source: pixabay
TL;DR
We should create a tool for Steemians to sustain their commitment to this chain, without sacrificing too much like burning the token, but with much more loyalty than just powering up (locking temporarily) their stakes.
I call it - the DARE - locking STEEM forever without losing its associated rights.
As you can see from the above, on my blog page, I pledge that "this account will stay powered up above 10,000 SP forever". That promise was made like more than 2 years ago? roughly like that... I guess I was very excited at that time that I decided to make such a promise ... It's a promise that actually doesn't hurt your rights too much if Steem is to be very successful in the long run as those locked up SPs would bring you much more than the principal and you get to enjoy every rights that are given to an SP holder.
So far I have never failed and will continue to honor this promise of course as I knew that this promise was made on chain, making this promise more special. At some time in the past, I even had the idea of creating a club that only Steemians who pledge the same (powering up 10k SP forever) can join and that club was very close to be founded ...
However, a pledge on chain is nothing more than a promise on paper, at least not much more. It is up to the Steemians to honor their promises - well, in infinite time.
When I saw people debating about the duration of powering down, I was always thinking about how can we get people to commit more than just powering up ... After all, you can hardly call powering up an act identical to showing commitment since that move is also self beneficial.
So I thought if we can give those who pledges a longer powering down period like 50 weeks a higher influence than normal? Theoretically it sounds reasonable and good for reducing liquidity, but I know that this design will make the blockchain level protocol extremely complicated (am I right?). So finally I gave up this idea.
source: pixabay
But yesterday I thought if we do not give more power to those who pledge to lock up longer then nothing needs to be changed. The problem is how do we increase the validity of the pledge so people can verify if any of the pledges have been broken and in return it will make the pledge more credible.
I call it DARE like "I dare you powering up 10k SP and never powering it down.". Steemians can use this concept to make tournaments more fun and beneficial to Steem like using DARE as punishment (DARE 100 SP when you lose, something like that). Maybe whales can use it to make a bet against each other ... This would be less drastic than burning as when you burn your tokens you also burn a part of your connection with the chain ... If you really care about Steem so much as to burn tokens, I would say that you deserve the connection if not the token itself ...
If someone can develop a mechanism to just constantly monitor if anyone who makes a DARE promise (maybe in his/her profile page or under a certain page where everyone goes there to pledge...) still honors it up to this moment, I am sure this would be helping in establishing something more than just individual promises, despite no real punishment for violation except ruined credibility.
If this mechanism works, then witnesses can further design anything that are suitable for chain level integration.
I think the success of a project is to create stake holders' future benefits, instead of instant benefits. My proposal of DARE is in line with this idea.
I hope this post can stimulate some discussion along this direction.
Finally, I dare you to keep powering up above 10k forever like me. _
If you dare, leave your comment and your screenshot. I will believe you and give you a full vote.
Let's DARE each other!!!
source: pixabay
