In a previous post, I explained why I found the Steemit subjective proof-of-work to be more interesting than the Bitcoin proof-of-work. In this article, I will explain why I think that the Steemit plateform shows that we may not need an ambitious project like Ethereum.
Ethereum in turmoil
As you know, Ethereum is facing a succession of improbable situations but nonetheless interesting to observe: TheDAO hack was not a hack per se; The immutability of the Ethereum blockchain is gone; Ethereum Classic introduced a "quantum" situation for ethers holders...
All this ends up making us forget the original value proposition of Ethereum: To allow developers and entrepreneurs to create decentralized and autonomous services based on the Ethereum blockchain. But this original promise of Ethereum is a mirage for now because no major project has been born. The only one "TheDao" is just a fiasco that has questioned the entire Ethereum 'raison d'être'.
The rise of Steemit
In the same period, a decentralized service based on the same fundamental principles of Bitcoin and the smarts contracts emerged: Steemit. At first glance one might say that Ethereum and Steemit have nothing to do with each other as their goals are definitely not the same. The first one is almost an abstract and multifaceted project that only geeks can really understand ("create decentralized services"), while the other one answers a simple and understandable problem by all ("pay people to post and curate content"). But the reality is that Steemit is precisely the kind of decentralized service that Ethereum is supposed to enable.
What observations can we make?
What's interesting is that the paths of Ethereum and Steemit are instructive for developers and entrepreneurs:
- On the one hand, the success of Steemit shows that a small talented team does not need the Ethereum infrastructure to build a DAO (which has delivered its service to its users without any major issues so far).
- On the other hand, the difficulties that Ethereum have to face shows that it may be even preferable not to build a DAO on the Ethereum blockchain. Indeed, why take the risk of building a DAO on the Ethereum blockchain if the entire common infrastructure may be jeopardized by another DAO badly written by some other users?
If the Steemit devs had tried to build their project on Ethereum, they would have been limited by infrastructure problems that they would not be able to respond directly.
The idea of Ethereum is ambitious and the intentions of their creators are laudable. But the moral of the story is a reflection of the core values of the Internet and the Bitcoin protocol: avoid all forms of centralization. Although a blockchain is by nature (usually) decentralized and public, in view of the current situation, it is more desirable (at least for security reasons) to see a thriving ecosystem of independent blockchains rather than one dao ecosystem built around the multifunctional Ethereum blockchain.
Two different paths toward "One blockchain to rule them all"
That said, we can not prevent ambitious entrepreneurs from trying to build THE blockchain that will dominate all others. It is the ambition of Ethereum founders but also of the Steemit founders who consider the idea of an ecosystem built around their steemdollars.
But even in this common ambition, Steem approach is certainly smarter and humbler than the one chosen by the founders of Ethereum. Having wanted to build a virtuoso technology, the founders of Ethereum found themselves in a delicate situation where they have in their hands a technical solution looking for problems to solve.
On the other side, the founders of Steemit took the opposite path. They started with a problem (paying the users of a social network) and then build the best solution for this specific problem. While allowing their vision to be understood by an audience outside the crypto community, this also enables them to stay extremely focused and avoid convoluted technical problems like the ones Ethereum have to face.
The Steemit approach has the merit of having already proven. Indeed, it is often by adopting this kind of approach that larger companies were born. (Google went from a search engine to a technological empire; Facebook from a social network to an empire built around different services). If Steemit keeps growing and reaches a key milestone (eg, by exceeding the number of Bitcoin users), it will certainly be a key player around which a solid ecosystem of services can be built upon.
Thank you for taking the time to read my article!
I hope it brought you some interesting perspective on the subject. Feel free to comment or argue, I would be happy to discuss. (Also, I'm a non-native english speaker, sorry for the typo or the grammar. Do not hesitate to correct me)
Jako