Hey everyone! As some of you might know I've been involved in the crypto-communities for some time now. The difference between me and many other traders I guess is that they might have had knowledge before block-chain about economics, stocks, exchanges, etc. I on the other hand stumbled upon bitcoin cause I wanted to see if there was another way of payment online than the ones that were available then. So all knowledge I have of real world stocks is very limited but its fun to read about it now considering I am seeing it all from a perspective of someone who has only traded/invested with crypto's.

http://stuffpoint.com/facebook/image/251093-facebook-fanart.jpg

[Source of image](http://stuffpoint.com/facebook/image/251093/fanart-fanart/)

Having said that, I was thinking today how other companies in the world handle their shares and IPO's compared to how the crypto-currencies do it nowadays, and to be honest after reading a bit its not all that different.

I read this page on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial_public_offering_of_Facebook

and down below I will quote text from that page and add comments of my own comparing it to Steemit.

>The social networking company Facebook held its initial public offering (IPO) on Friday, May 18, 2012. The IPO was the biggest in technology and one of the biggest in Internet history, with a peak market capitalization of over $104 billion. Media pundits called it a "cultural touchstone.

The biggest reason it was this big is because it was new. Just like Steemit, it had captured a new aspect of technology and attached everyone in the world to it and that's what mostly gave it value.

>For years, Facebook and Zuckerberg resisted both buyouts and taking the company public. The main reason that the company decided to go public is because it crossed the threshold of 500 shareholders

Steemit started out with mining here and went public as soon as possible, letting anyone in the world become a shareholder if they were interested.

>Facebook did accept investments from companies, and these investments suggested fluctuating valuations for the firm. In 2007 Microsoft beat out Google to purchase a 1.6% stake for $240 million, giving Facebook a notional value of $15 billion at the time. Microsoft did purchase preferred stock, which meant that the company's actual valuation would be considerably lower than $15 billion. Meanwhile, that valuation dropped to $10 billion in 2009, when Digital Sky Technologies bought a nearly 2% stake for $200 million - a larger stake than Microsoft had purchased at a lower price. An investment reported in 2011 valued the company at $50 billion

This reminded me of the whole "ugh I invested in Steemit at $2 each, this has been such a mistake" As you see here, even outside of cryptocurrencies people/companies can get a bad deal depending on timing. Its the long run that matters, especially with the way Steemit is built and the 2 year divestment period. Keep in mind that Facebook did that before even going public with their IPO.

>Facebook filed for an initial public offering on February 1, 2012 by filing their S1 document with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).The preliminary prospectus announced that the company had 845 million active monthly users and that its website featured 2.7 billion daily likes and comments

Needless to say that's what people value nowadays, because of many different aspects such as marketing and lately information of users, targeted ads and many more fun stuff! Thankfully things run differently on Steemit and we still have a healthy amount of new users joining daily!

### A chart of their share price from the first day of trading after the IPO

http://imgur.com/5CnLaGX.jpg

### and here one of recent years from google

http://imgur.com/3WAouP7.jpg

>To ensure that early investors would retain control of the company, Facebook in 2009 instituted a dual-class stock structure.[10] After the IPO, Zuckerberg was to retain a 22% ownership share in Facebook and was to own 57% of the voting shares

Not sure what happened here. Did Zuckerberg purchase those shares back?

Anyway, although facebook and steemit shares are totally different in nature, I still feel like we are so early and people tend to forget that. They don't realize that decentralization and blockchain technology still isn't *in* yet. Most people don't know what it is and what it can do, time will hopefully be the only barrier between decentralization and mass adoption of it.

What I concluded is that the long is still long and rough, especially since its a new technology that most people don't understand, and what they don't understand they want to now have anything to do with. I am certain though this innovation will be game-changing for the future and I can't be happier to be part of it all this early and follow it through.

even Facebook had to deal with a lot of barriers on their way.

>More than 40 lawsuits were filed regarding the Facebook IPO in the month that followed.

>Facebook's IPO is now under investigation and has been compared to pump and dump schemes.

Cryptocurrency shares and real stock shares may not seem all that different after all, it just seems like there is a lot of competition everywhere and the words scam, pump and dump, ponzi, etc seem to be flying wildly from competition to competition. Even trying to have a neutral conversation with someone who doesn't know about a certain altcoin can be found impossible as they only favor the one they are invested in themselves. 

It kind of reminds me of the problems before blockchain even existed or how users would react to bitcoin in the beginning, calling it a ponzi and this and that, how ironic isn't it hearing the same thing about steemit from bitcoin enthusiasts. In my eyes it just seems like greed is controlling the biggest parts of the world lately and I am looking forward to decentralization balancing things out.

Thanks for reading those who did. Steem on :)