Decentralized social media platform Steemit has announced the completion of a successful hardfork to modify its economic model and enhance investor accessibility. The hardfork, which drew unanimous community approval, saw the inflation rate of the Steem token reduced and the Steem Power holding requirements curtailed from an average of one year to an average of one and a half months.
The move was received well by the community and the network has gone on to adopt the software. Following this, the trading value of the token rose with increased demand from short and mid-term investors of Steem. When the impending hardfork proposal was announced by the Steemit executive, the total market cap valuation of Steem rested at $22 million USD. In the hours following the hard fork, the market cap valuation of Steem jumped to over $50 million USD, an over 200% increase in under three weeks.
CEO of Steemit, Ned Scott said: “Steem has hard forked successfully and now makes for an even greater blockchain currency. It is best in speed, scale and network growth, with a low and narrowing inflation over the next 20 years. Congratulations to the Steem community; all 19 of the top 19 witnesses and the majority of backups were upgraded well in advance.”
The top 19 Steemit witnesses all upgraded to Steemit version 16.0, meaning the hardfork was unanimously accepted and executed on time. The platform has been tested, verified, and functioning without issue, with an increased number of users creating and curating original content with the possibility of earning cryptocurrency rewards.
Scott remarked: “Since day one, the Steemit team has been on a mission to create the best possible social media platform, one that embraces everyone’s contributions and censors nothing. The feedback we’ve been receiving from our growing total of users and unique monthly visitors continues to be excellent. We’ve also aimed to continuously improve our blockchain currency, improving its network effect, usability, reducing the inflation rate, one that is now trending towards less than 1%,”
Since the hardfork, all Steem holders will have increased liquidity, but the allocation of new Steem tokens to witnesses, content producers, and creators will not change, remaining at 9.5%. Of the annual instantaneous inflation, Steem Power holders will receive 15%, with 10% allocated to witnesses and miners, and 75% to be given to authors and content creators. The hardfork did not impact the functionality of Steemit.com, Steem Backed Dollars, or Steem Power, nor was there a change in the general powering down schedule or the powering down rate of the Steemit founders and developers.
Scott added: “The only way to properly grow a business that leverages cutting edge technology is to be open, honest, and transparent with the community. We have always made ourselves available to answer any questions, and constantly evolved with community feedback, suggestions and advice to ensure we keep refining the best forum for bloggers, artists, photographers, writers, comedians, foodies, travel bugs, sports fans and anything in between,”
I have been participating on Steemit daily since June. It is still in Beta, but there are regular updates. This latest Hard Fork has not changed anything on steemit; the site still works very well. There was worry beforehand that the price of steem may drop due to the ability for members to convert more steem power to steem which can be sold. But in fact, the price of steem has gone up.
If you like to read interesting articles, or check out art or food blogs, come to steemit. If you want to write your own posts which might get you some steem currency, come to steemit. If you want to reward others for what they post, by Up Voting their articles (like Liking), come to steemit! See you on steemit.com! I blog there as kenny-crane.