be quite expensive. In contrast, doing the same thing via a soft consensus is very cheap. It's not for every use-case obviously, but as I said before: soft consensus is much better than the status quo. And even then, smart contracts can be implemented with another protocol/blockchain or even Steem Engine.

  • Very Low Costs (Especially Upfront): You got an idea for an app, but are worried you might spend too much money in gas costs (as on EOS or ETH)? Steem has a freemium system, called Resource Credits (RC). 50 bucks of STEEMPOWER (~200 STEEM) right now, will get you a long way in terms of RCs. You can even lease SP from dlease.io or blocktrades and in the future, the delegation of RCs directly will probably also be supported.

  • Strong Community: Not everything went right on Steem after its inception, but there are many people around here for years, sticking with this project through thick and thin. If you launch your project on Steem/with the integration of Steem, you're tapping into a goldmine of prime crypto-users.

  • Fast Block Times: On Steem, a transfer takes merely ~3 seconds. This is not instant, but exceptionally fast. Blocks are also irreversible after only 1 minute.

  • Ongoing Development: Steem is nearly 21 Hard Forks in, after more than 3 years and more development is in the works. HF21 will be rolled out in August and soon after HF22 which will contain SMTs & more.

  • Easy Integration: There is documentation for nearly everything.

  • Low Development/Integration Costs: Did you know that blockchain developers, in general, are quite expensive? It's a very new field and usually, big companies want the best of the best. If you're a startup, you're most likely either need to do the integration yourself or higher someone within a budget, without taking a hit through inexperience. Good thing is, Steem can be integrated via JavaScript (NodeJS), Python, Java, Ruby & C#.

  • Bonus: Low Environmental Burden: You also don't need to worry about Steem being a burden for the environment. Witnesses run roughly 2-6 servers (depending on the ranking), instead of halls full of mining-rigs. Steem is simply effective.


Want to learn more?

The best way to get started is by heading towards the Steem developer documentation: https://developers.steem.io

For questions, there's a community called Steem Devs on discord: https://discord.gg/gp7BXp


I hope this blog post sheds a better light on why Steem is a great blockchain for projects to build on & integrate. For further questions, feel free to write a comment below or reach me on social-media.

All the best,
Wolf


Do you believe that my work is valuable for Steem? Then please vote for me as witness.

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I didn’t know custom Json was limited to one per block. Glad HF21 is fixing this before it’s a real problem. @aggroed’s projects alone must have been filling up most blocks’ custom json slot!

one per user per block.

Agreed with @wehmoen on the account creation and limits over custom json. We have talked and encouraged several projects outside steem that could use the protocol for their applications, but as they dig deeper, they are immediately turned off after knowing that account creation costs around 3 steem which could range from half a dollar to a whooping 24$ at ATH.

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More like darealwoof! Woof Woof! Good boy fetch some steem, be a chearleadee - lol! IDK I have fun on ur' expense! k & what's wit dat hairdo?(not yours, but darealwoof's cartoon!)~ lol ./s lol

I think something to expand upon with this proposition that’s be great would be to provide a number of examples / theoretical case studies of how different specific business (and business models) could utilize Steem - giving detailed walkthroughs of how exactly they could implement Steem’s functionalities.

Both this article and much of what’s been put out so far discuss a basic generic overview, though getting into precise details and painting a clear accurate picture that various business owners could put themselves into would be a huge bridge for the potentials and benefits to come clear, versus expecting prospectual business owners to figure it out themselves.

For real. I know that’s a significant undertaking in architecting a number of theoretical case studies - well beyond the scope of this individual post - however, it’d be priceless in having a simplified model to present that people could grasp quickly and easily to see themselves reaping the benefits of different ways they could use the platforms... ;-)

(Note for complete transparency: I’m self-upvoting this post strictly to place the suggestion at the top of the comments thread, as I sincerely believe the execution of such a proposition would exponentially accelerate business adoption - and could care less about the $0.73.)

I have a business idea that I've been debating where to launch. Steem seems like the perfect solution as I'm already here and invested in the community. My issue is the past scammy nature of some other apps makes me wonder how much will the community trust the next app?

It would be an app that can cross over everyday people into the crypto world without a need to understand anything that is going on behind the scenes. Allow them to toe dip into whatever blockchain I decide to launch on without risk. This ability IMO has the potential to be a game changer for the blockchain that we choose to launch on.

The one thing you should take comfort in is that while this community has been burned countless times, people here still have the desire and wherewithal to continue looking for legit projects to fund. The want to build steem up is strong, and hopefully sometime someone will build something that is worthy of the faith the community keeps putting into projects.

That has been part of the conversation I've been having. While some have said enough is enough I feel like there are still plenty of us around that want to see long term success of Steem and apps that are built on the blockchain. Had been talking with a couple people who feel that investors will be extremely cautious and it might be very hard to get them to pull the trigger. Hopefully that isn't the case as it will take some help to get this launched properly.

That makes no sense whatsoever. Steem blockchain is an open platform. If a scam project was built on it, what reflection is that on Steem itself? Such a suggestion is even sillier than saying a scam company being built on Microsoft Azure, for example, is a reflection on Microsoft itself or on how good of an option it is for other companies to build on Azure. Do you see how absurd that is?

I've seen more then a few people comment that they are done supporting apps built on steem in terms of helping fund them and delegating to them. People with some very serious amounts of liquid steem and SP. Now this very well may have been in the moment of being pissed at feeling taken, but it happens. Each person has their own threshold for dealing with being burned..or at least feeling like they have been burnt.

It's not about it being a reflection of Steem, just a matter of how do people feel about apps on steem right now. A discussion of what direction to move forward with this project has been going on with a few of us. One wants to go somewhere else, but majority is all pro steem including myself. But I can understand why there is concern and consider it a valid one hence why I felt it was worth gauging the openness of people to invest again.

Well said. The vast majority of Steem projects are legitimate and even things like DLive are not scams, even if they took advantage of Steem without long term commitment.
Really fraudulent conduct is much more common outside the Crypto space than within it. Most Crypto people and Steemians in particular are not naive, so are much harder to scam than normies.

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@apshamilton did you forget magic dice and bellyrub bank? How short is public memory!

@magidice created bad image for dapps recently

I'm sure that you are also aware of Steem-Engine and Tribes which can give you much more control of how you operate your project and prevent scammy behavior from impacting your user base.

Yes I am aware of Steem-Engine. Honestly I'm not worried about scammy behavior happening to my project, it's more the impact of past scammy behavior has had on the Steem community as a whole that was what we were talking about.

The ability to issue a token is a big factor in even considering Steem. Without that I'd have to look elsewhere.

!ENGAGE 100

Here are your ENGAGE tokens!

To view or trade ENGAGE go to steem-engine.com.

That’s a fantastic post showcasing the value of Steem for businesses. The Steem blockchain has a turkey community ready for your app to tap into, making bootstrapping a startup much easier than on any other blockchain.

Steem is way less complicated with cheaper resources and fees wise than EOS and ETH.

Thanks for mentioning dlease.io, appreciate the plug.

I love turkey communities!

♨️🦃 ♨️

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Steem is the blockchain of choice for Steemhouse Publishing (@steemhousepub) which is on track to be the world’s first “traditional” small press that incorporates blockchain technology in nearly every aspect of business. For the past several months, our team has worked hard on the “real world” presence of the company--marketing, business strategy, etc. We now have some skin in the game on the technology side and expect to have a blockchain-based literary publication online soon.

@therealwolf, In my opinion now Steem is becoming perfect place for the Startup Enthusiasts, specially who want to explore in Tokenised Ecosystem. On Steem already we are seeing with less cost one can develop their project and they can bring their use case on Live.

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Great Post, thank you for Highlighting the PRO's of Steem. And at the moment the price of Steem is still very Low. So a perfect Argument for developers to buy in at a reasonable Price.

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As always, ♥️👏🏽

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It is an excellent article to represent Steem to external developers and entrepreneurs.

Therefore, It should be re-posted in Medium, be a reddit sponsored post and sponsored post in top cypto-news outlets such as CCN, CoinTelegraph, NewsBTC or Coindesk.

We are in internal marketing bubble for Steem, preaching too much goodies about Steem to our own converted disciples. The target should the potential convertees.