Hire 3 Steem Developers to Build USD/Steem Exchange?
Are we ready for a USD/Steem exchange and a freelancing platform for Steem? Developing a peer to peer exchange where fiat to Steem is simple using PayPal and thousands of other payment methods will enable us to make it easy for anyone to buy into Steem and to sell any Steem earned. We can think of it like a https://localbitcoins.com/ for Steem except faster.
When we combine this with a freelancing platform where users can easily exchange Steem for services, we add massive value to Steem as a blockchain. Multiply this with what we have now and smart media tokens and we have the #1 blockchain in a few years. Will we take the next step today because this giant leap is very easy to continue with?
Hire 3 Developers for SteemJ?
After meetup with new Steem users today in Orlando, Florida, our need for a USD/Steem exchange seems critical because the most difficult questions we talked about today were "How to buy and sell Steem with fiat?" The answers we tried to provide include way too many complicated steps in a world with credit cards, PayPal, Chase pay, and a thousand other easy ways to transfer money for free or for a low cost online. It should be fast and simple to change USD to Steem. Instead it is a nightmare to explain to someone that has never bought Bitcoin how to take USD in the bank and make it into Steem. We almost always have to make a referral to services and exchanges we do not trust in order to buy or sell Steem.
What For?
We need to make it really easy for any user in any country to change local currency into Steem within minutes. When we make it easy to exchange USD and any fiat currency into Steem, we will empower easy buy ins which will be especially helpful for the masses of new users coming for smart media tokens. Currently this is the single largest barrier to entry we face and we need to smash it down with an app that handles any fiat currency into Steem completely with
- No fees.
- Peer to peer transactions.
- Clear feedback system.
- Ongoing improvements.
- Effective marketing.
How?
We have placed a clear vision of how to build a peer to peer fiat to Steem exchange in this mind including the colors of the buttons, the procedure for completing a transaction, the feedback system, and the volume which will quickly exceed millions of dollars a day in 2018 as interest in Steem explodes. In previous posts below I called this idea SteemJ and I am open to rebranding as desired.
- https://steemit.com/steemit/@jerrybanfield/build-steemj-into-busy-org-chainbb-or-esteem
- https://steemit.com/steemj/@jerrybanfield/steem-s-first-freelancing-marketplace-is-online-at-www-steemj-com
- https://steemit.com/witness/@jerrybanfield/19-2-update-new-backup-server-steemj-progress-witness-update-2
- https://steemit.com/steemj/@jerrybanfield/steemj-for-freelancing-week-1-update-key-features-income
- https://steemit.com/steemj/@jerrybanfield/2000-steem-prize-develop-steemj-com-for-steemit-freelancing
The main changes from the original posts include:
- Pay the developers directly with a stable salary every month.
- Start with the peer to peer exchange which we need the most now.
- Handle all transactions directly from peer to peer without any fees or escrow while relying on feedback to guide users to healthy relationships with those trustworthy in making exchanges.
- After the exchange is online, build in job posting.
What we need to make this happen is 3 developers that are paid to build and improve the platform every month. Up until now one issue has been the limitation: funding. Today we have a simple solution.
Funding is Simple!
To announce SteemJ and get it started, I paid out 2,000 Steem in a contest to build a prototype of the idea above but struggled with how to provide ongoing funding. After paying @sarasate the initial contest payment, I had no way to keep offering payments of 1,000 or more Steem a month to fund ongoing development.
In one failed effort to get funding, last month I wrote a whitepaper about budget proposals on Steem where I suggested a funding mechanism for all projects including SteemJ. After reading the feedback, I agree the implementation right now is not ideal because we need to get smart media tokens out first and focus on this completely. Fortunately we can rely on our existing funding when we collaborate effectively!
Our top 20 witnesses on Steem get 260 Steem power a day and already do an outstanding job using this to fund development of projects adding massive value to the Steem blockchain. For example, @jesta with ChainBB and SteemDB, @good-karma with eSteem, @busy.org, @anyx with @cheetah, @riverhead with steemit.chat, and probably 10 times more projects like this by nearly every witness in the top 50 that I cannot remember at the moment or do not know about.
Somehow out of writing that whitepaper I missed the obvious solution to offer my witness rewards to pay developers to build and improve SteemJ even as I was in the top 20 myself for a few days. The top 20 witness rewards are enough to pay 3 developers 1,000 Steem each a month to work on SteemJ while having another 1,000 Steem a month to fund any costs for hosting, tools, etc. We also could fund 4 developers as needed instead. The remaining 4,000 Steem a month is plenty to continue with advertising Steem as we have done now for six months together as seen at https://airtable.com/shrXuoYTnODWA0QG1.
Our functional exchange to Steem would also provide an outstanding advertising opportunity for those looking for easy entry into crypto without using Bitcoin. We could easily add support for Bitshares and individual smart media tokens over time meaning that our witness votes when used to fund this project can bring massive value back to us.
Who to Hire?
Our first choice for who to hire for this are existing witnesses that have already been serving the Steem blockchain, have an interest in building SteemJ, and who would benefit the most from an extra 1,000 Steem every month. Hopefully we can find most or all of the developers from our existing witnesses especially the newer ones receiving only a few blocks a day.
When we cannot find 3 developers among our existing witnesses, next we can reach out to all existing users and try to build a team that will have all the skills necessary to build and improve SteemJ. A lead developer/project manager and 2 or 3 specialists picked by the lead developer with the exact skills needed should be ideal. We should be able to find everyone out of those on Steem and those following me.
Finally, if we are not able to find what we are looking for inside our community, I have hired hundreds of freelancers on Upwork and can certainly find the right developers there as needed. In Bosina and many countries where the USD is strong, our 1,000 Steem a month payment would be good for 20 to 40 hours a week at $1 to $2 Steem from a developer just graduating from university with a degree in computer science or a related field.
With funding, we can easily build the team and make SteemJ a reality while providing a steady income for 3 or 4 developers free to contribute additional projects and support to the Steem blockchain.
Let's Do This!
Will you please help us make this a reality today by providing feedback about this plan to build a peer to peer exchange and freelancing platform named SteemJ for Steem because we will all be empowered to buy and sell Steem directly with each other and hire out of our own community first when we need help?
If you like the plan and want to fund it, would you please join almost 2,500 of us in voting for jerrybanfield as a witness at https://steemit.com/~witnesses because with a small number of witness votes, we can provide the full amount of funding for all three developers out of the witness rewards paid each day?
@blocktrades would you please add jerrybanfield to your witness votes because your one vote will be enough to provide funding for 3 developers to build a peer to peer exchange on SteemJ and to fund 4,000 Steem a month for advertising which is enough to reach millions of people every month? You helped inspire me to travel to Steemfest with your upvote on the post where I asked whether I should go and we appreciate your service on https://blocktrades.us helping so many of us buy our Steem out of a wallet.
@wackou would you consider voting for jerrybanfield as a witness to fund this also because we could easily build in a USD/Bitshares exchange as well? I chose to ask you on behalf of the Bitshares witnesses because we met at Steemfest last month and you represented the Bitshares team there!
Next Steps?
When we are ready to get started, I will do my part to immediately begin working on building the team of developers by reading any suggestions we have for who wants to lead the project and for who would like to collaborate with the lead developer to start coding.
As soon as a stable position in the top 20 witnesses exists for the jerrybanfield account, we will begin paying the developers to build SteemJ and provide regular updates for progress.
Within one or two months of our getting started, we should be able to have a functional version to test. Within three to four months, our exchange should be fully functional and moving thousands of dollars through a day. Within six months, we will have a fully built out freelancing platform for posting all types of jobs in addition to making exchanges. Within a year, we will be handling millions of dollars per day with the $10 to $100 Steem price resulting from smart media tokens and our combined efforts here.
Love,
Jerry Banfield
The issue is not one of software, it's one of regulation. I could develop a software platform to do this in a few weeks, and I would have already if it was that simple. The difficult issue is regulations in the US. Fincen has classified businesses that buy/sell crypto for money as money transmitters and you not only need to get a national license, you also need to get a money transmitter in every state you do business in.
You are exactly right which is why this proposal explains that SteemJ would not touch any of the money including no escrow. SteemJ then is only a communications tool that makes peer to peer transactions easier without charging any fees. Users set prices and user deal directly with each other while relying on SteemJ to help design which user to trust. Think of it more like a dating app than an exchange where the entire purpose of the app is to connect one person with another. The dating app is not participating in the relationships or responsible for the results of using it.
What I might have done better with is to call it a messaging app instead of an exchange. Thank you very much for making a reply so quickly here and helping us understand what we need to do to get this live!
Note we are planning to do this, but it takes time to get these licenses.
@blocktrades thank you for letting us know you are working on a fiat exchange because we will benefit greatly from having that available! We wish for a smooth process getting the licenses and when fiat is available I will plan to make a tutorial showing how to use it!
One solution could be to have it outside of US jurisdiction to evade all those regulatory problems.
I get it that steemit is a US company, lots of the crypto and blockchain stuff comes from the US, but the real world changing potential of steemit and Steem lies outside of the US, bringing banking to the unbanked masses of developing countries, where people have smartphones but no bank accounts to even transfer fiat to an exchange which lets them change it into crypto.
Instead they are trading cell phone minutes.
So if this exchange is outside of US jurisdiction the US government will probably make it illegal for US citizens to participate but global mass adaption means most of the users will be outside of the US anyway.
So steemit could get an .is domain, Iceland is big on protecting internet freedom of speech and .com domains could be shut down, and the servers could be in Iceland too, because they might be more protected there and electrical energy is cheap and eco.
Good points made, but there are a shitton of legal issues in other countries around the world, too. This is why the current exchanges are only open to a small number of countries. It is impossible to make it fit every jurisdiction in the world. Some problems include taxation, money laundering and money transmission... and this is not even the tip of the iceberg. It is like blocktrades said... If it was that easy, we would already have hundreds of those exchanges in the cryptospace.
Yes those regulations! So we need to find the best possible jurisdiction, or to work around the whole official exchange thing by creating something on peer to peer base and somehow solving the trust issue.
The solution for this is easy: SteemHalo. David Zimbeck years ago created BlackHalo and BitHalo. Take a look at it... it solves the trust issue!
the Idea is really great, this is going tow work for sure,, thouands of Steemians are working online and will accept Steem as payment method fore sure.
but this will take some time to be realized. the most important thing is to build a community that believes in Steemit and Steem in general, this already exists, the next Step is what you mentioned all in the article,, nothing is imposssible,, anything can be achieved.
Is it possible for the steem blockchain to have compatibility with the upcoming atomics swaps that will be soon implemented with other blockchains like Bitcoin, Litecoin etc, such a thing would allow a decentralized exchange, and bypass Fincen (because no dollars on the decentral exchange)
thats the problem, government has a new regulation... crypto currency is booming business, that's why, there eyes is keep tracking on it... we need freedom on crypto...free to buy and sell...but this will not happen, because government is sucksss.
yeah totally agree. This is why there is no fiat-crypto exchange in most countries yet. It's hard to do AML/KYC.
But we can bet this will slowly happen.
haha we Aussies are way ahead of you guys. We already have COINSPOT exchange where we can buy STEEM with fiat and just transfer it to steemit.com.
However, cashing out we needed BLOCKTRADES or CHANGELY to convert STEEM to BTC, LTC or DOGECOIN to be transferred to our COINSPOT wallet.
Hey @jerrybanfield, have a look at LIVINGROOMOFSATOSHI.COM, you might get an idea as well.
We Aussies are using LIVINGROOMOFSATOSHI.COM to cash out our STEEM straight to our bank, pay bills, rent and mortgages and loans.
I have tried it and written a short review and tutorial for LIVINGROOMOFSATOSHI.COM, you might want to check it out HERE FOR THE PART 1 SHORT REVIEW and HERE FOR THE PART 2 SHORT TUTORIALS
This post has received a 28.26 % upvote from @boomerang thanks to: @webcoop
@boomerang distributes 100% of the SBD and up to 80% of the Curation Rewards to STEEM POWER Delegators. If you want to bid for votes or want to delegate SP please read the @boomerang whitepaper.
@webcoop wonderful thanks for letting us know about Coinspot!! Love it
you are welcome
Can you please try to understand the legal/regulatory issues before you start asking people to develop and fund projects that may end up violating various money/currency laws? Don't you think someone would have already thought about accepting fiat currency for STEEM/SBDs at some point in the past year and a half? As it was pointed out to you already, there's more to it than just creating the exchange, especially when you're talking about accepting credit cards and PayPal.
I get that you want people to vote for you as a witness (which I would not recommend, if anyone is considering it) and you want to appear to be "doing something," but these "ideas" you're throwing around are pretty amateurish.
And the fact that this post had over $255 when I saw it makes all of us look stupid. Unless you're going to be following the letter of the law and procuring all of the licenses necessary for this "exchange" (and if you don't, you're not likely going to be using any credit card or PayPal services anyway), don't bother with it, or you might just end up on the wrong end of a federal prosecution.
You are exactly right about the regulations which is why what I have suggested is designed to avoid any regulation at all. This proposal explains that SteemJ would not touch any of the money including no escrow. SteemJ then is only a communications tool that makes peer to peer transactions easier without charging any fees. Users set prices and user deal directly with each other while relying on SteemJ to help design which user to trust. Think of it more like a dating app than an exchange where the entire purpose of the app is to connect one person with another. The dating app is not participating in the relationships or responsible for the results of using it.
If I had explained it as a messaging service helping users exchange the money, I might have communicated the design more clearly because none of us would expect a messaging service to be regulated but when I said "exchange" that triggers the idea of the laws which @blocktrades and you have referenced. Thank you very much for making a reply so quickly here and helping us understand what we need to do to get this live!
If you had done that, nobody would have cared. But you specifically mentioned a STEEM-USD “exchange” where STEEM could be bought and sold with PayPal or credit cards. And you did this while hyping the idea by claiming that you would start hiring developers, by claiming that there would be millions of dollars in volume per day, and then asking for witness votes to fund everything - as if this was going to be some huge community benefit, all organized by you.
Your failure was that you were oblivious to laws/regulations and your claim now that there will be no actual exchange tells me that you’re just bullshitting - as usual - in order to get more witness votes and more post rewards. If your grand idea is to simply create a way for individuals to trade with each other, then there are plenty of options for this already. If you’re encouraging individuals to onboard and off-board crypto buyers and sellers with credit cards and PayPal, then you’re just being downright reckless.
In my opinion, this is just another reason on a very long list of good reasons to not support you as a blogger and a Steem witness. You’re a charlatan and you need to stop with the bullshit. Every time you propose one of these ridiculous ideas and get called out for being ignorant/oblivious, you hem and haw and backpeddle and throw around your phony “thank you” replies.
Why don’t you try educating yourself first, then try to come up with actual useful ideas that haven’t already been proposed or useful services that don’t already exist...or maybe try to figure out if there’s a good reason why they don’t exist, if they do not?
Oh, right. That would actually involve competence and research - two things in which you clearly have no interest.
For users, it would function as an exchange and this is the easiest way to communicate it. For the developers and law, it would only be similar to a messaging service although the UI would look like an exchange.
On Steem we have a unique opportunity with trust signals to empower users to exchange directly with each other which has significant popular support from our community. If those with the ability to fund the developers doing the work to create it are not interested in giving it a chance, that is fine because just talking about this may help someone get motivated to code it themselves and know where to reach out for help.
Finally with thousands of likes coming in every day on the posts and videos I create, I appreciate you helping me maintain humility in seeing that my work is no better or worse than anyone else's. Our contributions here are equally as valuable and it is more fun with each of us having the freedom to share different viewpoints.
Jerry again did his thing, last time he wanted to create account creater with huge funding and made huge plan, but didnt research that there is already a lot of services. Now he didnt research about laws and licenses.
Downvoted for again creating a buzz around something that might sound cool and positive for your cult / gang but in all is total bullshit - an idea that can not be realized as of the law, the world is not one country by the way.
Do your research before shouting out ideas that can not be implemented. I rarely downvote but this was needed - however my flag is not really making a lot difference.
Upvoted comment so maybe anyone reads this.....
As you requested, the research was done beforehand which is why the design is purely a communications tool which does not ever touch the money. A communications tool has no need for regulation because users deal directly with each other. The proposal is more like a dating app which helps users connect with each other and is not responsible for the outcome. While SteemJ will provide much more in the way of feedback about the transactions from users than a dating app, for regulation is needs not be licensed for any transactions because it does not buy, sell, hold, or transmit any of the money itself.
hmmmm - thought your entry was to create an exchange, now a communications platform which does not touch money - totally different thing then. Your claim "Date your hottest SBD"?
Sure you will get tons of new witness votes with this awesome, brilliant, innovative idea.....
To most people, it would look like an exchange but the functionality and legality would be that of a messaging app. I am grateful for the witness votes that are there today which are enough.
Your idea is a bit too naive. There is a great pain in adoption of exchange because of those KYC/AML policies. The wole cryptospace is already seen as a mean for criminals to launder money.
I join the negative comments to state that the issue is on the legal side, depending on the country. I cannot even start to imagine all the paper work that needs to be done!
A lot of comments say this is impossible to achieve or really hard because of all the US laws and stuff like that, and it's sad that people are denying the idea because of that.
I believe this is a necessity.
Maybe it isn't now and probably not in the next months/ year, but if we want this platform to get really popular, it needs a way to convert Steem into USD and send the money to PayPal (because it's way easier to simply send it there than to work with a bank) because there are A LOT of people who don't want to join Steemit simply because they can't get paid directly with it and have no experience with cryptocurrency.
I have a friend that I kinda convinced at some point to join Steemit, but she still didn't because it's still pretty hard to exchange your money into USD or even EUR and then send it to a bank.
An implementation like this that would allow anyone to change Steem into USD and then send it to PayPal won't only make our life easier, but it will open the borders for ANYONE willing to join, because the process will be so damn simple there's simply no excuse not to be on this website creating content.
Plus, I can't even imagine what it would do to Steem. A cryptocurrency that allows people to directly exchange Steem to USD and send it to PayPal without having to use all kind of websites and active your bank account in all kind of places - that's probably boost the price God knows how much.
I wrote about this a long time ago as well, and threw the idea out there, and while I can't help (because I don't have the knowledge) I believe this is one of the best things that could happen in the future for Steemit and I totally agree with you.
Yes, the platform is amazing as it is and yes, it offers us the possibility to make money while publishing, but if we want it to get really popular, if we want everyone to join, we need to simplify things and make everything easier for the common user who doesn't want to learn a bunch of things about cryptocurrency to publish here and get paid.
I would love this to become reality, and hopefully you won't give up on the idea (or someone else) and it will be achieved.
Thanks for bringing this up!
Love the work you doing, thanks for helping the community.
Peer to peer will definitely get the attention of regulators, once it gets going and is working in volume
You would be one step closer to disintermediating governments from the money supply, and they will push back on that happening to the extent they can.
Same as the swamp creatures are pushing back on Trump in Washington.
Government will push back on not being "the source" of money
The quickest and least expensive way would surely be to work with WallofCoins.com on this!
Yes!
If this happens we are really looking at #1 crypto. It blows my mind how the steemit community solves all problems. Let's go guys!
Hi @jerrybanfield We built and are upgrading a freelancer exchange that works very similar to https://simbi.com/ Our exchange we made to only work with the Earth Nation Cryptocurrency Equality Keys.
We offer the service of creating freelance exchanges for other cryptocurrencies, like steem!
We also offer.... marketplace directories (like amazon), location directories (better then google maps), advanced decision making systems, custom integrated team management systems, post syndication network software, virtual representation, ai customer support and more.
We specalize in empowering cryptocurrency communities with tools to increase the usability and value of their currency.
Our team of 14 developers would be happy to work for Steem.
Exactly @marc99 easy fiat to Steem plus free signup plus smart media tokens plus organic traffic to blogs equals 100x better than Bitcoin!
What does SteemJ stands for? I think that we could find a better name for this platform if it's going to be big. Anyone has suggestions?
I have SteemGigs.com
@jerrybanfield
I just checked https://www.steemj.com website it is a dead page. Is this still under development?
This is an excellent idea. Let's go.
J for Jerrybanfield