The best Steem fork

Taking a different approach that seems to work.

Power Up 100% only

At the time of writing Steem has 5 spin off forks. There is the Russian version called Golos {EN:Voice}, a sports version known as Scorum, the 420 one carries the name Smoke, WeKu is a kind of second devision clone and there is a unique fork that is named Whaleshares. And somehow I got stuck with that last one, which has a brandname known to quite a few Steemians.

It is a community fork of Steem, that began its life on the Steem Social Media platform on a blockchain. And it connects the realm of Bitshares, the parent of Steem, with its offspring WhaleShares. And even though some think it is build on Graphene, like Bitshares, it is actually not anymore. But it is hard to change something like that. Anyway, Whaleshares took the Steem code and took a different turn.

It only lets you Power Up a 100% your publications. This makes it a bit harder to dump WhaleShares {WLS} on the Crypto market. And it makes sense when you want to be a Whale that grows. Also no pegging to any bankers money type, which I think is a great improvement. It is all about WLS, building up your shares. And that might take a while.

21 million to begin with

Where WeKu started off with 400 million and already cut inflation in half, Whaleshares started off with 21 million. And those are spread out using airdrops on those who held Whaleshare (as many Steemians did), Brownie.PTS and/ or Bitshares at the moment of the snapshot. And because it is a snapshot a Whaleshares claim can be made for a long time, creating an account for you on the fly also. (Link - https://wls.services/sharedroptools)

Currently about 24 million WLS are in excistence. That is about 10% of the capacity of Steem and 5% of WeKu. Or to put it in other words, WhaleShares has a lot of growth potential. Although it can be a bit harder to get started overthere. Yet once you are used to the different approach it is fun to be there. (Link - https://whaleshares.io)

The link to Bitshares

At the time of writing, WLS can be traded on the Bitshares DEX {Decentralized EXchange}. A web interface for this that you as a Steemian might like is the RUDEX one. (Link - https://market.rudex.org/) It is aimed at platform tokens like Steem, Golos, Scorum, Smoke and Whaleshares. With all of the variant having trading pairs with Bitshares {BTS}, but also Bitcoin {BTC} and Ethereum {ETH}.

You can create any market pair you want though. As long as a token does excist on the Bitshares blockchain, you can use it. It is even possible to add your own market. Tried it with the Mondo UIA {User Issued Asset} and it works like a charm! Will try and rade me some Steem with it later, I think. (Link - https://market.rudex.org/#/market/MONDO_RUDEX.STEEM) But wait, there is more fun!

Get (Whale)Tokens upvotes

One thing that could work with all Steem forks, that have a public API {Application Programming Interface } available, is a creating a bridge to Bitshares. (This leaves WeKu out.) With this bridge it is possible to link transactions on Bitshares to actions on the WhaleShares platform, or any other Steem fork. Take for instance the MILK token, which I used a few times myself. You can buy them on any Bitshares DEX interface, like RUDEX. (Link - https://market.rudex.org/#/market/MILK_BTS)

Now with this MILK token you can sponsor a link to a publication on Whaleshares. This is done by sending a certain amount of MILK to a specific Bitshares address. That address is linked to a Whaleshares platform account. Which will then automaticly upvote the publication that was in the Bitshares transaction message. Most of these tokens work like 1 token for a 1% upvote. And it works like a charm.

Put some skin in the game

This is how Whaleshares started at Steem and how it became a unique community spin off. Where one of the most fun facts is that everybody can be a Whale. And the more of your own skin you are willing to put into the game, the bigger of a Whale you can become. No delegation gaming, no flag-wars (flagging will cost you 3 times more Mana than an upvote) and what you upvote you share. Those shared publications have a seperate tab, for which I am gratefull.

Much of these Whaleshares innovations can be used in Steem and its other forks of course. No hiding ReSteems, but put them under a seperate tab, (yes please) for instance. And imagine tokens on Bitshares that can be used on all of Steem and its forks, that have a public API, to sponsor publications with upvotes. With the Smart Media Tokens {SMT} coming to Steem in 2019 there may even be more creative ways to use this interaction between different blockchains.

Besides Steem

For me Whaleshares is a unique substantive spin off. It took me some getting used to, but I really started to like it a lot. The whole decentralization realm, of which Bitshares, Steem and EOS are some great examples, is slowly and steady taking off. Web3.0 is happening right here and now.

And wether you are a Steemian, a Whalesharian or even both, it does not even matter that much. Because you are still an early adaptor of the blockcain technology in exciting evolution proces. And while you are here, why not have a good time using it?

May the Cryptos be with us!

Look at me, I'm a Whale!

Digital painting license cc-by-sa @oaldamster.