Why you should consider Steem as a blockchain/cryptocurrency for your project/startup/business
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.
To listen to the audio version of this article click on the play image.
Brought to you by @tts. If you find it useful please consider upvoting this reply.
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.
♨️🦃 ♨️
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I love turkey communities!
haha
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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@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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Tweeted on our twitter page. https://twitter.com/invest_country/status/1152958626920902656
Great post... This will help me to understand the value of steem nd cryptocurrency... One may start working new innovative ideas for the future... Helping to get new ideas of this platform... Thank u .. keep going ... Lots of love
The question still remains...if you build it, will they come.
STEEM blockchain is here but no new money or new adoption is being generated.
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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
so fantastic thank you
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?
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'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.
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
ENGAGEtokens!To view or trade
ENGAGEgo to steem-engine.com.hello, that was very useful information.
I would like to see more content regarding the topic, help me start with new projects within steemit
Hi, @therealwolf!
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Great post wolf! Thanks for doing this.
I’m planning to use steem and add it to my current business via the Scott tribes but ideally I’d like to have a more customized front end that matches my current sites look and feel and if it takes off later add more integration with the system
As I get closer to sorting it all out will be looking for help and documentation and access to some open source code
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@therealwolf - I am consulting on a project that would traditionally be implemented in a large database for data mining, but I believe could be a great candidate for a DLT for various reasons such as consensus and independent contributors that will have access to the data. My question is: can the data be protected (at least portions of it) because of privacy concerns? The data can easily be stored in a JSON or XML file format and specific fields can be encrypted. A DApp would work will as the UI, and a server app could do the heavy lifting of statistical analysis and data correlation. But the data privacy and intellectual property considerations may be too difficult to overcome on a public network. Any insights you have on this would be greatly appreciated.
I'd be interested in a Sales Guideline to convert existing online Service Platforms into a Steem Platform instead towards a different Platform. I was hit with the Argument of easy a Crowdfunding für Etherium based Platforms just today.
lol SMT when?
Is that question available in a full sentence?
Much easier crowdfunding on Steem will be available when the SMT protocol has been released. It hasn't yet. So the question in full sentence would be "When SMT protocol will be released so easy crowdfunding become possible on Steem?"
Good Question
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Nice post, technical and accurate! The best trend for me! The blockchain is really a great opportunity for everyone!
Steem obviously has a better community than most blockchains. Anyone wanting to try out a dapp should be able to find people to help test it, especially if they offer some incentives. I was talking to some Steemians today (IRL) and we agreed that other chains do not offer substantial benefits over Steem and few offer free transactions with that speed.
Thanx
Crypto currency is the future. Steemit offers a great program that will help new business and make more opportunities.
Nice write up and everything is true...
Highly rEsteemed!
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.
Absolutely
GREAT !!! Such a valuable post. Thanks for doing it
@jageshwar
It's good for all steemit user. It's most important.
Very informative article.
Hi @therealwolf post looks prety good once have a look at my post if your free flee free to upvote if liked
https://steemit.com/steemmonsters/@lohit99/what-is-steem-monsters-grand-tournament
Nice write up.
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A very useful introductory guide for those dev/businesses looking to develop dApps but not sure which blockchain to choose or for those who are not familiar at all with steem blockchain and steem-engine.
Good job
Salam kenal
I agree with you. Projects like steem-engine shows that steem blockchain can make your business successful.
Congratulations @therealwolf!
Your post was mentioned in the Steem Hit Parade in the following categories:
Been here since July 2016!!! Great post!
I'm terribly new to all this, but I've been very enlightened by this post.
Could you share any examples of the types of things that can be built with Steem and Steem Engine and the tradeoffs VS. another platform like EOS or TRON.
Greetings, grand @therealwolf
Excelent post, man!!! Its clarifier a lot about what we can do on steem blockchain
thank you and have a nice day!!!
#steemleo #palnet #sct #creativecoin
Because steem is not 'ABAL-ABAL'
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I am new here and i had no clue what to do and how to make earning on here steem, i thought i know what should i do after reading your article, thanks for your tips.
Can you please look into and help https://steemit.com/@steemonob get going, lots of business could be directly connecting with Steem as well as get a lot of Steemians on a huge establishe crypto using marketplace.
May be, you're right when you say iOS is the best platform but the fact is Android sells twice as much. Why is that?
@therealwolf,
Most of doubts, fears that we have/had might be gone with this article! A worth one and yeah an absolutely a great one! Thank you very much, I have learned a lot!
$trdo
Cheers~
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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 $0.73.)
I gave you an upvote, but if those are the selling points... we are screwed
I'm not sure what do you mean by that.
There is something called bussiness secret, and as much as we don't walk around naked, companies don't present everything.
If they want to present their revenues, their employees, they can do it in about 15 min.
Why is it better than the status quo (the one that works)
Ok, so who should use it? Webshop? Booking? On line bet? How to do it without an oracle? Or you mean just that "clicky part" is secure. The one that is already secured?
Or... You can buy some servers, and be absolutely secured, unless you suffer from some form of bipolar disorder :D
Why trusting witnesses and not server (farm)?
Big company, a lot of revenue, that will be transparent, but don't worry, Steem will cost you 50$ - they don't care.
Actualy, adult people don't care, it's nothing. Some gasoline or a dinner.
Community of WHAT?
Ask the nearest marketeer what is a good community
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.
You are very correct
Don't know why steem devs community discord link not working⚡
I'm really glad you made this post :)
Helped me motivate my colleagues even more for the steem blockchain ;)
Still in the process of managing all the legal stuff for starting the company.
German tax laws really are terrible... Maybe you do have a few tips for us?
Very good explanation... But I see the price of steem is very low. Is there no other way than to wait for big investors to come in to buy steem ...?
I hope you're right, i have high hopes for steemit and steem in general, when SMTs come out and when the price becomes more affordable, more people will use it and develop things based on it, steem is way to go.
Get FREE Steem here:
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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.
Like!!
I voted for witness for you! You do a lot for the Steem community!
PS: Do you have a web / graphic designer job?)) I'm looking for a job now...
Thanks for the post.
Steem blockchain is an open platform.
Downvote? Never used it for people. There are alternatives and other forms of communication for me.
I don't think that this question should be regulated centrally. If Steemit is to reflect decentralization, then not only financially - lack of middlemen - but also in other decisions, such as downvotes or distribution of payouts in proportion. Or whether I should do more curation or not, I would always like to decide for myself. I have made a comment to the topic downvotes and payouts, which I ask you to read in your function as Witness and to give your feedback:
https://steemit.com/steem/@erh.germany/px00h0
It would be interesting to see that if one could become friends with a downvote function as a responsible decision-maker of a decentrally called platform, if it would result in people dealing with it in a sensible way. The only downvote function I think makes sense is the one to dig up the energy from bots. In order to clean up the system and to deprive people who are not present, who have let their bots loose on the system in a harmful way, of the possibility of a passive income in such a way that it is not worthwhile to continue using the bot?
This is not the first time that the problem of how to differentiate between a bot and a human being has arisen, and there are probably good proposals on how to solve this technical problem in an intermediate step?
I have little experience with bad bots. Can you or anyone tell me exactly how they are destroying the ecosystem? So far I have had positive experiences with altruistic bots that look for quality and hopefully learn in the process.
But you'll probably end up with the same problem again, if you stop the bad bots with automatisms to protect the system, you'll stop the good bots as well. ... Difficult. Doing this by hand really isn't the best of all ideas, though.
Thank you.