Blurt is a social blockchain and a decentralized, cryptocurrency-based blogging platform launched on the 4th of July 2020.
Like Hive, Blurt is a hard fork of the Steem blockchain that seeks to keep all the good things of its parent and sister blockchains and few to none of their weaknesses.
Blurt aims to become a diverse and vibrant social blockchain community that values and rewards intellectual and financial property while promoting free speech and social engagement.
The Birth of Blurt: A Fork of the Steem Blockchain
As stated above, on July 4, 2020, a new Steem hard fork gave birth to the Blurt blockchain and a new cryptocurrency called BLURT.
All existing holders of the STEEM coin as of May 20, 2020, at block 43,526,969 would have received an airdrop of the BLURT coin on a 1:1 ratio.
This means that if you held STEEM, you have been airdropped 1 BLURT for every 1 STEEM token you held.
So, for example, if you had 2000 STEEM coins as of when the snapshot of the Steem blockchain was taken — May 20, 2020 — you will automatically be credited with 2000 BLURT coins.
Yes! You can call it free money — because that’s precisely what it is — But that’s a story for another time.
Why Was a Fork Necessary — To create new free money?
Usually, every blockchain hard fork happens because some person or group of people believe they have a better idea and can do better than the existing system.
Being part of the precise community, these members could submit a proposal(s) that the community will vote on and decide whether to implement
What happens is that when these change-makers cannot get the community to implement their “important” solutions for a better blockchain/community, they opt to forge their path.
And that, in most cases, involves forking the existing blockchain to create a new one or, in rare cases, creating an entirely new project from scratch.
Most dissents go for the former — forking — because it’s easier and faster to get started and running.
But then, what are the main reasons for Blurt forking the Steem blockchain?
Aside from the possibly many “insider” reasons — whatever that is — leading up to the dissent, some of the reasons for this particular fork is the desire by some members of the community to create a healthier and more cohesive community, as can be seen in the major changes highlighted below.
I asked to know the main reason(s) Blurt forked off Steem in their Discord channel, and an admin (a founding member) named Megadrive gave the following response:
“ Blurt forked Steem pre-HF23 when Steem wiped balances of over 50 accounts, Blurt was meant to restore these balances and also be a neutral fork that included all accounts previously excluded in the Hive fork. We also wanted different economics such as no downvotes, the other chains can be very emotionally taxing with downvote wars and malicious whales silencing people with their downvotes. Simply have a look at how a major Twitter influencer left Hive https://hive.blog/@cryptofinally”.
Overall, the project seems more focused on creating a unique identity as it significantly moves away from its Steem parent and sister Hive blockchains.
Thus effectively dropping off some of the charming controversial features and functionalities of Steem and Hive and creating its unique mix.
Some of the things Blurt do differently include but are not limited to:
- Blurt did not copy/paste all Steemit users and content as Hive did. They are starting clean and fresh from scratch, hoping to grow from the ground up rather than “steal” users and content from its parent and sister blockchains.
- Blurt completely removed the downvote button — something that’s being seriously abused on its parent blockchain and Hive, especially by reckless and malicious whales. Thus, we expect more positivity on Blurt as a community is supposed to love each other rather than have the big guys suffocating the efforts of the little players.
- On Blurt, every action or operation you perform costs a fraction of a BLURT — between 0.001 to 0.01 BLURT, depending on the operation. The fees charged vary based on the size of the transactions a user carries out on the blockchain. This means that small transactions like votes will still be relatively cheap. However, it discourages malicious behavior exhibited by a spammer that initially “Cock Blocked” the Blurt launch by continuously posting 64kb of pictures of exposed male parts. The fees were soon introduced to make this 64k of spam very expensive, now costing 6.4 BLURT! Relatively-chain activities cost resources, and having to pay, even if it’s a negligible amount, ensures that bad actors do not deplete network resources by flooding the blockchain with useless activities. This makes me believe in Blurt’s economics and see it as a viable platform as it places value on everything and effectively discourages spam behavior. You will have to think twice before you do things on Blurt, which helps to eliminate all the unnecessary actions users take. Plus, the whole fee thing was implemented to stop the massive spam the new platform received from haters at its inception.
- Blurt seems to value content more than Steem and Hive — at least, so it seems in my first few days on the platform. The rewards for my content on Blurt have been more encouraging than what I earn on Steem and Hive, where I have been for a long time. On Blurt, it doesn’t matter whether you’re new or old; your content will gain equal traction if it adds value to the community.
- Blurt has no free lunch for new members. Creating an account on Blurt costs 1 STEEM or HIVE coin, respectively, and it’s easy and instant. So, creating a Blurt account will take $0.25 from your pocket in STEEM or HIVE. You can only pay for a Blurt account from a Steem or Hive account. So, if you do not have those and don’t want to create them just so you can pay for a Blurt account, you will need someone with a Steem or Hive account to help you make the payment. At least, that’s the state of account creation on Blurt right now. In the future, things may change.
- Blurt will implement the one-stake, one-vote feature for establishing consensus witnesses and creating a regent account with a controlling stake or special weighted vote to protect the chain and see out the founders’ vision while the chain is still in its infancy. The regent account can vote on witnesses and DAO proposals and will be fully depreciated over two years in 24 equal monthly reductions until it empties.
- Unlike Steem, Blurt does not have Blurt dollars Stablecoin. All Steem accounts with Steem dollar balances will be credited with equal Blurt tokens.
- MBlurt will most likely move to another consensus protocol — probably Cosmos-SDK — during the first two years.
Conclusion
I am not shilling the Blurt blockchain already.
Publishing and engaging with other community members on Blurt feels more peaceful, healthy, and rewarding than its parent and sister blogging platforms.
I like that Blurt is forging its path rather than stealing from its parent and sister chains.
That speaks a lot about the Devs because they didn’t choose the seemingly easy path to stardom.
These guys look like people ready to work their ass off to build the project they dream of from scratch, and earned my respect for that.
I know there’s a long way for the community to go, and everything is far from perfect, but Blurt seems to be going in the right direction.
Moreover, it’s free from the drama that usually accompanies forks, such as the Steem Vs. Hive debacle.
One thing I would love to see immediately is making it possible for new members to create and pay for their accounts without having a Steem or Hive account.
This is similar to how I can create and pay for a Steem or Hive account without having either already.
—a hive wasteful duplication of having to create a Steem or Hive account in case I don’t currently have one just because I want to create a Blurt account.
It doesn’t make sense to me — you’re taking your customers through a competitor’s store before they can buy from you. This seriously needs a real and fast rethink.
This will make it easier and faster for new people to join the platform if creating an account is direct and simple.
According to Megadrive, the team will add coinpayments.net to the payment methods to obtain a Blurt account or add accurate information for ETH, LTC, BTC, etc.
Whichever is the case, it’ll be a welcome development as it will make creating a Blurt account more straightforward and accessible, especially for new members (those without Steem or Hive accounts).
Also, one of the admins in their discord group mentioned paying for account creation using a credit card, but that’s a terrible idea — to me. I can’t even think about that.
Using various direct account creation services as is on Steem and Hive is the most thinkable solution, and the Dev team should be thinking along that line rather than using a credit card or taking new members through Steem or Hive.
The STEEM whales that received BLURT as airdrop have dumped the hell out of the coin and are trading at a superlatively low price — $0.01 — at the time of writing this post.
Unlike STEEM at $0.22 and HIVE at $0.26 current market rates, Blurt is dead cheap.
We hope after the dump is over, we will see some upward tick in the price of BLURT coin as the community grows.
We’re starting from the ground up, and I’m excited to be part of this project.