Over the past few days, I wrote about some of the things that I see once we get the next hard fork.  On a day like today, when the price of the crypto world is nothing but red, it is good to look ahead.

Steem is a solid project.  Do not be fooled into thinking that price is reflective of what is going on.  The entire crypto space is getting hammered, hence there is no where to hide.  Steem is going along for the ride; unfortunately, it is on a downward path.

In the first two article, I explained how the introduction of SMTs will alter a basic component of Steem.  Instead of trying to bring people to Steem, it will be brought to people.  SMTs are going to appeal to those individuals/entities that already have users.  Attracting one person means the entire user base follows.

https://steempeak.com/busy/@taskmaster4450/marketing-shift-bringing-steem-to-them

The second article detailed the power that STEEM has by being the pair for all tokens created using the SMT protocol.  For the market to operate efficiently, liquid STEEM is required.  We get a glimpse of this with the STEEM peg as the pair on Steem-Engine.  SMTs will take this to a new level.  With a couple hundred tokens, the demand will not be that great.  However, if there are thousands of different tokens on the internal exchange, representing projects of every size, we will see a great need for STEEM to provide liquidity to the market.

https://steempeak.com/busy/@taskmaster4450/sink-steem-as-a-pair

Another piece to this puzzle is the anticipated Resource Credit Pool.  This is a feature that is going to be added to alleviate the problem with on-boarding users.  We know the present system is very slow in getting people signed up.  No real growth can take place when people have to wait weeks for an account and only a few hundred are approved a day.

The Resource Credit Pool is going to spread the sign up process out to the applications.  It will provide the Resource Credits needed to enable those people to interact.  This is a major problem for new accounts.  Without the RCs that come from SP, one is very limited in what he or she can do.

From what we understand, the RC Pool is going to allow anyone who has excess to contribute it to a pool.  Here is where applications (along with individuals) can go and get the RC required for their users.  

Since Resource Credits are a result of powering up STEEM, someone is going to have to do that to keep the RC Pool funded.  **This is where we see another demand for STEEM enter the picture.**  Individuals are going to be able to generate a return based upon the RCs being held.  This means some will increase their stake with the sole intention of adding to the RC Pool.

It is important to note what each account that is active on a site using the SMT protocol is going to need RCs.  As mentioned yesterday, with thousands of potential tokens, we could end up seeing millions of transactions each day.  To transact on Steem requires a small amount of Resource Credits.  Just the act of swapping one token for another on the internal exchange using up RC.  Thus, STEEM is going to be required to keep enough Resource Credits available to all who want to operate.

The second point to this is the fact that the users who are on the sites that do adopt the SMT protocol are going to continue their activities.  A nice part about this entire development is that users do not have to alter where they go.  They can use the same site (hence bringing Steem to them).  However, since all articles, comments, and upvotes are tied to the Steem blockchain, these activities will now require Resource Credits.

SMTS have the advantage to bring in large numbers.  If adopted by a handful of websites that have 10M+ MAU, we would see a tremendous jump in the activity on Steem.  If this protocol is adopted by just 5 sites of this size, and only 1% of them set up Steem accounts to interact, that means we will see 500K users added.  That is more than a 10X increase over the present users base.  

The great thing is all these people will require Resource Credits to operate which means more STEEM needing to be powered up.

It is also helpful to keep in mind that Internet usage is growing.  Thus, the potential market when "tokenizing the Internet" is growing.

https://cdn.broadbandsearch.net/blog/internet-statistics/01-01.jpg

https://www.broadbandsearch.net/blog/internet-statistics

![internet.png](https://ipfs.busy.org/ipfs/QmZcJCEspXURHmi8YyhHHopPBZKqvPkNcd3mgXrBybCJFe)

https://www.websitehostingrating.com/internet-statistics-facts/

Thus, each year, the potential market for the SMT protocol will grow.  As sites add new users, they instantly become candidates for a Steem account.  This will only add to the potential base of Steem.

All this is nothing more than the power of numbers.  Most of what takes place on the Internet is based upon this so it only makes sense that Steem is following suit.  We are not talking a great deal of penetration into the online world to have 1M active users on the Steem ecosystem.  Once again, that is a 25X multiple of where we are today.

Some will think this a pipedream but I do not agree.  1M users online is a rounding error.  There are tens of thousands of sites that get that many visitors in a month.  Steem only needs to access a few of them to be a major success.

When we are talking about "sinks" for tokens, I think Steem will have a couple very large ones once the next hard fork is complete.  We are looking at the potential to add thousands of users a day as compared to hundreds.  The difference is, even with this growth, the user base does not have to learn or be convinced of anything.  They simply do the activity on the same websites that they were doing before.  This time, however, they are being rewarded for their efforts AND **all of their activity is going on the Steem blockchain**.

This is why I feel the next hard fork is a major game changer.  It will accelerate things for this entire ecosystem.  I honestly believe that SMTs, along with the Resource Credit Pool, will be Steem's "brower moment".

Do not fret about the present when the future is so bright.

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