#steemit

Steemit Update: HF21 Testnet, SPS, EIP, Rewards API, SMTs!

HF21 testnet.jpg

Hardfork 21

Hello Steemians, we have been hard at work adding the changes to Hardfork 21 necessary to add a long term funding mechanism to the Steem Proposal System (a/k/a SteemDAO) as well as the Economic Improvement Proposal (EIP). We are happy to announce that we have completed that work and released the code for Hardfork 21 so that public testing may commence.

Testnet

The testnet will hardfork this Thursday at 1pm EDT. At that time, witnesses and developers will be able to begin testing all of the changes included in this release. This will have no impact on regular Steem users on sites like steemit.com.

SMTs

Now that the release candidate for HF21 is out, our blockchain team has turned their attention to continuing development of the Smart Media Tokens protocol!

Rewards API

One of the additions to HF21 involves the Rewards Curve which is used to determine how much Steem a given post should receive from the Rewards Pool based on the votes it has earned and the stake (i.e. Steem Power) backing those votes. The release candidate changes the curve from a linear curve to what a convergent linear curve. @vandeberg (Senior Blockchain Engineer at Steemit) explained the convergent linear curve in this post.

In order to demonstrate the effects of the proposed changes, we created a Rewards API which enables us to simulate the rewards payout with different curves and parameters. We are also releasing this API to the public so that anyone can use it to approximate payouts on the chain at any particular time.

Gain_Loss for Convergent Linear Curve Parameterization.png

The above chart demonstrates 3 different constants fed into the convergent linear rewards curve and their effects on comment payouts. As shown in the charts, 2e12 approaches our current linear rewards at roughly 16 STEEM, which is why we feel it will provide a meaningful and balanced change to Steem’s economic distribution.

Communities

@roadscape is working on Communities. There are two aspects to Communities: 1. the backend work in Hivemind, and 2. the frontend work on steemit.com (Social Condenser). For the backend work, he has been working with community members to develop a Hivemind-based protocol specification that meets the needs of as many Steem developers as possible, not just Steemit Inc. For the frontend work, he has begun the process of combing through the user interface assets that were already developed, evaluating whether the code is still useful, and looking for those components which are reusable across approaches.

Financial Report

Our Managing Director, @elipowell, is currently preparing a financial report that will provide some transparency into our costs (primarily AWS costs) and the revenue we have been able to generate through advertising, so be sure to follow her account (@elipowell) if you’re interested in gaining deeper insight into how Steemit Inc. is operating as a company.

The Steemit Team

Comments · 51

@membranaio(52)· 2599d
Thanks for updates Steemit Team
@improv(73)· 2621d
Please don't implement EIP. The rewards curve is one of the worst offenders. It will force users to behave irrationally if they want to have any impact and will punish users who are behaving like the average user would.

I like to upvote the posts that I enjoy. The things I enjoy (and the things most people enjoy, deeply, truly) tend to be niche works. But under this system, everyone loses if the post doesn't reach 16 steem.

I have never voted on a post that reached 16 steem. The only posts I've seen reach 16 steem were either curie-ed (yay) or botted (boo). It will definitely be more of the latter than the former. Is that the behavior you wish to encourage? Is that what you think will draw more users to the chain?

I know you want people to buy more steem and power it up to have more impact, but this change will absolutely make it more difficult for steem to get to the point where LOTS of people use steem. It will remain a small village and possibly get smaller with this change because small accounts (which is most of them and will always be most of them because that's how sizes work) will have less hope of making an impact.

You're solving a problem that is only a problem for whales. But you don't want more whales, really. You want more minnows and dolphins. And even plankton. You want users. Facebook is valuable because it has EVERYBODY. Steem could be that, but not if it's doing things like this.
@frankvvv(68)· 2624d
Should be called: new experiment paid for exclusively by the content creators.
@arthur.grafo4(61)· 2624d
Have you even considered the fact that the comment section is meant to be a conversation between the poster and those who wish to interact with him or her? Why should anyone else have the right to interfere in our conversations, labelling whatever they do not like as being trash and flagging it?

I feel strongly that only the poster of that page should have the right to flag any comments they do not welcome.
@coinchaos(63)· 2627d
What about the bid bots? anything going to be done to stop them?
@arifullah(43)· 2629d
everyone knows: When you cheat, you win, and everyone respects you for it.
#copied

@steemitblog
@georgeknowsall(9)· 2630d
Great post if you like smoke and mirrors and misdirection. Sorry there was nothing in that post that made me want to keep my money invested in Steem. Plenty of other places to invest that have a better management team. If I was anyone reading this I'd dump now before its to late. Good luck.
@freebornangel(72)· 2630d
Keep working, stop getting paid. Smdh. My bet is that stinc's rep will not be helped by this. Just on par for the stincy course.

When the truth gets revealed will stinc have done all this out of total incompetence, or malice? Enquiring minds need to know,...
@jaki01(77)· 2630d
Unfortunately, the comment section under this post is - again - another 'great' example for the damaging effect of flag wars on STEEM. What a devastating impression (potential) newbies (and investors) will have when reading all that?

I think there should be an elected committee with lots of delegated SP (for example from Steemit, Inc.) to be able to discuss, decide about and counter abusive flags if necessary. Only then - in addition - a downvote pool made sense in my opinion.
@arcange(79)· 2630d
Congratulations @steemitblog! Your post was mentioned in the Steem Hit Parade in the following category:
- Comments - Ranked 1 with 246 comments
@pibara(68)· 2630d
Seems the graph is incorrect because it does not factor in the dust level threshold. Or is dust level going to be abandoned when the new curve is activated?

further, there truly doesn't need to be a steep section to the curve. Try a curve of the shape N x S^log(N) instead.

Here the blue line is a line close to the blue line proposed above. The orange line would be a more fair alternative that pretty much maps to a 17% increase of influence per increase in fish size. Because there are no extra steap or less steep parts in the graph, incentive scales perfectly between all fish sizes, so also there should be no sweet spot for abusers (or bid bot users) to aim for.
@spectrumecons(75)· 2630d
I am disappointed there is so little detail in this post.

I want to know what the content creators and curators rewards split will be. I have heard 50/50 but that has not been confirmed. What is the formula for the new rewards curve. From the diagrams, it looks something like N/(1+c(exp^-N)). Please clarify. What is the size of the downvote pool? At what point do downvotes come from the upvote pool, if at all?

Is the SPS going to be funded by the rewards pool? If so, where is this coming from? Curators, content creators, witnesses, interest, etc.
@rok-sivante(77)· 2630d
shall see how the implementation unfolds, though sounds good...
@paul.atreides(54)· 2630d
I am still looking forward to the POCKET token balance showing up in everyone's wallet. I hope HF21 will address this.
@costanza(78)· 2630d
$0.75 under HF20 vs $0.27 under HF21
Rip Steemit, reject EIP please!
@offgridlife(74)· 2631d
I don’t care what anyone says..... Steemit is awesome. It is by far The best place for an artist, photographer or creator to earn a living by blogging.
@southernwolf(54)· 2631d
This is unacceptable! No true information, vapid details, arbitrary math, allured promises of things that always seem to be "3 months away" or "the next big thing." The fact that this has been put up for proposal is disgusting and everyone involved should be utterly ashamed of themselves.

I hereby demand that the top top 20 witnesses:

@yabapmatt @curie @blocktrades @gtg @roelandp @someguy123 @good-karma @themarkymark @therealwolf @aggroed @cervantes @thecryptodrive @ocd-witness @timcliff @anyx @ausbitbank @smooth.witness @followbtcnews @lukestokes.mhth @clayop

Reject this HF proposal. It is unacceptable to the Steem network to have such disastrous idea for a HF be implemented without taking into consideration how it will affect those non-whale Steem users. I know 2 of you were on the fence, only two more can stop this nightmare from happening.

Reject this proposal, and instead focus on building a better Steem network incrementally, where each part is fully considered and accounted for, before it is implemented. Reject this proposal so that better ideas and systems can be implemented that will actually help Steem grow.

Reject The HF21 Proposal!

#RejectHF21 #MakeSteemGreatAgain
@steemitboard(66)· 2631d
Congratulations @steemitblog! You have completed the following achievement on the Steem blockchain and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :

Your post was the most commented on one day

_{You can view your badges on your Steem Board and compare to others on the Steem Ranking} _{If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word STOP}

To support your work, I also upvoted your post!

Do not miss the last post from @steemitboard:

Do not miss the coming Rocky Mountain Steem Meetup and get a new community badge!
Vote for @Steemitboard as a witness to get one more award and increased upvotes!
@steemleaves(66)· 2631d
Would it help me to delegate more steem to your account?
@michealb(67)· 2631d
cool
@enforcer48(75)· 2631d
@socky(73)· 2631d
This should really be called "The Proposal That Will Have No Impact On Economic Improvement"
@wakeupnd(69)· 2631d
Why did you pick 16 Steem as the flatting point for the reward curve?

How many people would this effect? What are the pros vs cons? I'm sure this was all laid out in some private discord meeting with witnesses but I'd love to see a little more detail on the logic behind this just so I know you're not pulling numbers out of your ass and put some thought into it.
@creativetruth(71)· 2631d
No hardfork please. #NO5050
@blockchainstudio(72)· 2631d
So 50:50 is really happening? Do you have any solutions for dapps relying on author reward? e.g., utopian, steemhunt, tasteem, trip.steem? author's reward will be reduced by 33% (powerup effect due to increased curation reward would be negligible in the short term)
@nathanmars(75)· 2631d
Keep up the good work Steemit Team
@jondoe(76)· 2631d
How are these changes going to encourage people to power up steem?
@tcpolymath(69)· 2631d
My only question at this point is: what are the specific, measurable, and timely goalposts by which we can judge whether the EIP has performed the black magic to make everything shiny that its proponents claim, and are we prepared to commit to giving up on it when it inevitably fails them?

It's pretty clear by now that this is going to have to be tried and fail dramatically before anyone thinks about doing anything actually productive, and I just hope someone's thinking about how to identify when that failure has happened.

#sbi-skip
@georgemales(62)· 2631d
Well looks like we will live here from now just in the land of boots! I just hope Hardfork 22 will come few days after 21 and change all this nonsense...
@ladyrebecca(70)· 2631d
People at Steemit Inc should keep in mind that this community is made up of regular folks for the most part... I don't know about any sort of curves so your chart is lost on me and, I'm sure, many others. You could just post that sort of thingy in your discord chats with the devs and witnesses... they're the only ones who know how to read those charts, just as they are the ones who support EIP. In a post meant for the whole community, you should speak in plain English. Like most people do in comments. Like the comment that explains a post which made $1 will pay out 27 cents... I take it that's what you mean by

a meaningful and balanced change to Steem’s economic distribution.
@nonsowrites(76)· 2631d
Panicking

Posted using Partiko Android
@hardaeborla(69)· 2631d
Firstly, I want to appreciate and commend the effort of Steemit Inc and other official team members for their great impact on developing the steem blockchain to make Steemit more comfortable and easier to use for Steemians. I must say you are actually doing a very great job on the steem blockchain.

HF21 will actually be a great chance for more development on the steem blockchain. I just can't wait for the features to be implemented after the adoption of HF21. I actually want to ask some few questions which I found to difficult for me to comprehend.

The testnet will hardfork this Thursday at 1pm EDT. At that time, witnesses and developers will be able to begin testing all of the changes included in this release. This will have no impact on regular Steem users on sites like steemit.com.

I hope this won't lead some difficulties we experienced during the last hardfork which was HF20 whereby people were loosing their steem power and reputation as a result of Upvoting other people's posts. We were all aware of what really happened during that time such that activities on the platform had to be minimized for sometime to avoid loosing RC and steem power during HF20. Are you really assuring us that such occurrence won't happen? Or should we just minimize our activities on the platform and wait for some short period of time while the hardfork is ongoing to avoid any problems? I will love to hear your view or thoughts about this.

SMTs Now that the release candidate for HF21 is out, our blockchain team has turned their attention to continuing development of the Smart Media Tokens protocol!

We all have been anticipating for SMTs. I was thinking we would start making use of SMTs as from the last previous months but it seems I heard nothing about it. I just hope you actually do something about the implementation of SMTs because some Steemians are now having a doubt of mind if there is gonna be SMTs adopted by the steem blockchain or not.

For the backend work, he has been working with community members to develop a Hivemind-based protocol specification that meets the needs of as many Steem developers as possible, not just Steemit Inc. For the frontend work, he has begun the process of combing through the user interface assets that were already developed, evaluating whether the code is still useful, and looking for those components which are reusable across approaches.

Does this actually means that every available Steemit community will need to migrate into the Hivemind-based protocol before they can start utilizing the great benefits of the steem blockchain?

Thanks for sharing this great post and thanks for your great impact and support on the steem blockchain.
@valued-customer(75)· 2631d
I strongly oppose all these changes at this time. EIP is exactly the opposite action necessary to increase user retention, discourage profiteering, and encourage capital gains by increasing the price of Steem. If I am correct, in the very near term after adoption of HF21 Steem price will fall, users will be reduced, and Steem's market cap will decline further. If I am wrong the opposite will occur.

Accordingly, please prepare to restore extant code in the event negative consequences result from HF21.

Failure to prepare is preparing to fail.

Please don't do that.

Thanks!
@stevescoins(70)· 2631d
Good news

As much as I have complained about the future and direction of Steemit, I like seeing forward progress
1. SMTs can only add to STEEM value, so looking forward to implementation
2. Rewards API - at the center of my complaints. Steemit can not be a stable platform when the rewards mechanism is continually being tinkered with, Please let this be the last adjustment.
3. Communities - a winner; adding communities will result in greater rewards for Steemers over time...this will lead to a greater community of dolphins, orcas, and whales, thus actually creating a truly decentralized platform.
Edited: wait, so we are still doing the 50/50 split? horrible decsion
@elsiekjay(77)· 2631d
How was the decision for the EIP reached? Was there a voting poll I mistakenly missed? I have no confidence in it, in fact I am very Skeptical it might lead a lot of creators away. Let's see how this unfolds.
@jonsnow1983(76)· 2631d
I know in good faith you are trying to make #steem great again. Please try and don't over-complicate things. Sometimes simpler is better. Keep up the awesome work.
@joythewanderer(81)· 2631d
It's good to know you guys haven't given up SMTs yet. Good luck, hope to see it before fb's libra coin. (is it libra?)
@sepracore(64)· 2631d
So ..... how was the SPS funded? I know there was debate among witnesses, etc. What was finally settled upon?
@miniature-tiger(70)· 2631d
Reading off that 2e12 contingent linear rewards curve...

Under HF20 a post receiving $1 in upvotes would give the author $0.75.

Under HF21:
- The reward pool will be 10% lower to fund the SPS.
- The CLRC will reduce the payout by a further 40% compared to linear.
- The payout to the author will then be 50% (rather than 75%). I make this: $1 * 90% * (1 - 40%) * 50% = 0.27 under HF21
So broadly: $0.75 under HF20 vs $0.27 under HF21, a reduction of about two-thirds for smaller payouts.

Have I understood that correctly?
@soyrosa(75)· 2631d
I hope to see some detailed posts about how the EIP will actually impact users. Most people don't understand hypothetical curves.

Take a few 'actual' accounts at certain levels of Steem Power (50SP / 500SP / 5000 SP etc) and show what they received from the pool in for example the month of May under HF20 and what they would've earned if in that same month of May HF21 was running. Both in author as in curation rewards - see who is going to be the big winners and the big losers here, and if we want/need these people to be the big winners and losers.

I know it will be way more complex than that and some behaviour will change due to HF21 so the numbers will be different, but we have to start somewhere - or have I missed posts that are already working through real-life examples/impact on users?
@voyceatlas(57)· 2631d
Any good reviews of how smt will work?
@carlos-cabeza(68)· 2631d
It would be great if the rewards go to who really deserves it. Some centralized "Trail" have done a lot of damage to the community because of their greed and excessive egos. Especially in the Hispanic community.
@marki99(62)· 2631d
SMTs SMTs please do those SMTs!

Posted using Partiko iOS
@oluwoleolaide(70)· 2631d
Good Update, about time we start prepping for the next Bull
@ats-david(75)· 2631d
...we have been hard at work adding the changes to Hardfork 21...

There isn’t much info or a link for the final SPS and EIP proposals for this fork. Where can we see that information?

As shown in the charts, 2e12 approaches our current linear rewards at roughly 16 STEEM...

At the current STEEM price (which seems to be pegged at $0.40 - somebody stop that, please), this would bring the curve to linear at ~$6.40. I think this is ridiculously low and will neither “bring balance” nor be “meaningful.”

The main reason this EIP was pitched was to mitigate bid bots. I disagree with that reason for the changes, although I do agree that the protocol changes are good. But this “2e12” algorithm will have practically zero effect on bid bots, so I wonder why such a relatively short superlinear curve is being touted as the ideal and a “meaningful” curve.

Not to mention the fact that many human voters can also put a post into the full linear algorithm with a single vote. This seems that it will only have an effect on smaller voters/voting. That isn’t necessarily bad, but it doesn’t address what most of the promoters of the EIP are hoping to “fix.”

I would prefer a longer, more gradual trip between superlinear and linear. “Popular” and highly-rewarded content should require more voters and/or larger votes from the most invested users. I don’t think linearity at 16 STEEM accomplishes the goal of properly discovering and rewarding such content.

If you could, please link to the rest of the hard fork info. I’m sure readers would appreciate it.

[EDIT]

I see that a link for the EIP has been added to this post - a link that takes us to a post from last month from @steemitblog regarding the initial proposal. So, I'm going to assume that whatever protocols were mentioned there are what is being proposed for HF21.

Oh, right...no specifics about the protocols were mentioned. So, I'm going to assume that we are working with the following:
1. The "2e12" curve mentioned in this post.
2. 50/50 content rewards split.
3. A downvote pool with an unspecified amount of voting power.
4. An unfunded SPS.
With this info to work with, here is my stance:
1. This is wholly insufficient and practically meaningless.
2. I am in favor of this.
3. I am indifferent.
4. Seems pointless to have a proposal system with no funding, so this is a waste of code.
Overall, with the information provided, I would not approve this hard fork. I would suggest that the protocols are revised or that the complete information is publicly provided and linked in the original post.

For more info on my own positions/proposals regarding the SPS and EIP, you can read these two posts:

https://steemit.com/steem/@ats-david/thoughts-on-the-steem-proposal-system-sps

https://steemit.com/steem/@ats-david/thoughts-on-the-steem-economic-improvement-proposal-eip
@nokodemion(59)· 2631d
Great performance,

also great follow up, to start right away on SMT and Communities now...

thumbsup
@martie7(62)· 2631d

Now that the release candidate for HF21 is out, our blockchain team has turned their attention to continuing development of the Smart Media Tokens protocol!

What?! We will get ugly curve on this hardfork instead SMT implementation?
@steevc(80)· 2631d
I'm more interested in communities than SMTs. We have lots of ad-hoc communities around tags and things, but a more formal structure with moderation would be really useful.

@elipowell does not seem to be posting much, but I'll follow her anyway.
@ssjsasha(74)· 2631d
I hope these changes are for the best, we really need to accelerate progress immediately or else we will lose our first movers advantage
@shortsegments(78)· 2631d
Thank you for the information.
@bitcoinflood(80)· 2631d
SMTs Now that the release candidate for HF21 is out, our blockchain team has turned their attention to continuing development of the Smart Media Tokens protocol!

Really? Pretty sure you said that 2 months ago in a post...

If this is in fact finally true it is a good thing but honestly I am still 2nd guessing myself here...