cryptocracy

I’ve spent several months writing a book about the intersection between blockchain technology and social media. For the past couple of years, I’ve looked critically at more than 100 different cryptosocial media platforms and protocols. Just as there have been social media platforms in the past that were quite popular but have since gone by the wayside, either shutting down completely or losing so much traffic and a percentage of their user base to other platforms, I fully expect some of the current cryptosocial communities to lose steam.

On the whole, cryptosocial seems to be a niche product. Few people outside of cryptocurrency enthusiasts and blockchain developers have much of an interest. I hope that changes. But for now, here are 6 cryptosocial communities that I believe we’ll still see around in five years.

Which Current Cryptosocial Communities Have the Best Chance for Long-Term Survival?

First, I’d like to define what I think long-term survival is. According to the Small Business Administration, only two-thirds of businesses with employees survive two years and only 50 percent make it past five. As a business ages, its chances of survival increases.

The first cryptosocial community saw its birth in 2016. Five years in, it’s still running. But what about the rest of the pack? These are the cryptosocial communities I think we’ll still see around in five years:

1) Hive – Hive is a hard fork of Steemit, the first real cryptosocial community with a native cryptocurrency. To be transparent, I have not played on Hive due to a number of reasons I won’t go into. But I think Hive has some staying power because it has a strong community carried over from Steemit. Many of the top Steemit witnesses went with the fork and they took their followers and fans with them. The most popular blockchain-based game, Splinterlands, is native to Hive. Hive is also listed on over 20 exchanges including Binance, BlockTrades, Bittrex, Huobi Global, Upbit, and Steem Engine.

2) Minds – As a platform, Minds is the oldest among those in the cryptocurrency ecosystem. It launched in 2015, though its ERC-20 token didn’t launch until 2018. Nevertheless, it has a strong community and now that it’s past its five year testing period will likely survive another five years unless a major cryptosocial platform makes a big splash and starts to divert loyal users.

3) Steemit – Steemit is the first cryptosocial platform to launch with its own cryptocurrency and its own blockchain, in 2016. I’ll reluctantly add it to this list because I think Steemit’s best days are behind it. But given the unsteady nature of the cryptosocial ecosystem and few strong contenders, I do believe Steemit has a little bit of life left in it. Plus, the new owner of Steemit Inc., Steemit's parent company, Justin Sun, always has a few surprises. As founder of the TRON blockchain, he has proven he knows how to build a business.

4) Publish0x – Publish0x is shaping up to be my favorite cryptosocial platform. It doesn’t have a native cryptocurrency. Instead, the platform rewards users (bloggers and readers) with ETH, AMPL, and FARM. There is a thriving community of loyal users churning out strong crypto-related content. One of the distinctive features of Publish0x is its partnerships with crypto brands that promote contests with crypto rewards for Publish0x users. I think Publish0x has strong staying power.

5) Coil – Coil is more of a protocol than a platform, though it does play host to blogs. I haven’t seen much readership on my Coil blog, but I do get a small amount of crypto each month from readership on my Coil blog as well as my professional blogs and YouTube channel. Coil allows users to add some code to their web properties for monetization at no cost to readers. While I believe Coil has some great potential, that potential is not currently fully realized. Coil will need to capitalize on Medium’s recent decision to change its editorial policy and pick up some strong content creators with a lot of followers. Plus, it needs to make its mission more widely known. It wouldn’t surprise me to see Twitter integrated with Coil in the same manner that YouTube is currently integrated, but it’s just as likely that Twitter will create its own monetization protocol. Coil is a great idea whose benefit has not been discovered.

6) PROPS – PROPS is a YouTube alternative with a “tokenized digital media ecosystem.” Endorsed and supported by YouTube creator Philip DeFranco, I think PROPS has a lot of potential for growth.

The Difficulty of Predicting the Future

It’s difficult predicting the future, especially in an environment of instability and unpredictability. It’s just as likely that a new upstart within the next five years could capture the public imagination in a way that none of its forebears have. That said, there are a few newer cryptosocial platforms I’d like to add to this list but for one reason or another I have difficulty doing so. Here they are:

* Voice – I like Voice, but it has not yet launched a token. It’s got some good things going for it, one of which is the fact that it has attracted several excellent content creators to the platform. However, it doesn’t seem to be growing its user base all that well. And Block.one’s loss of co-founder Dan Larimer early this year didn’t help. I’m not a fan of pinning all the hope of a project’s success on one person, however, Larimer has a track record of building something great then leaving it in the hands of others, which then leads to a decline in value. First, it was Bitshares, then it was Steemit, now it’s Block.one, the parent of Voice. Plus, being that it’s in its infancy, Voice still has a lot to prove.

* Mastodon – I love the concept of Mastodon, but it just doesn’t seem to be catching on. Mastodon is about as close to living up to the ideal of decentralization as any project, but it doesn’t appear to be growing. I'd love to see it take off.

* LBRY – LBRY is another great concept that doesn’t seem to be getting traction. Some day, I hope to see a truly decentralized multimedia publishing service that takes the world by storm. LBRY is a good start.

I hope you don’t take any of this as gospel. I’m not a prophet. There are a lot of blockchain projects that are interesting in their own right. But being interesting doesn’t mean it will succeed. I think the cryptosocial space has a lot of potential for transforming social media into a user-centric service rather than an advertiser- and shareholder-centric service. But only time will tell.

DISCLAIMER

I am not a financial advisor, nor do I give financial advice. The above information should not be considered financial advice but is for informational purposes only. Neither I nor Cryptowriter are responsible for financial losses incurred as a result of acting on this information. Please consult a financial advisor before making any financial decisions.

This post is published for Cryptowriter in association with Voice.

If you enjoyed this content feel free to use our ️EXCLUSIVE SIGN UP PAGE to skip the queue and gain full access to our Cryptowriter community.

Follow Our Socials – Twitter- Telegram- Instagram

Follow Me

➡ Cryptocracy Newsletter: https://cryptocracy.substack.com/

➡ Cryptocracy on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Cryptocracy3

➡ Allen Taylor Twitter: https://twitter.com/allen_taylor

➡ Taylored Content: https://tayloredcontent.com

➡ Cryptobloggers: https://cryptobloggers.us

This post was first published at Voice.