My Thoughts On The Steem Hostile Takeover & Moving Forward
My response to Justins recent blog post: https://steempeak.com/@justinsunsteemit/progress-being-made
I speak on behalf of myself only, as the 3rd biggest community elected proxy voter & I am the 3rd largest Steem hodler on the entire blockchain.
I leave emotions out of things and think of business logic first. I am not here to be anti-Tron nor do I have any desire to continue battling you if you were to remove the sock puppet witnesses currently occupying our blockchain.
In order to move forward, you will need to retract your "hacker" statements. Now that you know the truth those statements should be retracted and an apology is needed.
Steem has lived with the Ninjamined stake, promised since day 1 that would not vote and be used for community development. Steemit INC (USA based company) provided guarantees to the community about how the funds would be used. We never locked Steemit INCs funds, nor forked him out.
As a show of good fate, I would like you to remove the sock puppet witnesses, so we can talk on the same level rather than from a hostage standpoint.
"Meanwhile we would like to reassure you that we intend to commit to Steem for the long-term and we plan to bring a lot more value to Steem than even the value of our holding. We see the potential for growth here for both of our chains is tremendous and sincerely look forward to working with you on an ongoing basis."
These are the type of statements Steemit INC made since day one. That is why a lot of investors invested in this ecosystem because we knew there would be funding for future development. I would like you to publically renounce interfering in our governance with the Ninjamined stake. These are not demands, this is me letting you know what I would feel comfortable with as a large stakehodler on this platform. The current 30% of the Steem supply is enough to cause strain on decentralized governance.
In the town hall talks, you said you would be willing to donate a chunk to the SPS (Steem DAO) to help fund development and further decentralize the stake, as always intended. This would lower the amount you hodl thus lower the threat of a possible takeover if you ever go back on your word.
You ask us to say we won't support witnesses that freeze funds. Asking us to agree to that spins the narrative. We can agree that we started off on the wrong foot, there were no ill intentions at all. Ned did a shady deal without informing you, and with the hostile token swap/migration marketing, lack of communication, Zion account voting SRs in, Ned keeping all this a secret, and weeks of time passing, the witnesses implemented an easy to reverse soft fork. I, OF COURSE, would NEVER support any malicious witnesses that went "rogue" to freeze user funds. I have never voted for a malicious witness and I won't start today.
Regardless of the thoughts here, we can agree there was no ill intent. We simply wanted to inform you of what you purchased and see how you would react. From there we can either fork if we disagree and move on or work together if the plan sounds good. At least we wouldn't be blindsided. So if users want to "fork" out your stake, that would create a new chain and we would have Steem and the new chain. I would not support anyone forcibly taking anything away from you nor anyone else. From the VERY beginning, we wanted to know your intent. This is all voluntary.
Getting exchanges to vote was the worse thing you could have done and I hope you understand it is best to communicate directly with us asap when you have concerns.
With all of this said, of course, I would not support any witness with ill intent, meaning to cause harm to our blockchain.
Once you remove the puppets, and you do what you say you're going to do in that open letter, I believe there is a shot at keeping the community here. Any funny business and it will lead to a fork and split the chain. I believe a fork is ineviable at this point, but I will never give up on STEEM, and I will always vote for community elected witnesses here. If there comes a day you retake the entire network and force us on tron, I will consider it game over and would move on at that point. But as long as we have community elected witnesses that have even a remote shot at getting in, I will stay here fighting the entire time. We just want our home decentralized, we don't want 1 person to make all the rules. So if there is going to be a fork, and you're publically promising to do the right thing, it puts us back at the same place we were with Ned.
I really dislike Ned. I don't really dislike you. I really disliked a lot of what you said and did, but I am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt with the rough start. Regardless it does not matter what I think, STEEM is here, if you stand down and release our chain, let's at least see what happens from there.
▶️ 3Speak
Absolutely we said. We must keep moving forward. Steem is not steemit
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👍👍
!trdo
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I have to read and read it again, you really pour out some emotions here and your feelings too. It's clearly written underneath your words.
The emotions you have for Steem, the love that bind you to it to never see Steem fail.
The good people of Steemiverse wouldn't let it let. If you don't give up on Steem, we can't give up. We are all in this together.
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Think that about sums it up. In the style only you can do. I agree
"I'm a stubborn S.O.B...." LOL You and me both man...I think every single person on Steem that has gone through the bear market as well as this latest drama believe in something the rest of the world doesn't yet see...
But they are starting to see it!
And I have never been more honored to be a part of this community!
Let’s create S.O.B community jk 😂😂😂
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We all are stubborn SOB's 😂👊
Community theme song:
Resteemed!! The community needs to hear this! 💪🏼🙌🏼💯
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This community does not need a leader! @ned failed. Justin failed in a couple days!
What we do need is Strong voices, thanks for being one @theycallmedan!
With strength are voices will multiply!!
Steemwar-on!
We fight together. For the love of steem.
I so sincerely hope that you can take a part in the talks that the witnesses have with Mr. Sun @theycallmedan
I have a feeling that Mr. Sun is motivated by profits and if someone like you could bring him around to see that your suggestions can work, that he would be more amendable to participate, rather than to fight.
I am known a straight talker and there is no sweet talk to win your favor here. Just matters of fact that affect all of us!
Hope that this can come true!
Blessings to your efforts!
This is great. I hope Justin wants to make money. There's no way he can win fighting the Steem community but we can all win if he joins us.
What about offering a concession to get Sun to offer a concession? Would a 4 week powerdown interest Sun at all?
I'm against making special rules for people who "push in line".
All of these deal makings were done in a corporate, NDA, style hubub, without talking to the community.
If they could have leveraged their intentions, without the protest of the community, they would have robbed in a truly opportunistic, venture capitalist, way.
The fact that they tried to barge into, and to control, the entire decision making core, just shows a lack of empathy to anybody but for their heroes; Greed, Ego & Big Boots.
This Facebook-esque type of behaviour could have propelled Steem into the limelight, and relevance, up the chart, like a rugby player tucking the ball under his arm and charging forward.
Steem may have wallowed into obscurity from a biased, inequatable power system - as it is still trying to evolve & morph into something relevant.
The power down system has done its job by ensuring there isn't any reactionary behaviour - which is awesome.
The controversy has really opened eyes within the community, outside of the community, and creates discussions as to what is Steem, what is Ninja mining, what development is required & in what direction, who should have an influence, is a hard fork necessary, is splitting beneficial in the longer term & many such great discussions.
The recent resignations provided those individuals a pivotal moment to reflect on where do they want to spend their efforts.
Existing leaders can now decide how they want to move forward, or backout, of their involvment in Steem.
The Witness ladder became so much more relevant/poignant than from the many articles I have read.
What a great crossroads that we in the Crypto world are experiencing.
It's right up there with many pivotal decisions made in history when change is forced upon groups.
Justin said he would stop voting if witnesses promise not to freeze his assets.
Why don't we just compromise and make a soft fork that removes his voting rights, and exchanges' voting rights? This is what should have been done from the start.
That would be not offer any real protection against someone going back on their word because the stake can always be moved to other accounts to vote. In the case of exchange accounts which are normally kept liquid, this can be done instantly, and in the case of exchange accounts that are now powering down, they will soon be able to do the same.
There was a good reason that the soft fork restricted transfers as well as voting, because that is the only effective way to guard against the stake voting, as well as guard against the stake being powered down and whisked away, leaving nothing but empty words and broken promises in its place.
Witnesses who ran something so easily circumvented and insecure as a mere vote block without a transfer block would demonstrate lack of understanding of the relevant blockchain mechanics and would certainly lose my confidence.
The ninja-mined stake needs to remain where it is so that there is continued transparency and the community can continue to exercise oversight against bad actors who do not do as they claim they are going to do, and instead attempt to just pocket the funds and run off, as we unfortunately and carelessly already allowed Ned to do. Stakeholders and witnesses are currently in a position of "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me."
Of course, it can be withdrawn and spent at a reasonable rate as long as funding to develop the ecosystem is maintained (as Steemit did, albeit even then incompetently, at least up until the sham "layoffs"), and as Dan mentioned in the post, SPS can be part of that.
One possible compromise is Justin can own the Steemit Inc stack that he purchased outright but only after a certain length of time. For the sake of argument, let’s say that length of time is agreed upon to be 5 years. It could then be hard coded into the next fork so trust is not required anymore.
The way I see this coded is a continuous line with 0% ownership on day 1 and 100% ownership on day 1825. If on day one, Justin powers down, 100% of the power down goes to the SPS. If after 1 year, 80% goes to the SPS, and 20% he can keep. And so on.
Neither side will like this compromise, which indicates to me that it is likely fair. The biggest negotiable would be the length of time.
This Compromise has several benefits. The first is it is coded so it removes the trust factor. The second is it is a win-win mutual compromise for both sides so we can move on from this together as one. A split of the chain is not a good idea, especially when the exchanges are likely to side with Justin.
This is a win for Justin because there is now an agreed upon time that he can get his “full ownership”. The lost is it will not happen tomorrow.
It is a win for the community because this keeps the chain together and hard codes the trust out of the agreement. It also keeps Justin’s skin in the game. If he wants a return on his investment, he will need to develop it over this time frame. This also gives the steem blockchain more time to dilute the initial mined stake, reducing governance concerns when this stake becomes free for Justin to use as he pleases. It is a lost for the community because eventually Justin will gain full control over the stake.
No one will like this, so let’s all agree that it is truly a compromise.
In five years there isn't much dilution (about 25%). It would still be a massive, essentially consensus-breaking block of stake. Other than that I don't think the idea is all that bad (maybe that makes it a bad compromise!)
Oh yea. The hard numbers I know nothing about. I just made up the time frame.
justin is making > 15,000 SP each week with just 50% of top 20 witness. That's 3 quarter million SP a year. or 750,000 each year.
why in the world would he agree to those terms to lock assets that he already paid 100% with cash for?
note: 750,000 SP with 10 top 20 witness = 1,500 Mvest of votes increases doing nothing each year.
For the betterment of steem which he will do because: “large steem stake x 0 = 0”. “Large steem stake x large value = cash money”
i think the last 4 years of whales doubling, triping, (and in some cast even more) their stake at the expense ofcommunity, not to mention cashing out millions in USD with constant powerdown and selling at expense of steem prices already proofs that very large stake doesn't mean a decision for the betterment of all
besides even if 25%-50% of steemians traffic gets drawn to tron, that is worth close to 10x his ninja stake due to network effect and size of tron, he can benefit a ton with zero Steem price movement even negative, I'm sure you are aware he already have > 1 billion USD funds raised during boom time. The whole steem blockchain could be a tax write off for him, he really wants the power and traffic steem generates...that's the primary value.
justin is just buying time, time to:
get a hf ready to reduce powerdown time for rich accounts belonging to exchanges, when he's ready he can powerup a few more million SP from reserves (and from exchange anon accounts)
time to earn 750,000 SP each year with just 10 top 20 witness (currently he has 11, and 9 others also earning)
time to code his Steem migration to Tron ecosystem airdrop, so he can attract Steem users to tron via generous airdrops that requires participation, before he exits Steem
don't pay attention at what rich people say, pay attention to what they do.
Yes, standing down would be appropriate at this point Justin/ Tron! Let the witnesses and large stake get some sleep. I bet you could use some too! #onkill
I didn't know you are this big. Respect.
This is a nice strong and clear statement I was hoping to see. Not some of the roundabout ones I was seeing that basically said "Justin bad" and not offering clear ways of moving forward.
Funds safe, do what you want, if you screw with us you'll lose us. Simple.
In my opinion I would choose to fork out and start a new chain. We don't know what Justin would do next considering that he got the means and he could get hostile. We don't want anymore of that. Ned should face the consequences not the community
deep voice I AM BATMAN
Yo hows your voting socks puppet going on? Please sell more tron and buy more steem yo! You need it!
And oh yeah
deep voice YOU'RE A FUCKING LOSER
And man hows your investment going on yo?
It's a parody account. :P
Hilarious! :D
shuss don't ruine folks fun like that...... deep down we all know Steem is powered not by witnesses but by the fuel of 1st grade drama.... the
spice>drama must flow!I selected you as my proxy voter because I trust your judgement and because you have a proven history of involvement in helping the STEEM community. Reading your post today, it makes me happy for my decision. Well done, @theycallmedan!
You are freakn killn it! Stand strong, no backing down!
Good work man, This needs to spread. Justin gonna lose all of us and all his investment if he doesn’t work with us.
This is one of the best posts I've read in the matter. I personally do like Tron & I welcome their community but both have to make amends to satisfy both parties.
I sent you a message on Twitter. It isn't spam. It's important.
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Great response. I wouldn't trust a single thing Justin Sun says right now. If he was misled by Ned then you would think he would be unleashing all his fury in that direction. He wanted to take over, make money and move on to his next victim.
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Im Always skeptical about what witnesses and large stakeholders do behind the scenes (Not making any accusations) but it’s easy to see who cares about this place and I would much rather side with people who care. So despite my natural skepticism I have to admit that I’ve personally seen nothing but good from you, and I agree with your statements most of the time, especially right now. Thanks for speaking out man
Let's send @ned to jail yo!
This is mental. In my mind, the witnesses need to give Justin his money back, they can then make demands from the moral high ground.
Cg
During the acquisition justin would not clarify to the community what his intentions were with the SteemIt funds, nor would he acknowledge the prior agreements made between the community and SteemIt regarding those funds, like how they would not be used to vote. Why did he refuse to engage with the community and answer these simple questions?
The duly elected witnesses agreed that this back-handed deal and justin's silence on these important matters was a threat to the entire Steem community and made a last-resort decision to temporarily freeze SteemIt's funds until we could get some answers. If Justin thought this was an unjust decision, he could have taken the moral high ground by appealing to the community to vote for his witnesses and reverse the soft fork. Instead he completely neglected the voters and colluded with exchanges to misappropriate customer funds and overturn our democracy. His actions and those of the exchanges go against the basic principles of decentralization.
He has another chance to take the moral high ground by removing his sock-puppet witnesses and returning power to the community.
Imagine if Zuckerberg sold Facebook, would the new owner have any obligation whatsoever to you or any user to tell you what his plans were?
Those prior 'agreements' were a joke, Ned used that stake how he pleased, and nobody said anything when he cashed out $30 million dollars worth to his personal bank account, or used them to vote in and out witnesses of his choosing.
They have been used many times, how do you think @freedom was powered up?
Of which they had no right to do, Justin bought something, and because of something he might do, they effectively stole his money.
Saying that they would give it back after gaining assurances, is essentially blackmail. If I take something of yours and say I'll only give it back if you do something for me is extortion, and is wrong (and illegal).
True. However that is like saying; you should have reacted better to me punching you in the face.
First of all, as I've said in many articles, Steem isn't, and never was decentralised. The Steem IP is owned by Steemit Incorporated, a company registered in the United States.
The Steem blockchain is controlled by 20 witnesses who were voted in by the Steemit witness @freedom, without those votes, they would not have been top witnesses.
Decentralisation as far as Steemit's concerned, is an illusion at best.
Don't forget, that anyone with enough money could do what Justin's doing at the moment. Maybe that's what you mean by democracy, if you have enough money, then you're in charge.
You mean give power to the community for the first time. Because as I've mentioned a few times now, the only way to be a top 20 witness in the days of Ned, was to have his vote via the @freedom account.
So you see, there's a lot of misinformation surrounding this subject which is getting repeated over and over again. we need to move past all of this, and start making moves to make sure this place doesn't die.
Cg
@theycallmedan, Definitely Sock Puppet Witnesses should go out and we should bring our Community Witnesses back.
But in my opinion we need Improvements our side too because, if Witnesses are Community Witnesses then before Soft Fork they should have discussed it with Community, because Community have the right to Agree and Disagree beforehand.
Steem is greatest Community out there but Froze Of Funds from both side in my opinion brought and raised concerns regarding Safety Of Funds on Steem Blockchain and for outsiders these concerns are very valid.
I want to see Steem Culture like before and hope that we will see it very soon. Stay blessed.
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This. Softfork immediately deployed after secret meeting, without any community validation, is the opposite of decentralization. Also, a precedent on freezing is a precedent, no excuses; the code was not temporary at all either (no matter the claimed intent). On top of that, many have added that xenophobic .4444 as version number.
Yes, sockpuppets must go immediately, and never again come back. But right after that some introspection is in order.
Let's hope that everything will get aligned in good way in near future. Stay blessed.
Speech like out of a Movie! Real Shit!
I overstand Dan, who invested so much...
but i'm not sure how much of a "Family" this place ever was or how
much "business skills" the witnesses have/had...
But what i always respected about Steemit (and also Threespeak) is
the Freedom of Speech , we (still?) have here...
This could be the most valuable thing here...
Did you go to Steemfest last year? If you did, you would understand the bond we all have.
The bond of holding a lot of stake and making HF that favor those people, yeah, i overstand Dan ;)
I mean with all respect for the real value that i mentioned before, that is the "familys" direction...
Still, y'all are better than Tron Boy...
Justin Sun sing Softfork song
Holographic Justin Sun sing popular Softfork song -Lets have some fun:)
Although the situation is serious
interesting also when I think about it, I also want to do it
What’s the likelihood he will do anything he says he’s going to do?
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Good post
Well said!
You speak for me, too. Well said.
Crypto Batman 😂👊
I felt like I was in church!
I'm sorry Dan, while I appreciate your efforts, I think you fail to recognize the power dynamic at play.
This isn't some 'fair' 'democratic' system.
Justin is the OWNER now, like it or not, the rest of the platform is subservient to that, you saw what happened when the witnesses made a fork to protect the platform, you saw the 'resignations' that followed.
Have you seen Justin's track record with his investment 'properties'?
I'm sure many appreciate the fight you've taken on, the efforts will be futile in the long run.
We can agree to disagree. He does not control the network. We are at a stalemate, and as long as we have a chance I am not quiting. Others can do what they want.
I'd like to hope you are correct.
I feel bad for those who have invested real money into the platform, it is starting to look like the ending phase of a ponzi scheme. AKA the point where people begin to withdraw their money from 'investments' and we find out who actually made money and who is left holding the bag when all the money has been extracted.
Congratulations @theycallmedan!
Your post was mentioned in the Steem Hit Parade in the following category:
I am only a small fish here, but I do not give up to always support the positive things for steem and steemit. even though I know I can't do much. but I can still help, even if only for the selection of real witnesses. I always hope for the best at Steemit.
oya your steemit's name is a bit the same as one of the cities in the country. I was impressed when I saw your name, I thought if you were Medan.
link maps kota medan
Medan
Kota Medan, Sumatera Utara
https://maps.app.goo.gl/4KY36na9pieH8u886
I'm with you @theycallmedan, we've invested and been holding for too long to just let this fall apart.
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wow. this is amazing. i'm speechless. true passion.
ahahahahhahah THE ENDING IS GOLD! "STEP DOWN OR GET READY FOR THE LONGEST FUCKING BATTLE OF YOUR LIFE!" AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAH
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at this rate, justin will likely quit Steem, hence we will technically win inside of steem, but before he quits Justin will powerdown, and so will other Asian investors, and so will the koreans
OR
he will bring as many users from Steem into the Tron eco sphere before he leaves, by offering them Steem-tron Airdrop....which you will also take I'm sure, diluting the community's time and value, and increasing the Tron based community, then he will powerdown tens of milions of steem and leave, and hence we will technically win but only inside of Steem
either way, justin wins outside of steem, the fact that DPOS favors oligarchy and the big stake holders means Justin will win somehow..... and I suppose so will you as long as you stick around to get his steem-tron airdrop, and hopefully he powerdowns slowly.
the bull run of any alt-coins comes only when big investors comes in and don't leave immediately after benefiting
Ask everyone not to sell their steems on all 3 exchanges and ask for withdrawal
Amen brother!
Dan, giving your word is not enough in this trustless environment. You need to figure out how to guarantee that his stake will not and cannot be frozen again and he will remove his witness votes, it's as simple as that. He has said over and over again he doesn't want to be involved in the governance, he just doesn't want his stake frozen. Figure out how to trustlessly guarantee him that his stake will not be frozen again and the stalemate ends.
Thank you for everything you've done, and are doing for this community Dan.
What is your thoughts on doing some kind of crowdfunding so the community can buy the stake back from Tron, assuming they accept? Now that everyone is so fired up, I feel it's the perfect time for something like that. I'm by not means well off, but I'd dump everything I could into that myself.
Good communication full of good intentions. Rescue, at the end of it, and in total agreement:
I sincerely hope everything stabilizes @theycallmedan
It’s getting real out here!
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Detailed Summary of TheyCallMeDan Episode
In this episode, the host discusses the recent events surrounding the acquisition of the ninja-mined stake on the Steem blockchain by Tron and its founder, Justin Sun. The host provides a comprehensive overview of the situation, highlighting the key points of contention and the community's response.
The Acquisition and Community Concerns
The host explains that the purchase of the ninja-mined stake, which held a significant amount of voting power, caused a mix of excitement and nervousness within the Steem community. The stake's voting power was nearly twice that of the community-elected witnesses, raising concerns about the potential for a takeover of the network.
Lack of Communication and Hostile Actions
The host criticizes the lack of communication from Ned, the former Steem CEO, and the absence of any acknowledgment or explanation from Tron or Justin Sun. The host also condemns the hostile marketing tactics employed by Tron, including talk of token swaps, migration, and the claim that all Steem dApps would move to the Tron ecosystem.
The Witnesses' Intentions and the Soft Fork
The host explains that the community-elected witnesses only wanted to implement a temporary soft fork to have Justin Sun acknowledge the history and purpose of the pre-mined stake he had acquired. The host emphasizes that the goal was not to take away the funds, but to ensure that Sun understood the promises and commitments associated with the stake.
Disrespect and the Community's Response
The host expresses that the Steem community, the witnesses, and the Steemit Inc. developers were disrespected by Tron's actions. The host notes that the community's voting power increased from 45 million to over 90 million, demonstrating their resolve to protect the network.
Tron's Actions as a Cyber Attack
The host characterizes Tron's actions as a "cyber attack" and a "civil attack" against the Steem network, involving the creation of multiple fake nodes to gain control. The host states that it is difficult to engage in negotiations when the community is being attacked and held hostage.
A Mutual Path Forward
The host acknowledges that Tron's actions have been that of an "enemy," but expresses a willingness to give the benefit of the doubt and find a mutual path forward. The host suggests that Tron should remove the sock puppet accounts, consider donating a portion of the stake to the Steem Power Savings (SPS) fund, and publicly acknowledge the history and purpose of the pre-mined stake.
The Host's Commitment and Determination
The host, as a significant stakeholder and supporter of the Steem blockchain, expresses their unwavering commitment to fighting for Steem until a potential hostile takeover by Tron. The host is willing to support a decentralized fork as a last resort, but remains determined to continue the battle for Steem's governance and decentralization.
Notice: This is an AI-generated summary based on a transcript of the video. The summarization of the videos in this channel was requested/approved by the channel owner.