After all the excitement has settled down about Steemit being sold to Steem, it's amazing to see some of the announcements that have come out recently that I think others may have missed.

We need Steem gifs like this

Steem-Engine

Steem-Engine has registered with FINCEN to become a money transmitter!

If you want to learn a little more what that means and a little how Steem-Engine works you can check out aggroed's post here.

From what I'm understanding it sounds like New Hampshire and Pennsylvania will be able to use Credit Cards as soon as Steem-Engine receives the ok to be a money transmitter, which is pretty exciting.

Source

Seriously though, go check out the article and see some of the other exciting plans that they have. The storefronts idea that they're talking about sounds awesome and can't wait to see what gets posted for sale on Steem-Engine in the future and if they can implement token swaps, which was briefly talked about as well.

Cross Posting

I think this will be one of the coolest features to be released or cause one of the biggest issues on the platform and will make most people forget about bid bots and self voting.

The Steempeak post at least in my eyes does a good job at explaining when a cross-post should be used vs a resteem.

1. Make a post in the community FIRST
2. If it's meets the criteria of another community CROSS-POST.
3. If you want it on your home page or blog RESTEEM.

Some people are already promoting Cross-posting

Source

This sounds like an amazing idea where you can earn additional income on a post that is shared by someone else to a new community. However, I feel like this can or will be greatly abused.

Communities

It will be interesting to see how communities work going forward. It looks like they will potentially get at least 5% of all rewards from crossposts.

I have no problem with communities taking a certain take of posts that are made within that community and looking forward to seeing how those communities will distribute those rewards.

I hope to see contests with giveaways, moderators who receive some compensation to ensure all the content in the community is up to snuff, and some other creative incentives for posting within the community.

I'll be disappointed with communities and their leaders if all they use their SteemPower for is to vote all posts within the community. In the end, all this will be is a cash-generating machine for those that control the private keys for the community.

DLease, Open Seed, and Final Thoughts

With all the recent news of the Defi exploits, it still blows my mind that more people are using tools like Dlease to earn passive rewards in crypto. With DLease you lease out your Steem Power and earn Liquid Steem in return.

You power up those liquid rewards and then it becomes compounding interest that grows more and more over time. No concern with exploits or hacks, because you control the Steem the entire time and can end the "lease" at any time, though it is discouraged.

Every time I learn more about Open Seed I get more excited for the future as well.

I know it's just more than a chat program, but it will be nice not to have to deal with all the different communities. I've also wanted to reach out to a few people before and ask them a question or two, but Discord was too much effort and comments were just too much of a hassle.

I can't wait to see what the rest of the year holds for Steem and the crypto market.

What is the most exciting project you're watching or a part of on Steem right now.