@null account - interesting use cases
The way promoting posts works reminds me immediately about “Proof of Burn” concept.
You send some assets to an account that is locked forever. This way you prove you invested resources to promote your content.
Since @null account has been already created for this purpose I think it is worth to think about out other uses cases for this account. What comes to my mind are:
1. Burning unclaimed assets.
Some users post contest or articles written by someone else and they state that SBD earned by the post will be split between author and winner or original author.
What if original author does not want the reward or the contest is not resolved?
SBD is still earned so maybe the part of it that can’t be distributed according to initial intentions could be burned via @null account? This way post authors look trusworthy and noone would blame them for claming whole earnings for themselves.
2. Carbon voting, voice staking.
There was a dispute in Ethereum universe not so long ago whether to fork ETH or not. A site http://carbonvote.com/ has been published and people could send ETH to “Yes” address or “No” address expressing their opinion. Ethereum developer Alex van de Sande created a MIST application (special Ethereum Mist browser application - DAPP) https://github.com/alexvandesande/stake-voice as a tool for creating such referendums when you look your voting assets for some time.
Steemit @null account could be used in a similar way but with a difference that assets used are burned forever therefore such voting could have much bigger meaning.
3. Additional reputation/awareness mechanism.
One could send a significant amount to @null account just to get awareness of his actions (example bitcoin transaction with huge fee didn’t go unnotice (https://blockchain.info/tx/cc455ae816e6cdafdb58d54e35d4f46d860047458eacf1c7405dc634631c570d) or to use it as a reputation improving mechanism. Openbazaar uses this concept: https://blog.openbazaar.org/why-proof-of-burn/
What do you guys think? Can @null account have interesting uses cases other than content promoting? Let me know in the comments.
For me the most interesting part is, that transferring assets to @null means that this wealth is distributed not directly, but to whole community :)
At some point witnesses will have campaigns, in which they will declare how much of their paycheck will be given back to community :)
You're right, it'll be interesting to see what people do to become witnesses.
Not sure if it counts as a "use case", but I like the idea of being able to openly see how much money is spent in advertisement on the platform. In the long run, there might be a point where that marketing money covers the 5% yearly inflation that SP holders suffer. Tracking that should be interesting.
Wow, if this would transform Steem from inflationary to deflationary blockchain.......... :) With big companies advertising budgets this seems to be quite possible, well thought man.
Very good suggestions. I would only add that for each new idea you could imagine a new account like @nullvote, etc.
Why? Because @null shows transparently what people are paying to promote their posts and at the same time you can see how much they got back. It creates total transparency and wisdom on paid promotion.
So in order to measure the economic impact on any of your ideas it would be good to have an extra account.
Steemit is the first tool that gives insight into the digital economy and how wealth is amassed or distributed. Something which is hidden from us in the real world.
@steempowerwhale 🐳
🌞 upvoting your lifetime dreams!
NXT has a way of sending NXT tokens or assets to the genesis address which effectively destroys them.
Just before the black hole of @null became well known there was a good use case for it, where @dragonslayer109 didn't know what to do with the money earned from hosting a guest author who was a fraud.
This all thing with promoted section it's only in rich people favour! The problem is what you are doing if you send to @null $100 to promote your post and after 10 minutes you have to change your main tag. Do you pay for a 10 minutes service? We all know that if you have to change your main tag, you have to make another post and delete the previous one, but the money you send to @null will promote a deleted post.
I like that first use case. Over the long term, I can see how there could be a lot of unclaimed assets that build up. That would be like unclaimed assets held by each state, whether it's tax refunds that weren't claimed in time, or checks that were never cashed, people leave, or people straight up die and no one even knows they have any SP or SD (or how to get it). It seems like there would need to be some clear criteria before assets are considered unclaimed.