First Post After HF20 - Some Initial Thoughts
Hello Steemians! HF20 is officially completed! However, many of you probably was affected by the negative Resource Credits (RC) issue, which prevented you from performing any action on Steem. That has been resolved since last night (Singapore time) and I am starting to see new posts on my feed. This is my first post after HF20 and it will be a quick one written via @partiko.
Some Initial Thoughts
One of the key changes after HF20 is the implementation of RC. After the hard fork, every transaction made on Steem blockchain requires certain amount of RC. Post HF20, the platform calculated our current RC based on our past activities, therefore most of us active Steemians would have negative RC to begin with. This had been fixed by setting all our RC to zero and allow it to replenish over time. Similar to voting power, RC replenishes at 20% per day.
You can check your current RC at steemd.com. Simply head over to https://steemd.com/@yourusername and you will be able to see your current RC.
Good Thing About RC
With RC, Steem platform had firmly established it's positioning as a freemium platform. Why? Because the maximum RC you can have is calculated based on your Steem Power. The more SP you have, the higher your maximum RC. In my opinion, this will incentivize powering up to SP and purchasing of STEEM. As a result, this will inevitably provide more support for STEEM price and form a stronger correlation between the amount of transactions on the platform and STEEM price.
In addition, since there is a now an apparent cost to every comment and votes, this will probably reduce the number of spammy bots. Which I believe is a good thing.
Things to Watch Out For
Apps that are integrated to the Steem platform will need to think and plan for the UI/UX. One other key change from HF20 is that accounts creation will be easier moving forward. I expect that apps like @partiko, @steemhunt and etc will start building their own sign up process. While this is good for the platform as a whole, the developers will need to make it very clear to new users that every interaction they make costs them RC. To further complicate matters, RC requirements are dynamic and calculated based on current utilization of the blockchain. Hence, it will be nice to constantly show users their current RC bar so that they know if they will be able to make a transaction. I think users will hate it when they have written a 1000 words comment to later find that they have ran out of RC to post it. In addition, we have to balance usability and RC consumption so that we do not turn new users away because they are unable to interact with the platform meaningfully.
Bullish of This Change
Overall, I am bullish of this change. I think it is beneficial to Steem platform in the long run. The next feature I absolutely look forward to will be an easy fiat to STEEM exchange service. With SP rising in importance, we should make it easier for users to purchase STEEM. Since Steem is positioning itself as a freemium platform, there should really be a fiat to STEEM purchasing function during sign ups. Thanks for reading and do share your thoughts on HF20!
Posted using Partiko Android
@culgin
Ive read about 20 posts from informed people on Steemit regarding the HF20 changes. I think you explained it in the most concrete and digestible way possible.
And you're right, looks like the common upvote bots are hurting right now.
https://steemd.com/@penghuren
https://steemd.com/@cheneats
I resteemed you.
Thanks for reading and the support! I'm glad you found it useful.
Posted using Partiko Android
Hey @culgin! Thanks for the informative post 😊
Do you know if posting takes up more RCs just commenting on other's posts?
Hey @joeylim, thanks for reading! I think generally the RC required for posting an article and writing a comment is about the same.
You can take a look at this breakdown by @tabris
https://steemit.com/test/@tabris/hf-20-test-posting
Posted using Partiko Android
@culgin thanks alot!!
Frankly I don't see any advantage in it, the people who can invest in crypto remain the same, the people like me who want to but can't because of, most probably, economic limitations are not going to invest, so what happens is the people who have just widen the gap with those who don't, surprisingly similar to real life.
This just tends to make the minnows even less relevant than before, and before we were practically irrelevant, where do you think this leaves us now?
I understand your point on the "widening wealth gap" in terms of crypto investments. While I cannot say for other cryptocurrencies, in terms of the Steem platform, wealth is being redistributed from whales to minnows. You can check out the post from @taskmaster4450 below,
https://steemit.com/steem/@taskmaster4450/steem-whales-are-losing-their-power-the-system-is-not-broken-report-through-4-30-2018
In my opinion, what HF20 represent is actually the first step towards mass adoption. The changes are designed to make it scalable and sustainable for huge influx of new accounts to be created. Hence, I think it is a positive thing.
That being said, I do agree that we have to be careful with the restrictions imposed by RC on low SP users. If the restrictions are too tough, we may lose more users than we gain. That remains to be seen later on...
Posted using Partiko Android
I might be wrong but I'm pretty sure scalability and sustainability were already the themes of a couple of hardforks in the past, probably weren't fixed back then, and probably won't be fixed now. I might seem to be kind of cynical but I guess experience has made me this way.
Sure. I guess only time will tell :)
Posted using Partiko Android
As you can imagine, my 'steem world' was/is turned upside down by this HF20. But I guess except for the Resource Credits, the rest remains more or less the same.
I agree with you that it would be great if they can make it easier to buy Steem with cash. Then people might be more inclined to buy more Steem - even if it is small amounts every now and then.
Yup! In fact it will be even better if micro-purchases are available. If we can something similar to how in-app purchases are done in games, that will be really nice
Posted using Partiko Android
Hi @culgin!
Your post was upvoted by @steem-ua, new Steem dApp, using UserAuthority for algorithmic post curation!
Your UA account score is currently 2.963 which ranks you at #10266 across all Steem accounts.
Your rank has not changed in the last three days.
In our last Algorithmic Curation Round, consisting of 726 contributions, your post is ranked at #249.
Evaluation of your UA score:
Feel free to join our @steem-ua Discord server