My First Few days on BLURT

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This post is not financial advice If you decide to follow what I'm doing, you do so at your own risk.

I decided to check out BLURT. I had heard about it several ties but never got around to it. it is similar to Hive , it's a fork form steemit I believe. There are a few differences I want to go over real quick.

The first is it is not as well developed at Hive. it doe not have 2nd layer tokens and the main bog website has basic features. There may be other front ends that I am not aware of.

Also keep in mind have only been on the platform for a few days and there is so much I do not know.

One of the main differences, which could be a hurdle for new users is that transactions are not free. It does cost a small amount of Blurt to post, comment etc. However, if you make a post you will likely earn that back plus a lot more.

That said I would recommend you start off your account with at least 20 liquid BLURT to cover transactions while you wait for post/curation payouts.

One very interesting feature is there are no downvotes. Yes users can be reported if they are doing really shady shit like physical threats, plagiarism etc, but there are no downvotes. This means your post and curation earnings are your own. There is a "coal" list which is essentially a black list but even if you are on it you can still get upvotes, you just likely won't be added to curation bots, trails etc.

Speaking of curation bots I discovered something very interesting, there is a bot called blurtpowerbot. I am not sure who runs it but it acts as UBI (I believe it also follows the blacklist/coal list) You get votes based on the BLURT power you hold. This is a free service . You do not need to delegate to the bot. In fact I found out about it with my first post before I knew it existed.

The more BLURT power you have ,the higher the upvotes.

There is also an excellent curation community where folks can post their blog entries to potentially be seen by curators. I have found this community to be very supportive. Overall the BLURT community has been supportive of me from the start.

So far it's been a positive experience on the platform. I am still learning the ropes but it is very similar to hive just not as many tools available for easy access.

I have a personal goal of reaching 100,000 BLURT power by the end of the year. I have been slowly adding funds and powering up. Obviously post and curation earnings are going to add to that.

Speaking of curation there is a bit of a barrier to entry if you intend to curate. By my estimate 20k or more BURT power should be the minimum goal. This is because of the small transaction fees. You don't want to pay more in fees than you receive for curation. That number may change over time and you probably could get away with curating at 10k BLURT power but earnings would be low. Once you hit 20k+ though it seems to be a much better situation.

Is it an exact replacement for Hive? No. But the no downvote aspect is very appealing. My opinion right now whales have too much power on Hive. One person can over ride the upvotes of hundreds, possibly thousands of people. This is not decentralization.

One person or a small group of people shouldn't be able to have this much control over a decentralized platform. A few whales hold the power and they tend not to police themselves like they do smaller accounts that can't fight back. In fact ,for the most part, the biggest accounts that are doing the biggest "abuses" (I mean difference of opinion not people violating TOS) remain untouched for years while smaller accounts get crushed for doing far less.

I have seen this play out far too many times. Frankly, I think it will be the downfall of Hive long term if this remains unchecked as is.

It's also not an either or thing. You can post on BLURT and Hive if you choose to. Even if it's simply for diversification.