Hi, Kenny, I really like to work with you, because I want to contribute my quota as well as earn some cash to support myself in college. My ordeal here is all on how I can start. Kenny, I like to also ask, what inspire you start you own business, and how old are?
Hi Samuel, Thanks for reaching out! What quota are you talking about? As for the business, my inspiration was really just about trying to solve my own problem. As a content creator, I didn't really have a platform that centralized all my questions. Sometimes I received them on Twitter, and other times I received them on Medium. Often, they were the same if not similar questions. And finally, I couldn't really spend time answering everyone's questions. That's why we started Worthyt. It's a solution to all that. One profile link can be put on all your social media, and anyone can come ask you a question. The public questions and their responses can be seen by everyone, so people who want to ask a similar question already have an answer. Finally, you can also set a price for answering questions to help content creators better earn support from their audience. So because my friends and I decided that there was a need for a service like this one, we decided to pursue it. As a result, I've been able to get a question from you, Samuel, and answer it in a way that everyone can see our public interaction! Cool, huh? Best, Kenny
What's your favorite food?
It is different depending on my mood. Sometimes I crave Soylent! Sometimes I crave a Burger King Whopper.
Hi Kenny, I think I might have just accidentally sent you an empty message and $1. If you could refund my blank message, that would be great. Anyway, I just read your article on Hackernoon, "Ethereum’s ERC-20 Tokens Explained, Simply". In that article, you said, "With a majority of these Dapps, creators want to make their own coins (generically referred to as tokens), which means users must use their specific coin when interacting with Dapps — whether that’s a good thing or bad thing is up for debate, but I’m not here to answer it in this introductory article."; Could you delve into the purpose of why a dapp would have a token or coin? Why do some dapps need them and others don't? Perhaps with some examples? Is this all about ICOs and/or modifying behavior? What are they conditions under which you would employ a coin? What are the conditions under which you would not employ a coin? I hope that's enough to get you started and you get the gist of my inquiry. Cheers. Sincerely, Craig
Craig, No worries. Re: message, I'll simply ignore it and you'll get your money back as a refund after 5 days because I set my time limit to answering questions as 5 days. Re: Dapp tokens... Please note that I am only referencing Ethereum blockchain dapps. To date, unfortunately, I do not think I've found a single project that I have been convinced needs its own token. The most common argument (not a strong one, just a common one) that I've heard is: "We need our own token to control for price."; That's a weak argument considering all tokens are pegged to BTC (https://hackernoon.com/bitcoin-dominance-5a95f0f3319e), at least at this point in time. Furthermore, the price volatility cannot be controlled, because a Dapp token (ERC-20) can be listed on any decentralized Ethereum-blockchain exchange, which means the buyers/sellers dictate the price. Worse, the less people care about your token, the more volatile it becomes because less trading volume means the price is much more sensitive to swings (think about it like this: if the current price is $5 per token, but the next closest bid price that someone is willing to buy for is $4 per token because no one else wants it, the token just dropped by $1 when one person sells). Another thing to think about is this: every transaction on Ethereum requires some amount of Ethereum (it's referred to as "gas" and is a mandatory fee for processing a transaction). Even if you have an ERC-20 dapp's token, you still need Ethereum in order to use it on the dapp. Asking "why does this project need a token" becomes the same as "why does this project need a token on top of the Ethereum it already requires?" ; i.e., "why not just use Ethereum?" Eventually, it drives home to the fact that 1) the project wants to do an ICO, and 2) the project wants to list on a marketplace. Some are honest enough to admit it when you probe, while others stand firm on their questionable answers. The fact of the matter is, ERC-20 projects are not scalable at this point, and few (if any) have a sustainable business model. Off the top of my head, I can't think of one project that is still in existence that is fueled entirely by sales revenue. This is why projects like doing "ICOs" and "market listings"--it helps them access money that they otherwise can't get. One exception to all of this is the stablecoin. A stablecoin project pegged to a basket of assets has a use for its own coin if it decides to take the ERC-20 route because it cannot use Ethereum, as Ethereum is not pegged to an existing, stable asset like the dollar. Ironically enough, stablecoins can't really go through an ICO because their value doesn't change. And if you can buy a stablecoin for less than the value of the stablecoin... Well, then it's not a stablecoin. But this gets into the argument that "investors" are only interested in ICOs if the token has a promise of higher future value, which implies that an ICO-ed token is just a security.
Hi Kenny, I've just read your article about the worth of youtube subscribers now in 2019, published last January in https://hackernoon.com/do-youtube-subscribers-matter-anymore-in-2019-699eed68a927 Thank you for that, now I would like to know your opinion. I completely agree in what you say in the article but then I wonder to know your opinion why in the PewDiePie versus T-Series serial Then, what is the reason to take channel subscribers number as the ratio to measure this fight? And also, why do you think is the reason for PewDiePie to try to win a fight he just can't win in the medium term? Considering the daily content a company like T-Series is able to upload on a daily basis and the number of subscribers you can get having a whole country behind your company. Thank you very much!
Hi David, Thanks for writing to me! To be honest, I never even heard of this fight with PewDiePie and T-Series until you mentioned it just now, so also thank you for bringing it to my attention. I don't think this contest between the two channels is for anything beyond entertainment purposes and a vanity metric. Take, for example, a hypothetical scenario where PewDiePie instead, is going up against a different YouTube channel -- one with just as many subscribers, except it has no video views. Wouldn't that seem suspicious? The first thought that comes to mind is that the channel is buying subscribers, or is using bots to generate subscriber count. Also, at the end of the day, that hypothetical channel would be making no money through advertising revenue. On the other hand, instead of having 96 million subscribers and no views the hypothetical channel had no subscribers but 96 million views per video... Well, boy, that's a lot of ad money! Therefore, I stand by my opinion that subscriber count strokes little more than the ego. The contest is a great way to get more exposure for both PewDiePie and T-Series, but I'm sure both of them fully know that it's the views that they want--not simply subscriber count.
I am a huge fan of your micropayment system for content creators. Recently, payment systems such as Patreon and SubscribeStar have been involved in controversy for providing payments to content providers that activists didn't like. In some cases those content providers did not break any laws or even violate the payment providers published code of conduct, but the political pressure, or the payment provider's own political bias, caused the payment provider to ban the content provider from the platform. Does Worthyt have any plan that you can discuss that will shield content providers from political activism from anyone who disagrees with their content? It appears that Worthyt has a slight upper-hand in such situations since the content provider does not have to list the Worthyt logo in order to receive payments. Of course I would not want Worthyt or anyone to process any illegal payments, but there are many activist groups who organize broad campaigns to cut off payments to any ideas that those activists disagree with instead of engaging in honest debate, so payment provider platforms are becoming the political battle-ground of the marketplace of ideas and this issue will probably not disappear for quite a while. I realize this might be a politically charged question, so you can make it private if you need to. Thanks.
Hi Mark, Wow, just got done with exams but my hat's off to you--this was the hardest question I've had to face all week! Thank you for the challenge and pushing me to think critically about a very important and sensitive topic. Ultimately, if a content provider doesn't break the law or break our or our partner's code(s) of conduct, it isn't Worthyt's place to censor any mature discussion, regardless of any personal bias. We do not transfer any personal views into the platform, and do not intend to do so. This app was designed as a system to filter for quality engagements that matter--questions and discussions that people would pay to have. It's for people who are looking for more than a shouting match; after all, the person answering has a lot of power--I could have chosen to ignore your question, and it wouldn't show up on my profile. Other people would never have even seen it. Thank you again for pushing this issue in front of me; I'll be giving it much more thought and making sure we have a strong response plan in the event that we come under pressure to engage in unethical censorship (not saying what Patreon or SubscribeStar did was unethical--to be honest, I haven't been following their actions closely so I don't really have a worthwhile opinion on it).
Hi Kenny, Are you long term bullish(10-15 years) on bitcoin or passing fad? If so how would you refute the following by a reputed finance guru: "I ended up getting even more bullish on the technology but bearish / skeptical / ambivalent about the prices of coins. So far, this has been a reasonable viewpoint. I think blockchain’s big impact is going to be on the expense side of corporate and government balance sheets, not on the revenue line. It strikes me as an efficiency thing more than as a growth thing. But what I’m fairly convinced of is that there is no reason to believe blockchain’s success as a technology in some way guarantees the price of a coin or a token has to go up in value, in tandem with mass adoption. It’s strange to me that so many seem to be having so much trouble mentally separating the two things.";
Hey Jeff, Re: my opinions on its long-term price is a bit more positive than the current market, but then again, I'm not a financial adviser nor do I study markets enough to be a respectable trader, so of course my opinion on the future price is worth less than a Satoshi. Re: the quote - I'm sure you already understand, but there is a difference between the technology (blockchain) and the financial instrument (cryptocurrency) made possible by it. With the enormous rush that recently happened, people are starting to realize that reality doesn't necessarily match the expectations made by the promises of cryptocurrency. For example, Bitcoin is supposed to be this global currency that is protected from inflation and can be used to eventually buy a coffee at your local Starbucks; well, that's going to be hard considering that the Bitcoin network has trouble supporting even a moderate scale of transactions (i.e., it slows down tremendously and you might be waiting days for your transaction to process just to buy a coffee). There are many competitors and alternative solutions to scalability but the technology is just not quite there yet to make cryptocurrencies something that's truly interesting to transact with. For example, even with altcoins, most of the "transacting" that happens isn't to use the decentralized apps like "decentralized Uber" or "decentralized AirBnB" -- it's mostly transacted all on exchanges, which is a big indicator of how speculative it actually is. With a lack of actual use cases, it's no wonder why the SEC is targeting and labeling most tokens as securities and under its jurisdiction within the United States. On the technology side, blockchain does provide many benefits but they must also be selectively chosen. Just as Big Data, AI, AR/VR, Machine Learning and IoT have all been huge buzzwords of the past and present, blockchain is mistaken to be some elixir technology that should be applied to any and every field--this misunderstanding will only serve to artificially inflate the industry even more, because the reality is that it just doesn't need to and shouldn't be applied to every existing technology. On a high level, it is little more than an append-only database that is really, really slow compared to a local database that has way more functionality, with the trade-off of security. So if your app requires a high level of data integrity to the point where the speed is not necessarily a priority, then a blockchain solution would be a good fit. Otherwise... Just stick with traditional databases. Better yet, a startup would probably get an even bigger valuation if they used "machine learning" instead.
Hi Kenny, Someone sharp on twitter said: "The next BIG story in crypto will be dapp games, where rare in-game items stay truly rare due to decentralized nature, and where these items appreciate in token value. We are one BIG game away from worldwide frenzy. Watch $EOS."; If his thesis holds true, why EOS over ETH? best sophie
Hey Jeff/Sophie, You're asking me why EOS over ETH, I assume in relation to why the game will be built on EOS vs. on ETH. Well, the assumption here is that EOS is far more scalable than ETH. For example, the ETH network slowed down to a snail's pace trying to just keep up with transactions with cryptokitties, and that wasn't even mass adoption. At this point, it is just not a blockchain ready to scale. That being said, EOS is assumed to be much more scalable, although the adoption in application hasn't really gotten to a point where its bandwidth becomes questionable yet. EOS is also more centralized in its distribution than ETH and is arguably not decentralized at all; while one can argue the pros and cons of that, one of the benefits is that it will be more scalable. That's why I think this person on Twitter claims it will be built on EOS. I'm not saying it will or won't, I'm just trying to walk you through the thought process. Hope that helps! Best, Kenny
Hi Kenny Are you long term bullish on eth? I see weaknesses: you could buy enough eth to play with dapps or use any other smart contract platform. Use the rest of $ on better store of value in btc. And ICOs are selling eth to fund projects; it looked like price rose faster than infant tech and bubble now deflating. This has strong momentum down. On other hand it has developer community/ moving fast . Best Sophie
Hey Sophie! In full transparency, I do have ETH in my portfolio right now. While buying ETH to play with dapps sounds interesting, I don't think a sizable percentage of the market is actually doing that; in fact, I'd assume 99% of ETH buyers don't use dapps. Even the altcoin enthusiasts. Also, although the initial momentum has died down, I think you can say that about many coins, especially if you look back over the past 6 months. One major under-rated advantage of Ethereum is the fact that it's on Coinbase, which gives it very quick access to new users and liquidity.