Vlog 459: A sad day for Steem

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Excellent points! Well said!

I am completely shattered by this! It's unbelievable! How can this happen? It's as if decentralization here is a lie? I agree with the over the counter. This is Hierarchy and class system at a whole new level. Ha! The ruling class of oligarchs have decided? He bought the bloody stake and i had such a great feeling about what he was aspiring to do. Marrying one of the four potentially best DLT crypto Networks to make three powerful entities that are actually corporative communities was amazing news. Can there still be a consensus? It sounds so immature and pretty shattering to my austro libetarian attitude towards the most exciting thing since the invention of the internet itself!

Welcome to Delegated Proof of Stake. This is how it works. This is how it was designed from the start.

It's kind of a shock that you didn't know.

It is a good lesson for all of us. Those little nuances differentiate real thing from a shitcoin. STEEM is now officially a shitcoin and witnesses approved it.

However, STEEM can still moon as a shitcoin. 🚀😂 But it will never become a real decentralized blockchain. 🥺

Thank feck dude. I'm with you. It's hard to see so many, we did it posts. It's a precedent that on top of all the other things that has happened here just adds that little bit more tarnish to the perception we have.

The exit criteria lacks definition, which is worrying too.

Sad day indeed.

where would the price go if someone tries to buy 20mil of steem.

shitty thing to do, but he did talk of moving it to tron, and steem assimilation. even when you did that interviu few hours after that there was official tweet with swap talking.

You said there was no talks. but from what i heard around 60 people worked on this, and that there were attempts to contact Justin or someone from his team.

Sorry, I didn't catch it, but was it just you personally that was against it or did Block Brothers vote against it as well? Is there a list somewhere to see how each of the top witnesses voted?

@exyle I totally get the point on the slippery slope.

It's a little scary actually, considering all the wonderful potential the Steem blockchain has.

But then again, I think it is the fear of the wonderful potential going up in smoke that prompted the Soft Fork. Because fear leads us to go on the defensive, do things pre-emptively for self-preservation.

I do hope this issue gets sorted out - and that fear wouldn't reverberate deep into our consciousness. <3

Wait. So if Ned Scott powered down and sold everything to Justin Sun on Biance, that would have been okay? XD

We (@blockbrothers) voted against it by not running the soft fork.

Well he forgot to add a link that to Justins blog when just few hours after that he said, "well i did not expect that but we have plans to talk so here is a first steemit Town hall in 2 weeks.

well he said it, but did not included the link. Well you have your sources most of us don't. The problem with ninja steem should have been dealt with long time ago. and witnesses are at fault that it did not happen. (it is not the best analogy but what do you think should happen if you buy a stolen car?)

I don't believe in freezing anyones account I think that does more harm than good for potential investors I just think its a cock up on several levels. Justin knew this was not going to be a buy and port project since its a chain thats been running for some time now and he has more than enough funds, expertise and advisors to be able to put out clear statements

Then the whole Zion account voting in super reps on Tron news surely that's going to kick off peoples nerves

As for the freezing, yes it's extreme, I don't believe in it

I just hope it gets parties to the table to discuss. I think this Mexican standoff shows how dpos has its limitations and in a small chain like this supermajority can be used at will but I would hope that in future in theory it becomes more competitive as people pull witness votes and move them to where they see fit and so it goes on.

We can't change what happened but lets see how the all hands ends up! I think its just poor communication everyone wants the same thing and has different ideas on how to get to the same destination

Okay, thanks for the info. I think I have my vote proxied to Block Brothers. Are they going to stop voting for the other witnesses who were for it? It seems like that should be the next step if you don't agree, you change your vote right? For DPOS to keep working the way it is supposed to anyway...

That's what Exyle said in the video. But I can't imagine a supermajority of witnesses being OK with that. The whole point is that the Steemit Inc ninja-mined stake is a special case, as up to this point it has been clearly declared on many occasions as earmarked solely for the development of the Steem ecosystem, and to be non-voting in governance issues.

So no, selling it on Binance would not be OK according to a supermajority of witnesses. Check it for yourself:

https://steemit.com/steem/@softfork222/soft-fork-222

it is how it always worked. you don't agree with it, you can change people you vote for, and if there is enough witnesses that are against it, it will not work.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts

Indeed, if the supermajority agree their will be done be it good or bad it be done!

Yeah, that's exactly how DPOS works. But as a community we can vote on witnesses. So please take this lesson to make sure you vote on the witnesses you trust. And if you believe the POV of @blockbrothers is the best, tell everyone to vote for them and why.

So is my STEEM worth more now due to the reduction of circulating supply?

Did these witnesses do this because Sun is Chinese?

Will they unfreeze it after Sun plays nice?

Now I know how ETC guys felt after The DAO Hack.

Posted via Steemleo

That's what I'm thinking you can't get all witnesses riled up like this without a series of things that trigger them. Sure there's some that wanted him out from the start but there were for Justins and centrists but this transition comms were handled so poorly I don't sort of blame the reaction

As someone who makes a purchase of this kind should know they need to extend an olive branch but their were actions that stirred the hornet's nest. I'm not saying freezing accounts is right I don't but we have to look at the series of factors that pushed the supermajority in this direction

I just hope this Mexican standoff brings the right people into the same room and gets them clearing this shit out because us that aren't into the politics could be collateral damage

So no matter who bought the steemit inc and/or their stake would be fucked? Good to know x)

Well, ehm, depends on how you look at it. Personally, if I had enough money to buy the Steemit Inc stake, I would do my own research before sending the money. I would then already know that the stake I was buying was promised to be exclusively used for the development of the Steem eco-system. Since the softfork now only codifies that, I would not be fucked.

I would think Justin did his research and used this knowlegde to negotiate a fair price with Ned. In that case, he should have expected there was a good chance this would happen, since after all this is a DPOS consensus based blockchain and this is how things work here.

Wow, this is insance

I feel your pain.

I sit in the middle because I do think there could have been a more concerted effort at negotiation direct with Justin Sun to come to some kind of signed agreement before going ahead and encoding this in the chain itself. A voluntary agreement along the lines of the White Paper promises and notarised with public statements on the block chain would have gone a long way. Who knows, he might even have agreed to the conditions in this fork if asked nicely.

I think the underlying contention in @agroed's post was that Ned's stake wasn't truly his to sell unencumbered. That's between Ned and Jason at this point.

But I've also been involved in enough business deals that didn't turn out as all sides expected, and ended up in expensive litigation to know that sometimes you are correct to be a little paranoid. Andy Grove (CEO of Intel) entitled his autobiography "Only the Paranoid Survive". Sometimes that maxim is true.

It already resulted in parties coming to the table to discuss. It's set for 6th of March. See:

https://steemit.com/steemit/@justinsunsteemit/open-letter-to-steem-community

Centralization: Single stakeholder has all the power (If Sun would use the Steem Power to vote on witnesses)
Decentralization: Witnesses make decisions to guarantee the decentralization of the chain (What happened).

witnesses fucked up long time ago as the ninja mined steem (especially that steem that was in steemit-ned accounts) should have been dealt with. best solution i that case would probably be that it is only possible to sell it on the open market. no votes, no witnesses...
Exyle sais he had some inside info that nothing of that was planed, but should that be an inside info? Or should be public and with a contract? There was even a massage from a exchange (if i am not mistaken) that said swap your steem as soon as possible as you will not be able later. Exchanges thing do not do that on its own, they need some info to do that.

And as he said that everyone is happy and now we don't thing justin is lying, well not really true, but finally there will be opportunity for people to talk.

hate for chinese people is the main force for this

*(hope you get the sound of my vice)

My opinion was that a few other chains have fork out cause of issues like disagreement about how certain stake was acquired.
Also, Steem has to be one of the firdt where the foundation company was sold for a profit.
In amycase I'm for the soft chain, but I completely understand why others aren't.

It's impossible to argue with your position. Principles are principles and there are no exceptions. It would've been better to have a contract written up outside of the chain, a legal agreement.

Supply is not reduced, Justin can't vote but he can sell the stake.

I can see how its just codifies it now, that makes sense to me. But as @exyle, its done and thats a slippy slobe :)
And done his research ye well, I have been here over a year and the first time I knew anything about the Ninja-mined because of the buy. I had no idea before.

I hear you but my understanding is it is a soft fork and is only temporary. This can be undone and put right after the discussions surely. My feeling was it was to get Justin's attention and nothing else so it can be sorted out in a proper way.

thik timcliff did not run the softfork either

The BEST part of this whole ordeal is the witnesses actually being proactive and using the consensus as it should be. This is the first time in my memory of this chain that this has happened. Being that this is reversible and a SOFT fork, as long as the dialog gets going and in the open then I think this will be a net positive. Though this should have been done 2 years ago, at least it is being addressed now.

from what i heard, they did try to contact Justin (tron foundation) but there were no answers. i got that from the chat on discord, so no idea how did they try, who tried it... If it is true that they were all ignored, it does not look nice.

It's also obvious that he was very busy these last few days doing the Zion vote thing on Tron which is obviously a bit of a scarily close analogy to the situation here on the Steem chain.

that is what i say to people when i don't have the willpower to talk to them. i was really busy, my phone was not with me, notifications on this messinger are shit, pigeon that you sent never arrived

@exyle I am in favor of the soft fork.

I disagree that it happened behind closed door.

Please do not spread FUD. I have a lot more stake than you and I am not afraid that my account will ever be frozen.

The soft-fork is a safety measure against centralization and completely reversible. If this does not work for you, its fine. It is alright to have disagreement.

If Justin Sun bought the stake in open market, then this wouldn't have happened.

Yes, I can say that it will not happen to anyone else, especially you :)

What other witnesses support you in this thinking?

I agree with you 100% and also I understand why witnesses did what they did. We all need better communication between Steemit inc, Tron, witnesses, Justin and the whole community to make this clear as possible and to make things work for everyone.

Thanks for the info.

Hey @exyle, interesting review you dropped here. Thanks a lot! I'm curious what you think of the following:

Sun buying Steemit or the soft fork, it doesn't matter. Either way shows that the design of Steem is not trustless. I'm no expert, and I never really realized it, but to me, this looks like a flaw that should be fixed.

Right now we either have to "trust" Sun, the witnesses, or whoever has enough power. And that is kinda scary.

Am I missing something here?

How can you say it didn't happen behind closed doors? Justin, the owner of the stake, was not involved. He's the first person to involve in this discussion.

i wanna be friendly here. i dunno what's more "dangerous". if what justin has been implying on twitter becomes true, nothing will be felt about steem because it'll be gone, "migrated" over to tron. so it's like justin was the one that's been telling steemians they'll be forked out?

as far as i can tell, the biggest stake holder talking about a transition to another chain and leaving out literally 100% of the details seem like a legitimate threat.

but acting vs saying is completely different so i do feel like fork could've waited. and justin did let stinc launch communities.
(maybe not stinc anymore cuz ned's stink is gone)

i was hoping both witnesses and justin would be reasonable and focus more on SMTs, but oh well..

only time will tell how much value steem will have in the market, but justin really needs to improve his communication skills.

사불급성 (駟不及舌). out of all people, he should know.

I do not think so. Justin Sun do not own Steem Blockchain. We do.

If you do not understand this, please consider educating yourself

Is there an easy way to see which witnesses are running this fork?

Is there an easy
Way to see which witnesses
Are running this fork?

                 ^{- michelmake}

^{I'm a bot. I detect haiku.}

No, even though it might sound strange we don't make rash decisions like that. We carefully evaluate who we vote for and make this known publicly every month or two.

Even though we don't agree with this particular decision we do look at the bigger picture and take everything a witness does into consideration.

Also, we are bound by the trust proxy voters have given us so we don't just upvote and unvote witnesses on a whim.

By publicly stating that we don't agree with this fork. We are giving our voters a choice. If anything, at least we are very clear how we feel about these recent actions.

I agree with you, the mistake they made was to not involve Justin in the discussion. They just can't fork off a stake without talking to the owner, unless they are ready to split the chain into two coins.

But from what they say, the whole point is to avoid a split. So, kinda stupid.

Justin Sun owns his stake of the Steem blockchain like you own your stake of the blockchain. I'm not saying he owns the whole blockchain.

But if witnesses could freeze a stake without talking to the owner, this would mean they own everybody's stake and the blockchain as a whole, and that there is no ownership for someone outside the witnesses.

I would have liked to have seen more communications and talks between Witnesses, Steemit Inc. and the TRON foundation first. Especially because they are meeting this week.

He can't power down his stake.

They will have to come to agreement to unfreeze. That will be interesting to see.

I didn't understand this from the other posts. This is mindblowing.

I now go from against it to completely against it.

Freeze first, talk later. I would have preferred the other way around.

Hey, @exyle.

Up until last night when I came home and saw my blog feed blowing up with the statements of witnesses, I was considering the idea of a forked out stake as a position of last resort. Very last resort, after it was evident that everything else had failed and that the STEEM blockchain was in jeopardy of existing and thus the stakes of everyone along with it.

And even then, it would still set a precedent and have repercussions because not everyone would want to recognize to what length or extremes were taken to preserve the STEEM blockchain prior to the freezing out.

But then last night I come home and find out it's not the absolute last option, but seemingly the first, couched in a softfork that while potentially reversible, basically states, "your stake is no longer your stake if we say so."

I've read the posts of several witnesses who were for it. I either missed it in each one, or there was no attempt on their parts whatsoever to reach out to Sun for some kind of clarification on his intentions. Did they? Was one attempt made? Two? It seemed like they were expecting him to come to them is what I get from it all.

I also wonder if they know whether or not Sun has any other STEEM sitting out on exchanges somewhere that can be brought in. He's highly suspected of doing that with TRON. If such is the case, and it's big enough, all of this is for naught. And as you say, at this point, how do you trust one another—how does Sun not move to secure his investment and position, and how do the witnesses ever allow the stake to go back?

All over a "social contract" about what the 'ninja-mined" stake would be used for with a previous owner that no one seems to like? For all of what he could have done better and not done, as far as I know, Ned never used the known Steemit accounts to do anything with other than pay his employees.

I don't know. It seems like there are people here who feel like they own more than they actually do. Which includes the stake of a company that created the blockchain in the first place. Social contract or not, this softfork, and the way it was done, was not the answer. And especially not the first answer.

Yup. Talk first. Them take action if need be.

It seems that communication and transparency is only cared about when 'we' demand it of others.

Thanks for your opinion on this. I think if I was running a witness node, I would have followed your reasoning.

I think ultimately this decision by the witnesses came from a lack of communication from @justinsunsteemit which created irrational fear in the community. Some feared he would start voting for witnesses with the stake. So witnesses are doing that softfork 222 in order to protect their positions in the top 20.

Everything would have been perfectly fine, had he been half as active here as on twitter following the acquisition's announce.

Of course as you said, the the first thing a logical person would do after getting access back to the funds, would be to power down in many anonymous accounts and start voting for witnesses who did not support this move. So there's probably going to be a very long discussions before anything changes, and meanwhile the stake is held hostage...

https://media.tenor.com/images/23b875bff0290d88431de8cb75a161c3/tenor.gif

Yes, the most sad moment in STEEM history.

You can see it in two ways.

Because only a select few people were involved and no-one knew about it the argument can be made that it was behind closed doors.

But on the other hand, the witnesses that discussed it are selected by the community to do what they believe is the best for the blockchain and what they did could have only taken place like this.

With my post, I am just stating my opinion. It differs from yours, which can happen. We have also agreed on things in the past. In this case, I don't believe in freezing anyone's account without any real justification.

Maybe my feelings stem from Dutch politics where there is always a middle ground and people talk with each other no matter what. I am not used to/fan of striking first, talk later.

Well said and explained. Thanks for clarifying that!

Good. Justin Sun hoovers up I.T. and blockchain tech assets for the CCP. It's highly speculative to imagine any other outcome for STEEM blockchain than being disassembled and picked apart like a carcass for the fattening of one other.

But on the other hand, the witnesses that discussed it are selected by the community to do what they believe is the best for the blockchain and what they did could have only taken place like this.

This is the correct statement. Therefore, we are in agreement. Discussions happened thoughout the week in many public forums. Interested people, including myself, participated actively. Then top witnesses met and decided based on majority. This is the way governance in a blockchain should work and did work.

Personal disagreements are perfectly fine. You can be fan of something, I can be a fan of something else. Governance should not depend on what an individual is a fan or not a fan.

I feel this is a step in the right direction and our chosen representatives have balls, unlike many of the "oldtimers", including Ned himself.

So SteemIt will be disassembled by communists ?!?! That sounds like cold war fear propaganda.

I really don't see think that Justin Sun having chinese nationality as an argument for freezing funds, sorry. Communists are allowed to buy companies, they are people too!

Now, what I'm wondering is: would witnesses have acted the same if it was Elon Musk who bought the stake?

The mobsters have self exposed?

I personally guarantee that your 36,603.806 STEEM won't be taken away :)

If we didn't do anything that could have been worth zero, at least now there is a possibility that it may be worth something.

Tim Cliff also dissented in the implementation of the soft-fork.

I think most of us were unaware of that information as well. If that is the case then I am with you saying it is wrong.

Imagine some random person would come up to you and would try to harm you or your loved ones and you would have to defend yourself. And you would let your fists fly. Does that mean, afterwards, that you'll go around the city and punch people randomly?

Because that's the analogy I take from your position regarding: "Well, if Steemit Incs stake was frozen, it can happen to anybody".

I get how it might look that any stake is no at risk, but that is absurd and simply not true!

There is a clear line between freezing the Steemit Inc "ninja mined" stake, which was supposed to be used for Steem and is now threatening more than ever the integrity of Steem, and any other stake.

Here is a short story I made to explain what the difference is: https://steemit.com/steemit/@therealwolf/q67exs

Nice vlog with a different view, others don't agree with the softfork and this post help them to speak up.

I just came back to Steemit because I have time to start producing content again and I thought I was over my utter disgust of Steemit Management. Now I need to step back and take a look at what's going on. I understand the concern of the Huuuge amount of Steem that needs to be protected against the stakeholder using it for purposes that weren't agreed upon. From the beginning, I've felt uneasy and to really concerned over the huge amount of premined steem. That's why I think we need to get everyone to the table and write out a contract that protects all the property holders. I also think Ned needs to be taken to court for fraud but we don't know if Justin knew about the contract between Steem Inc and Steemit community. I get confused over this issue and the players involved, like Steem Ink, miners, bloggers, apps developers...you know all the players. So confusing! @exyle, I stopped by Steemit Chat and noticed you left me a message back in 2018, I didn't have my notifications turned on, I wasn't ignoring you....lolol

@exyle, Thank you so much for Speaking Your Mind and taking your absolute stand. Your points are really valid and no doubt in it. But in my opinion there were so many doubts and choice of words like, Token Swap, Bringing Steem to TRON and Steem Tron will be considered as real Steem on exchanges and words like Old Steem and New Steem. In my opinion all these words definitely raised many questions and AMA Session was reflected as a Joke. Definitely your points are valid but i have mixed feelings towards this decision, i am with this decision but after watching this video i am able to see the depth of it so now i am in the State Of Mixed Feelings.

As you said now we can just move forward. Let's see what is about to happen in near future. Stay blessed brother.

Posted using Partiko Android

I believe the difference between selling the stake on binance and selling it all at once is just decentralization. Not that I disagree with your points, just throwin that out there.

Yes I saw that. He got a witness vote from me. Thanks

In the end, there is nothing that is decentralized. The large stakeholders of anything will have the greatest influence. Decentralization when it comes to anything of value is laughable.

I'm not scared about my stake, why would anyone fork me out? But what would investors think about buying a currency that can be frozen?

You're talking about possibilities of going to 0 but I don't think that ownership should be taken away just because of your (or anyone's) fear.

And you can't guarantee anything about my stake, it's not like you're my banker. Your arguments are wrong on so many levels.

Anyway, I see where you're coming from.

I have been writing in my post today about Witness votes. I can't quiet believe how few of the Top 35 are still running software version 0.22.1, and how many opted for so called softfork222. I totally understand and respect how you feel, it's another piece of shocking news on the platform. I think fair to describe the Steem as frozen but a little emotive to describe as stolen. I'm sure a resolution will be made, I am surprised to see the 6th March mentioned as the opening of talks - meaning it might not be resolved very fast! It would have been nice to clear up within a week!

But what would investors think about buying a currency that can be frozen?

Actually many potential investors have decided to not invest in STEEM exactly because there was this threat from day 1.

Bottom line is. He acquired a company and the tokens that cam along with that company shouldn't be in circulation in the first place.

They chain stopped and started again 2 if not 3 times until they mine all this stake which felt as a governance stake.

Justin is way more clever that Ned and that dormant stake...wouldn't stay dormant for much longer.

Very interesting indeed. And then what? When he starts power down, will they freeze the funds again?

We can barely say: by community.

Sad day. And we'll all feel the consequences.

It's not about why or who's account it is. It's about the precedent.

To take your example:

There was never a reason for me to punch anyone. I never thought about it, it was never an option in my mind or anyone else.

The precedent that you have created is, that now, if I feel threatened, that it's justified to punch while before there was never a reason to punch. It was never an option!

But now it is.

The problem is once a precedent to punch has been created other reasons will follow. This is how it always goes.

The same goes for freezing accounts.

There was never a reason to freeze an account. I never thought about it, it was never an option in my mind or anyone else.

You guys opened a box and allowed the first precedent to escape. Freezing accounts are now justified under 'uncertain' circumstances.

Now that the first account has been frozen other precedents to freeze accounts will follow. The idea is now out there.

It can even happen while some of the original top 20 witnesses are long gone.

You guys opened a box that should have never been opened.

Steem will never be the same.

You can see it on steemworld here @michelmake
https://steemworld.org/@michelmake

Scroll down and you will see this on the left, click "witness overview"

You can see in the list which version the witnesses are running. Version 0.22.2 is the new softfork :(

I'm with you 100% @exyle. It really is unbelievable to do this to anyone. It's stealing plain and simple. Sad day.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/549796708499062794/681569221494571018/3q5jzk.png

Thanks for this post.

Respect!!! Exyle!!! An eyeopener!!!

While I considered the situation dangerous, I was also of the opinion that no token swap would be in the cards for a very long time because nobody would agree to any such thing until the Steem blockchain would be fully replicated in functionality on the Tron blockchain. Migrating Steem to Tron would be a massive undertaking. Smart contracts on Tron are written in Solidity and only a few devs at Steemit, Inc know the code inside and out. Are those guys also well versed in Solidity? Not very likely. There is zero chance of Steem being migrated to Tron in the foreseeable future.

Therefore, I consider the decision to do the soft fork rash. Now there is a trust issue between Justin Sun and a supermajority of the current witnesses of Steem. I hope it can be resolved. But once Sun's stake is released, what exactly will prevent him from voting in a totally different set of witnesses at the drop of a hat?

Thanks! I check steemworld daily. Just never noticed that functionality :p

Just want to correct a few things...

1. This was not an action undertaken by "the top-20 witnesses." There was much more collaboration and support from other witnesses and investors. There were at least 65 people who were invited to and/or engaged in discussions.

2. The accounts in question were already not voting for witnesses and had not been voting for them per the agreement between Steemit Inc. and the community.

3. Portraying this as something that happened "behind closed doors" and that this is somehow inherently bad completely fails to recognize the situation that you yourself pointed out just before making that statement. The potential security risk to the Steem blockchain was there, it had always been there, and there was a lot of confusion and lack of good information about what was happening. Mitigating an existential security risk isn't something that can always be or should be discussed openly in public or with the very entity that potentially poses that risk. "Conversations take longer than three seconds." (Thank you, @mattclarke !)

4. The DPoS protocols have always allowed for witnesses to ignore certain transactions on the blockchain. Nothing changed yesterday.

5. No accounts outside of the Steemit accounts in question have been affected or will be affected and at no point did anyone in our discussions consider ever touching stake that was not "ninja-mined" by Steemit Inc. The "slippery slope" argument certainly does not apply, as most of the witnesses I saw required quite a bit of rational persuasion to reach the agreement that we reached. Investors have little to fear, unless they simply do not like/trust DPoS in the first place.

6. The "precedent" that you speak of about a small group of people being able to "nullify" an account "in secret" has always existed and has in fact been used on this very chain in the past. In fact, as @smooth has pointed out elsewhere, this has been done many times on this and other blockchains to mitigate/neutralize security threats. This is neither new nor unique to the Steem blockchain.

7. Purchasing the stake in question here makes no difference regarding the obligations placed on it by its previous owners who brought it into existence. That stake was owned by Steemit Inc., which had "ninja-mined" it, put conditions on it regarding its use, and expressed those conditions of use to the community on multiple occasions between 2016 and 2018. Users and investors have come to Steem and invested in Steem based on those conditions/promises. Steemit Inc. has simply gained a new owner, but the stake is the same and the conditions still apply.

I want to make it abundantly clear that neither I nor any other witness that was part of the discussions would ever think that purchased stake that was not part of the original "ninja-mine" by Steemit Inc. would ever be open to any kind of "freezing." To ignore the very large distinction between the Steemit stake in question and tokens purchased on the market or earned on the chain is a great disservice to both your followers and the other witnesses and investors that took part in the discussions for the past 10 days.

It's actually a bit insulting to draw these parallels and spread that kind of fear, knowing that nobody ever made any comments even remotely close to wanting to freeze or "nullify" any user's stake. Many people openly expressed their concerns about even temporarily ignoring transactions like the ones that would currently be ignored by the 0.22.2 soft fork.

So I'm not sure what the purpose is to try to paint this as anything other than 1) trying to secure the blockchain, which we felt we adequately did, and, possibly 2) attempting to ensure that the stake in question will continue to be used as previously promised by its original owners.

Nobody...ever...has to worry about losing anything or having anything "nullified" by the current witnesses. Not just the top-20, but pretty much any of the witnesses that participated in the past week, which was at least around 50.

I understand that you disagree with what happened - and that's OK. But, in my opinion, it's not OK - and is in fact detrimental to the community and the blockchain - to insinuate that all assets are now at risk because of the very specific/targeted and temporary actions that were taken in order to mitigate an existential threat to blockchain continuity/security.

I would hope that the large consensus of witnesses, reaching far beyond the top-20, would be an indication that the risk was greater than it is being talked about here and that the actions taken were justified in order to protect the security of this blockchain.

Communication was done first, Exyle was too busy to acknowledge this I guess. Doesn’t fit his narrative maybe 🤷‍♀️ Not sure.

The announcement post didn't set the context explicitly, assuming the audience would have a good idea. I wrote a post to fill in those blanks. I'm interested to know if it changes your opinion at all. Even if it doesn't I would still like the feedback. Thanks!

Every single steem on exchange have exactly the same price. And every single steem powered up have the same voting power.

Yeah these witnesses are stupid! lol

Of course they would not, they are racist witnesses! lol

Previously, "behind closed doors", Ned sold Steemit Inc to Justin, without communication, without warning...

I wasn't thinking only about that, but also the fact that with Elon Musk we would be able to put STEEM witness nodes in space and making sure everyone on the planet can receive new blocks

sarcasm?

Did these witnesses do this because Sun is Chinese?

Excuse me? First of all, those 60+ people involved weren't only witnesses but most importantly, we're not racist. Seriously, what the fuck?

The meeting this week was between Steemit Inc.'s employees and TRON. I don't recall ever reading it would have anything to do with witnesses.

we all hate chinese people, especially now when they created this deadly virus :D

i know there are some people in the world that have some crazy views on people that look different than them, but it feels crazy that someone would think that he being chinese had anything to do with what was done.

I feel like you feel like you’re making an important point here but I’m not exactly sure what it is. Can you explain?

You are correct. It's between Steemit Inc and TRON.

I just joined Steemit and am truly disappointed Justin from Tron has bought this platform.

People really need to research all the drama with Tron and the shenanigans Justin pulled there.

Now that his stake has been blocked, his only option is to play nice until his funds are unblocked, at which point he will either power-down or setup his own witnesses and vote them in.

Does anyone actually know how much money Justin paid for Steemit?

This is the most twisted narrative of these events I’ve seen so far, from someone who was privy to information spoken about for over a week in many open chats.

If you don’t know how this soft fork works, how the blockchain works or anything else, perhaps you should have asked for more clarification when you came in for 5mins to ask questions and essentially say you didn’t have time to catch up on anything.

This sort of narrative is dangerous and false, perhaps take some time to educate yourself rather than trying to get more attention or maybe living up to agreements you made.

You aren’t doing anyone a favor spreading false information, in fact as a witness you should be ashamed, as you are hurting the community and chain you have agreed to protect.

Disagree with the change all you want, thats the beauty of the system, but stop spreading false claims and inaccuracies.

The key question of whether or not the stake would be used for voting, and if it would be non-voting and for community growth the way it was promised by Steemit Inc before the acquisition, was asked by the witnesses to Steemit Inc just minutes after the news broke.

The witnesses then got together to formulate questions for the AMA between Justin and Ned which we were told would be used, instead, they were completely ignored.

On a daily basis, we asked for clarification on the most important subjects, such as whether or not there would be a forced token swap or if the stake would be used for witness voting. No answers came (I do understand that it may have been difficult to give a prompt and absolute answer to those questions, but it was still a very serious situation).

It is important to note that this soft fork is not a change to the blockchain or the relevant accounts. It is temporary, and can be completely undone once the situation is clear and different. I would consider it more of a "pause" while the Steemit Inc team and Tron gets the time to discuss and clarify their planned future to the rest of the community. Where there's now no need for the same irrational fear that existed before.

At least, I only approve of this conditioned on it being temporary, and that those who run it pursue a positive outcome with Steemit Inc and Tron.

Why do you make this personal? He’s just expressing his opinion/feelings.

hi @exyle would you mind dropping me a DM on Discord please?

No, he’s spreading false information. He was in the communication and knows what happened, his opinion doesn’t need to include false information, which leads me to believe there is a reason for it. Or perhaps he honestly has no idea how any of this works, which is fair, but in that case he really shouldn’t be attempting to tell others how it does.

False information is not helpful, it’s actually harmful.

What false info?

Witnesses could always do things like this at any time. I think they're justified. The tweet about making Steem a tron token can't be ignored. Maybe they should of done this a long time ago, that's my only complaint. I hope Justin can negotiate with them and build some trust, that works both ways.

What are the exact exit criteria of the fork?

I think that is quite important to nail down. There are no clear criteria for the cessation of the fork. In fact, If I were to be picky the wording of the statement implies that based on community feedback the fork can be adjusted.

That doesn't sound temporary to me.

If an action such as this is going to be taken then it should be communicated very clearly what needs to be done in order for the fork to be removed.

Unless the intention is for the fork to never be undone completely? If that is the case then it should not be ambiguous. It should not be open to interpretation.

Communication should be clear and concise and unambiguous.

I would challenge the idea that clarification was never received on the forced token swap, from what I saw it was. I am referring to the conversation with Andrarchy that Exyle himself had and posted about just recently. There was a lot cleared up there.

This asking ona daily basis. Who asked who? Via what channels? How was it escalated when no response was given? Was there any response?

Finally, the perception is what is key. The perception outwith this little fragile bubble we live in. We already have a poor reputation. This, in my opinion, does little to paint us in a better light.

I am glad that you approve of it being temporary. But how can it be if we do not know what I have outlined above?

The whole entire narrative - no accounts have been nullified, the blockchain and it’s governance has not been changed, communication was had in many places, including reaching out to all those in involved. This is not the first time things like this have happened on Steem and it doesn’t “change Steem forever”. Therefore having an opinion or even disagreeing with the choices is fair.. spreading false information is not. I think David’s comment on this post touches on this all in a very eloquent way that I agree with, perhaps that will help. Or you can keep downvoting me and ignore your responsibilities as a part of the blockbrothers witness as well.

See my comment at the top of this post.

What are the exact exit criteria of the fork?

Different witnesses may have different expectations. So far, there seem to be only two witnesses in the top 31 who do not run the soft fork (timcliff and jesta). Of these, some may be content with Steemit and Tron giving more information such as a roadmap or vision, plus stating what they will be doing with the stake. Others may have a more drastic view and think that the stake should not have been Ned's to sell for profit to begin with, and should instead stay with the community.

So how would it be resolved if there are different views for what the criteria should be? It's quite simple. As we learn more, some witnesses may be comforted by what they see and choose to not run the soft fork, then eventually there'll be a majority who do not, and it will be reverted.

My criteria is first that we get a concrete and detailed answer by Steemit Inc and Justin Sun themself. If their answer is drastically different to the original promise Steemit Inc had, then I think it would be fair for the community and stakeholders who invested time and money into Steem on that basis to have the time and availability to leave before such changes are applied. If they promise to treat the stake the way they did before through not voting, then I would expect them to use the "decline voting rights" operation which removes those functions from an account. If they do go along with the opinion that some have that the stake they have is supposed to be used for community growth and further decentralization, then I would hope to see some action performed that make this "trustless" through either a donation to the steem.dao, or a foundation.

The important part is this: We need to know if the previous conditions for the stake still apply or not. And if not, what the new conditions are. And then be able to move on from there.

I agree that there is a risk here in terms of perception. I also think Tron and Justin Sun offers a unique opportunity for Steem to gain some much needed marketing talent and financial resources. So I am motivated, and can promise, that I will do what I can to pursue a positive outcome for Steem, and hope for a situation where the two projects can find mutual benefit and create a win-win for users and stakeholders on both sides. Therefore I will be spending a lot of time and effort the next few days in a diplomatic way to try and make that happen.

I agree with you. It's about the precedent. The fact that this CAN be done pretty much ruins steem, whether it could previously or not is not the point, it's known now that it can and will be done.

Therefore I will be spending a lot of time and effort the next few days in a diplomatic way to try and make that happen.

That is very comforting to hear. I appreciate that.

I wish, reading your criteria above (third para) that they were defined as such by the community consensus statement because your criteria are concrete and do elicit confidence.

As we learn more, some witnesses may be comforted by what they see and choose to not run the soft fork, then eventually there'll be a majority who do not, and it will be reverted.

They may, or they may be caught up in the group think and not wish to step out with the common thinking. You might be able to tell but I am not very fond of may in this circumstance. You could say that there may be a chance that strong personalities push their own distrust if Justin Sun onto others through the coming weeks. There may not be a sufficient answer and the softfork may remain in place forever.

I guess we will see. Sorry for removing your witness vote after such a short time, I will, based on your splendid discourse here, re-instate it.

Told you I was flighty ;O)

The precedent set by what they just did is going to be felt throughout the entire crypto industry by all DPOS and POS blockchains. There had to be a better way.

What exactly were these witnesses saving btw? Their seat at the table?

Even if Justin tried to move steem over to tron, everyone would have the option of remaining with steem classic if they so desired. This looks like more about preserving witness spots then actually protecting steem. All of the Top 20 Witnesses (that voted for this) should step down indefinitely to prove that this was best for steem and not just for them financially.

It is a sad day. To me this looks like they were trying to protect their spots as Top Witnesses more than actually trying to do the best thing for steem. In my opinion to prove they actually believe this is best for steem every one of the Top 20 Witnesses that voted for this should step down indefinitely because from where I am sitting it looks like they are just fighting to remain in power.

The thought that their motives were fuelled by self-preservation had crossed my mind. In defence against that I understand there was a pile of them outwith the top twenty also in on the discussions. Then again, maybe the ones outwith the top twenty were vying for approval and playing the long game with an eye on the top 20 prize!

There was never a reason for me to punch anyone.

i can't look for it now, but was there not a message from some exchange about the need to swap steem token as soon as possible and if not you will not be able to do so in the future? was that a figment of imagination of theirs? Were not there public announcements from official accounts about token swap and assimilation even after he said that is not an option? I don't particularly like the idea of freezing accounts but can you say that there was no plan of assimilation? Tweets after his AMA were probably planned before and no one stopped them, but maybe shows that there were plans...

While it may have taken this soft fork to trigger the news and install the potential FUD that it may, unfortunately, bring. It still was possible the whole time and thus never really changed in terms of dpos security and quality (although perception is of course important).

Also, the demonstrated negative effect that one entity of aligned witnesses can have also reinforces the argument for why it is so dangerous for one giant stakeholder to be able to vote in all the witnesses needed to have super majority...

My preference would be that following this, we reduce the total witness vote to 10. While it will still be theoretically possible for someone to spend a hundred million dollars (assuming they would make price go up) in order to get the stake needed to vote in 20 witnesses, it would take a lot more stake than it does right now.

That said, I can understand that in the face of such a vulnerability, witnesses find it responsible to "pause" the ability for that to happen until a workable solution or sufficient clarification/guarantee is in place.

I very much appreciate it! I also realize how providing clear criteria would make this appear more thought through and also make the whole situation more clear and not look as uncertain.

But the intention is for it to buy time for such conversations to take place without any fear of sudden irreversible actions being done.

In any case, I look more forward to getting to know what future plans Steemit Inc and Tron have come together to find. I am an optimist at heart and do think that we can turn all of this into strength going forward. I have never seen this many witnesses get active as has happened following the acquisition news. Nor have I seen as many users participate in witness voting and conversation on the fundamentals of what we want this blockchain to be. And that is promising to me of a community that cares deeply about thsi chain.

Yes, I understand that groupthink can be an issue. Which is why these conversations now with the rest of the userbase is so important.

I much appreciate that you put trust in me and my team. I'm here for the long-game with Steem and will do my best to see it succeed.

do you have an information that witnesses did not try to talk to tron foundation? Because they said that they did try and were not able to. If you have that info would be nice to share it.

Also do you think that Steemit ninja mined stake (that was promised to not be used for votes and influencing witnesses) should be used for votes and witness votes?

Checks and Balances

This is a great thing for the STEEM blockchain. One can't just buy a big stake of STEEM and keep on repeating you aim to convert the token to another blockchain. Not by buying your stake on Binance or OTC. It indeed doesn't matter!

Let's say you consider Steemit INC to be the 'government' of the STEEM blockchain, it's a great move of the 'parliament' of the STEEM blockchain to take precaution. It's not hostile, just being sure there are checks and balances.
STEEM is not the same as bitcoin. This is DPOS and it's how it is supposed to work.

Dpos of Steemit is failure. We need to fix it

Posted using Partiko iOS

What precedent?

It's a feature not a bug.

I must say, I'm surprised that you are so surprised this type of move is possible on a DPOS blockchain and now feel "sad" about it.

That's the whole point of having a DPOS blockchain. A DPOS blockchain is supposed to be an enterprise blockchain. It's not trying to achieve to do what bitcoin does.

Because of the influence you have on this platform, I would have thought you better understood how this works.

Where does it say that witnesses have to first check with the rest of the community before they take action?

IMO, the witnesses did actually read the sentiment quite correctly. You can't just buy a blockchain and then do with it what you want. Of course, you can't!

Now the ball is in the camp of Tron or @justinsunsteemit and I hope he likes how the steem community forms more of challenge than some of his previous acquisitions did.

More exciting, no?

If I was an entrepreneur like Justin, I would like this kind of push back.

Great times ahead!

all this was communication shitshow. we will assimilate steem and swap your steem for whatever tron token. we have no intention to do that, for now. Steemit employes say no one in talks with them said anything about assimilation and swapping, then two hours later Justin on twitter again tweets about assimilation...

i would like to think that if Elon bought it and started talking about moving steem to another blockchain and swapping steem for some kind of SMT that they would do the same.

And maybe you are friend with some of them, and maybe they told you something but that talk is between employer and employees that have contracts. I am sure that some of them knew something is going on, and said nothing, and i expect them not to. But that also means that Tron fondation speaking with them means nothing to steem community from information standpoint, because there may be a lot of things that they can't share.

https://steemit.com/steem/@lasseehlers/i-don-t-like-justin-sun-s-acquisition-of-steemit-inc-fork-his-stake-out-steemcash

Actually they did what I recommended. Even I am not a witness.

Feel free to be on the old chain with Justin "FUD" Sun.... in the meanwhile we the real people will build the real STEEM.

Your voice sound like you are on 2x speed.... you sound so stressed out... are you in the pockets of Justin?? Sounds like it!! So sad!

We can agree to disagree!!

Also Justin "motherfucker fud" Sun said he would make a token swap, then he change the statement later.... so he asked for it!

No other accounts will get nullified... you are just a Justin sucker ... Sucking at the power tit!

Bye.

To ignore the very large distinction between the Steemit stake in question and tokens purchased on the market or earned on the chain

someone told me on chat at discord that communication with tron fondation was attempted but no details on it. who tried, how, with whom, were they ignored. i feel that is pretty important, and no one talked about it.

Multiple attempts were made to contact him or his team by multiple people through many means - email, slack, etc There was no response until his post went out shortly after the announcement post.

as i said multiple times, communication shitshow continues. it is as we are living in the 15th century and our messingers get robbed and shot all the time so there is no way to talk to each other...

I see both sides to this. It isn't really a surprise anymore than the acquisition from Justin Sun in the first place. There is a path forward that benefits everyone. The stakeholders need some reassurance that their investments are not in jeopardy

He started talking contradictory gibberish, and was otherwise unresponsive, so they took his car keys.
That's being a good friend.
March 6th is 'the morning after'; where they'll check he's sobered up and understands the consequences of his actions.
That's also when they have a chance to transition from 'good friend' to 'car thief'.
I support this action; I believe it was the right choice at the time, but the onus now is on the witnesses to provide a clear, simple path to a roll-back.
No hurdles, no hoops.

also this was published yesterday (24.02) by Tron Fondation as a weekly update. Check out number 1 and 5. do you think someone in Tron Fondation should be fired for not reading the memo for 10 days, or justin was not that honest at AMA?

Yes it is a sad day, I agree. It should not have come to this. This should risk have been mitigated by code long time ago. Why wasn't it? It's a tough cookie to crack, but has always been on the table. But only recently gained critical mass. Just as @steem.dao is a special coded username in the blockchain, the Steemit Inc stake should have that coded in (IMHO).

Per your suggestion: if it was (more) talks first, freeze later: it could would have resulted in a hardfork once a huge powerdown would have started. Which then all exchanges in question need to have had addressed. This is a softfork which blocks certain operations from being executed by accounts owned by Steemit.inc. No funds are nullified.

That said for over a week numerous witnesses have tried to reach out to Steemit INC, talks with Steemit INC devs and we formulated pretty specific questions for the AMA. But the AMA was very disappointing: self-moderated, picking 3 lame questions on the spot and one vague answer: "for now". I feel that with the PR moves from Tron Network specifically there is an anology with your "Freeze first, talk later". What they did, and are still doing is pushing a narrative of an upcoming Token Swap of the STEEM Blockchain, thus: "Publish first, talk later".

Please understand this:

• Nobody took it lightly to decide upon doing this.
• This is not a precedent: My opinion is, if any single person buys a major stake now, wether OTC or via exchanges in STEEM, and starts voting with it then so be it: But the Steemit Inc stake is a special one as defined in "social contracts", code upgrades, video interviews.

Some articles which are good reads on the current situation:

• Blocktrades: https://steempeak.com/cryptocurrency/@blocktrades/the-fundamental-underpinning-of-blockchain-consensus
• Pfunk: https://steempeak.com/steem/@pfunk/the-case-for-the-temporary-soft-fork
• Coindesk: https://www.coindesk.com/justin-sun-bought-steemit-steem-moved-to-limit-his-power

Hi Lasse. This is not the case that has happened.

• This is a softfork, not a hardfork: a big difference is that all versions of the 0.22.x Steem software continue to operate, including those of exchanges.
• No stake has been "forked out". Certain accounts, owned by Steemit Inc are currently blocked from executing certain operations on the chain.

I understand, in effect isnt it close to the same?

Justin can't powerdown, powerup, vote, not even move the steem in the steemit inc accounts?

In effect those accounts are frozen... even they still exists.

Sorry, bro, but some of you said you "quarantined" his stake. Words, man, words. Be careful with them.

Also, why do this to Justin when you could have done this to Ned for years, but didn't? Is it not obvious that Justin is a way better leader than Ned for Steemit? Actions, man, actions. Be careful with them.

• obviously this is not done because of racial backgrounds.
• the circulating supply has not been altered.
• whether the stake will be unfrozen depends on future talks and consensus. Let's see. If the witnesses were all paranoid and (for example) Tron is fine with having the stake (for example) be transferred to steem.dao for community projects, then all is good and decentralization wins the day!
• this was not a hack. The code is submitted on an open-source public github account, run on several testnets with biggest participation rate of individuals on testnets seen since beginning of Steem development and then finally released and updated by a supermajority of witnesses, as can be seen in the utmost right column on https://steemd.com/witnesses

Yeah, it's not a good look.

you can see on for example https://steemd.com/witnesses (most right column) which witness runs which software. If it says 22.2 it is the Softfork222 update. So for example you can vote on witnesses who run another version.

Wow! 65 people out of what 50,000 daily active accounts... How very blockchain of you!

I blame Ned. And still think he misrepresented this sale to Tron Foundation.

Were there any violations of the Whitepaper by enacting this Soft Fork? If yes, then you have the right to cry. If No, don't hate the players aka "Witnesses" hate the Game aka "Blockchain and the code". The Whitepaper is King and by participating on the STEEM Blockchain you agree to the terms of the Whitepaper. Please point to a specific violation, not your hurt feelings. Facts matter.

Exactly.

Looks bad, bro. Ned was a negative force for years and they didn't do this to him. Now Justin Sun comes along and in 2 weeks they freeze his stake? Seriously, yo, how do you NOT conclude that race / fear of the unfamiliar could have played a part in this?

i'm also not a fan of "x first, talk later". But weren't you shocked then also when Tron announced "token swap" in announcement, twitter, (paid for?) publications on Coindesk, FAQ blog on Poloniex about support for "upcoming token swap". That seems like a "Publish first, talk later"-move initiated and coordinated by Tron.

You get it.

the only other thing you are missing is that Steemit was corrupt from the very beginning

lol, We all would have liked some communication from Steemit Inc over this past year, but Eli made 2 posts in the past year hahahaha. They set the precedent of no communication and forced our hand to Soft Fork. And unless there's a Smart Contract with Justins STEEM tied to it, there's no way to trust him.

You raise some very interesting points that I wasn't aware of. Thank you sharing this information.

I think it is super interesting, it shows the possibilities within the governance structure. You are absolutely right when you say it will impact steem... but I'm not sure it is as negative as you believe it is.

How new here are you? There was, in fact, a discussion to freeze the stake not that long ago, when Ned was in charge. But even if you weren't around then, if you attended the AMA, surely you read the comments that were being thrown around about Ned. Did they sound friendly to you?

And no, it wasn't fear of the unfamiliar, either. There was and is plenty of evidence that Justin planned a token swap. Given that you weren't apparently aware of the threatened fork under Ned, you should consider that there could be lots of things you're not aware of that led to this decision before you assume it was rascism and fear of the unfamiliar...Most of which are actually discussed in the trending post on this topic.

Yeah right, it can't be undone! Justin would vote them out in a heartbeat now or power down to get out and move to vote them out in a heartbeat! Not sure but it's a stalemate now I think! lol

so when did you decide to go complete psycho cunt?

This is such a bad take, imo.

I wrote about this more in my post, but a few key summaries:

• We didn't do this to a "normal" user who happened to buy large amounts of STEEM. We did this to a company, who should have never held so much controlling stake in the first place. It's ninja mined, which means that for the rest of those tokens lifetime they are not "normal" tokens. If Justin bought 75 million STEEM without going through SteemIt, then that would be fine because we'd still have a powerful stakeholder to counteract the control.
• Justin owns Tron and has beyond confusing messages about what the future is going to be. To act as though this is just any old dude walking in here and us freaking out, is not just wrong but maliciously so.
• "I don't care if it's temporary", then I'm sorry to say but you're clearly missing the entire point of this softfork. We're not stopping someone from accessing the tokens they just purchased, we are using the rules that have been presented to us from the beginning to buy us a bit more time to think about our next steps.
• In a dPoS system, what just happened is not only allowed, but is doable for this very reason. The community should be allowed to protect itself. How do you not agree with this?

To wrap up: This is a very disappointing response. Perhaps you weren't aware of the amount of confusion surrounding the acquisition. Perhaps you truly think that your random interview with an employee of SteemIt would solve the worries. Perhaps you don't understand the economics & potential downsides that occur if Steem is merged into Tron. Perhaps you weren't in attendance of the multi-hour long and multiple sessions of open forums that witnesses held on Discord, where literally hundreds of people tuned in & voiced their opinion.

I don't know how someone could arrive at a take as poor as the one your trying to get off in this video, but it's pretty disappointing coming from a witness who I thought was a good one in the past.

As I wrote in my statement, I struggled with this decision a lot. Few sleepless nights... Multiple people tried to communicate with Tron/Justin, but no respond and meanwhile their actions about token swap and voting his own validators on Tron, showed real threat to the Steem. I wouldn't want Steem to be spoiled by bad marketing and absorbed Steem name just because it helps Tron to market itself. You mentioned someone in witnesses said if powered down and sent to Binance, it would be different? I don't agree with that, powering down is same.
Many who invested time to build/invest made decision with good faith knowing that Steemit Inc. stake will only used for development of Steem, not abolishment of Steem. Content creators are investors as well, but there is slight difference.
Also, this is temporary until there is clear communication with Tron/Justin. Of course only time will show now, consequences of these actions. I respect your decision and would've chosen same if facts/actions were in favor. It wasn't easy, first time in my entire witness years, I really considered to take smooth's path but we sometimes have to make hard choices.

Look here, I never said it was racism. I just posited a question that maybe that had something to do with that. And given the responses here, I appear to have struck a nerve.

Your whole story proves my point. If it was threatened to Ned for months or years, why wasn't this tactic also tried with Justin?

Racism or not, Exyle is right. This is not very "blockchain" of any of the witnesses.

I hold you in high regard and am glad that it's not only me that had sleepless nights over this.

I also thought of just walking away but I can't, and believe me, having an opposite viewpoint from all the people I have known for so long has not been easy for me either.

Now that the decision to temporarily freeze is taken it seems silly to oppose it, the idea can't be put back in the box. It will always be out there, that parts pains me.

It's good to see you in the decision making progress regardless. You are, in my opinion, one of the best witnesses Steem has.

Thanks for the thoughtful reply, man. It means a lot.

Yes, the nerve you struck is that people who are not racists do not like being false accused of it under the flimsiest of evidence. Just to be clear, you don't actually have to use the word "racism" to accuse someone of being a racist.

My story doesn't prove the point. You need to do more research before making such sweeping claims. It was the reaction of ned (an immediate powerdown) that led to a quicker reaction this time, to avoid the same thing happening again.

And, no, Exyle is entirely wrong on this point. DPOS-based blockchains were designed to work exactly this way as far as governance is concerned. I should know, I was one of maybe three people involved in its conceptual design.

DPOS governance encompasses the notion that witnesses can fork the chain. Users of the chain who don't like a fork have at least two options they can take in this case: 1) unvote the forking witnesses or 2) setup a separate fork (this latter option is available with any blockchain). The first is one extra advantage of DPOS-based blockchains.

Thanks for answering all the questions in the calm and respectful way that you have, man.

Look, it's pretty simple, Whale.

There is only one major difference between the owner of Steemit in January and the owner of Steemit in February. You guys are now treating the February owner way differently than the January owner.

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks"

Yeah, the DPoS governance model relies on elected witnesses to represent the will of the community when it comes to code adoption. It should come as no surprise that these witnesses act based on what they think is right and that the community can decide to vote or unvote them if they disagree.

In some cases, these witnesses need to act without public discourse in order to address security vulnerabilities/threats. It happens quite often in the blockchain community that security patches are put through without publicly revealing the vulnerability or tipping off the potential attacker that their potential attack is about to be mitigated. In fact, this has happened on Steem before.

If you want more witnesses, feel free to start up your own node or encourage other users to do so. Then you can ask them to never do anything without your permission, and if they agree, you can choose to support them.

I do understand why the action was taken and the reasoning behind it (even though I completely don't agree with it).

If you ask anyone here if it's ok to freeze their account, they would run for that PD button indeed.

So you don't ask. You do it (with consensus but obviously without debate).

For me, that is a problem, I believe it has set a precedent and it will be a looming option over the chain for anyone that in the eyes of the current governance might have bad intentions to the chain (whatever that may be, and that is the slippery slope).

Unfreezing the account will be a whole new puzzle to solve now too.

I hope you can imagine that it hasn't been easy for me to have such an opposing view from others on this topic, especially after all these years.

Thanks, Roeland, for your reply.

"So witnesses are doing that softfork 222 in order to protect their positions in the top 20."

I'm not in the top 20. GuiltyParties is not in the top 20. Netuoso is not in the top 20. Nextgen is not in the top 20. Neither is SteemPeak, Actifit, Abit, liondani, riverhead, bhuz, pfunk, arcange, jackmiller, c-squared, mahdiyari...

Neither is theycallmedan or johal or Transisto.

There were plenty of people engaged in discussions over the past 10 days and plenty of witnesses that were not in the top 20 who were very vocal and very much involved in the entire process. To paint this as a "protective move simply for the top 20" is just factually incorrect. You guys can repeat it all you want, but the truth says the exact opposite, as you can see by the number of people who began running the code last night. There are witnesses all the way down in the 80s now running this version.

In fact, a pretty large majority of witnesses are now running version 0.22.2, so it seems that continuing to paint this as only a top-20 undertaking or protective measure is just a flat-out and provable lie.

I am not surprised a move like this is possible. Where do you get that from? I was fully aware it could be done.

I'm 'sad' about it because it has been done.

Justin did not buy a blockchain, he bought a company and a whole bunch of tokens. And in my opinion, it was a legitimate buy. I never considered those tokens mine.

I think Justin will love how his account was frozen and the trust this has created. the process of unfreezing will be interesting.

"It's kind of a shock that you didn't know."

It was kind of a shock to many of us who were discussing this all week as well. We were under the impression that, as a long-time user, investor, and witness, Exyle understood how DPoS worked.

We also were surprised to learn that his account of what has taken place was very factually inaccurate (as I explained in my other comment to this post). Perhaps if he had spent a little more time engaging in the discussions - instead of showing up for just over an hour a couple of days ago and telling us how we didn't understand what we're doing, then leaving - he may have had a more firm grasp of the situation and, you know...the actual facts.

Ned also never stated he was going to disolve the Steem chain into another, never scheduled a token swap which stated the native token would become “worthless” so to not miss the swap, and hadn’t had a history of using community stake to vote in block producers (witnesses) he controls as well as blocking (censoring) projects which compete with his own, all things Justin Sun has done recently.

I agree, this change should have been done ages ago. But to pretend that there wasn’t a new possible significant threat is showing your ignorance on the situation as a whole. It’s ok to not understand aspects of the chain or what’s happening, but perhaps don’t be so quick to attack others when you clearly have no clue what’s going on.

When I saw that red blacklist badge of courage next to my name!! U got 3 of them so I don't feel so bad now!! Meh I've always been psycho, cunt I just hid it well! lol jk!!

I think you said it well. I have not much to add. I also don't feel entitled to the STEEM of the company that created the blockchain. I never have.

On a side note: I do believe efforts were made to contact Justin before taking this action as other witnesses have replied here and in other posts.

Yeah, that’s what we need.. a witness who doesn’t even understand DPOS. 🙌🏼

Meaning he vote swaps

you spoke some of my words man.I am not a Chinese but lately I'm also reading that racism kinds of posts and comments and it really feels bad. People here are not how they pretend to be..

"Because only a select few people were involved and no-one knew about it the argument can be made that it was behind closed doors."

The witnesses knew about it. Many witnesses, including yourself. That's not "no-one." Actually...these are the most important people and arguably the only people who needed to know about it, as the topic/risk had to do with blockchain security and continuity. And that's one of our only obligations as witnesses.

"I am not used to/fan of striking first, talk later."

There is no option of talking first when the other party to the conversation is the one that represents the potential security risk to the blockchain and can act nearly instantaneously. While you try to talk and make your requests or suggestions, they can click a few buttons and make your views/opinions/requests completely irrelevant.

To completely ignore this fact is reckless and to continue repeating "talking first" as a viable option to deal with an existential security threat is absolutely mind-blowing. In no other world would this be a good option and it is certainly not one here.

aha

Was never an attack. But rather a very important question we need to be asking ourselves. Even if we don't realize it, racism often creeps into our actions. Even for those who are not racist, we can do racist things without realizing it. Do a thought experiment and replace Justin Sun with a swashbuckling white Stanford grad who has gotten rich quick. If you think the reaction by 100% of the Witnesses would be 100% the same? Ok, fine. Then, there is zero racism in this action. But, if in that thought experiment, you think that ANY of the Witnesses would have reacted in ANY way differently, then well, THAT is what I'm talking about. And THAT is certainly worth talking about, especially since this community should do well to welcome and work with Justin Sun and Tron for the foreseeable future.

I just gave you a list of valid reasons of why this was done, based on actions of the new owner of Steemit inc, none of which were based on race. His race does not matter, and never came up as a factor. Please stop trying to take this to a low level of ridiculousness you are by insinuating such a ridiculous thing.

What responsibilities am I ignoring exactly? I disagree with you, and accept you disagreeing with us, but I can’t see why you need to personally attack me and @exyle on this...

You can become a witness yourself, have a vision about Steem that resonates with the community and demonstrate your good intentions towards the platform. If you can voice your opinions, ifyou get enough votes, if you can muster the time and financial investment it requires to be a great witness... Then you will be directly part of the decision making process.

I don't have the time or the expertise for that, so I vote for those witnesses I trust that can voice my opinions even better than I can.

I’m not personally attacking either of you in the slightest. I’m attacking the narrative being spread on extremely false accusations and the reasoning for doing so.. and well, I’m not even “attacking”, I’m stating my disapproval as well as highlighting the false claims. Not really sure why you keep saying I’m attacking you tbh 🤷‍♀️

Let's not be too harsh here. Looking at the video he struck me as being pretty emotional about it. I think it's because he just loves Steem too much. Love can sometimes blind a man a bit, don't you think?

Good video, I can definitely see both sides. I do like to talk this out and right the wrong after talks. Something was bound to happen because this was a big move. Ned and Justin are both to blame because they could have planned this out better. I believe Justin owns the stake, he paid for it.

"Look, it's pretty simple, Whale."

OMG! Are you fat-shaming him?!

Did you even try to do the thought experiment? Nope.

GREAT, you are back to youtube! awesome, i can watch this.

hey how come i never see you on splinterlands? seem to run into a heap of other people but not you.

I agree completely

Sorry to elaborate after watching:

I think the threat to Dpos has always been there, it's just now been realized and you seemed shocked by that which is the main issue for most people not supporting this decision (I know you really like Steem and have a ton of faith in it which I admire). As you can notice, 'skeptic' is in my name.

point that I only noticed after watching is when you talk about buying on the market (ie. binance) vs over the counter (behind closed doors from ned), you say there is no difference and don't agree that one is worse than the other. I agree with this point, it wouldn't actually wash the 'ninjamined' steem clean or make it any more or less right for either party. It doesn't change anything, but it may earn Ned less (we have no idea) and it would probably cost Justin a lot more (70 million Steem bought would skyrocket the price or take forever). I definitely know a lot of people here would cash out if the price suddenly increase to like 5$ because someone wanted to buy 70 million Steem. Alternatively, it would crash if Ned said he was powering down and putting it on the market over the next 13 weeks.

So the ninjamined Steem had to be bought under the table to control the price. In otherwords, the transfer didn't affect the price as much as buying on the exchange would. Also, we wouldn't even know who bought it and who to target. I think it isn't unreasonable to say a favour was done to us here. Justin is willing to talk, which is obviously better than whatever ned was doing for the last few years.

The main question is are we better off with Tron than Steemit? I think Justin is better than Ned, but I can see why the witnesses have no trust in him. He does run his mouth a bit and act full of himself (probably because he has some super inflated ego).

I have no problem with a little arm twisting because he needs it and I never had full faith in Dpos being absolute to begin with. We are just as secure as before (we were never secure).

Last, I don't think it was mentioned, but bringing up intangible things like who started this (obviously ned did) between witnesses or justin is unproductive. Here we are, let's hope people realize how serious this is and see what happens on the 6th. What will justin agree to? What will he offer? Hopefully he realizes what ninjamined implies for those who want to freeze him temporarily. I'm sure you are waiting too.

I understand the fear, but the action was not right which you all witness did it. You show something that nobody own truly his coins, because this can be frozen anytime by the witness. If Facebook own the Stakes, than you true have a reason to be afraid and do it....to save the freedom of Steem(it)

You all wittness didn't ask us as community about your decision, you made it just in the underground. You Witness all are here for us, to work as the long arm of the community, but not as own small group who decide anything alone....

I am asking you honestly: What the witenss will think this is going further now after unfreeze the Stakes? What you all think, there all BEST FRIENDS now after that? The News Website allredy writing about that case, from today every investor ( nevermind how much he will invest), will be aware that his investment can be freeze at any moment. This is not any more "Your Key-your Coins", from today this slogan is history for Steemit Blockchain....

absolut.

Could you tell me how many people are the representatives of how many inhabitants in your country?

And if you do not agree with the decisions of these representatives, how long must you wait before you can use your electoral power and possibly change the situation?

On Steem, you can do it 3 seconds later. How very blockchain is it?

@exyle

I accept you to close 100%.

But one problem i see is there. When someone promises something and breaks it ( Ned), it is close to a scam.

Nobody would use Steem with this premined Stake, if there was no promises.

The Steemit statement was they build Stuff on the Steem Blockchain and use the Steem to Fund it. And thats 100% fine because we all now it. Like a contract.

Now Ned sold Steemit under the Table. Nobody can prepare to this ( like powerdown, power up or whatever). We all invest here ( some more some less) with time and money.

Thats in my opinion a red flag too.

So i would say this fork has to happen before justin bought it. Then there would be all fine (to Steemit Ned).

Now its tricky. Because Jusin bought the Stake with promises from third person in the past ( ned).

It feels unfair for Justin Sun and its also unfair for the Steem Community. The only winner is Ned.

I think there should be super fast a big talk with Justin to clarify all.

And i hate it also to censor accounts. We are not here on facebook..... This should never happen, no matter what.

And i think current witnesses should make there statement on this too, like future actions on it.

Or as plan B we should make a poll witness thats in top 20. A witness that make no decissions itself.

So people vote for that witness can vote on a poll what there like. I now that would be fucking slow but more transparent.

I either missed it in each one, or there was no attempt on their parts whatsoever to reach out to Sun for some kind of clarification on his intentions. Did they?

Please read @pfunk excellent chronological summary.

We (the witnesses, stakeholders and community members) had prepared a lot of very good and precise questions that were sent to @elipowell before the AMA. The AMA was not an AMA at all and we had to unite and spam the trollbox with our questions to get their attention and only 3 questions being answered.

We had to wait nearly one week to get an official reaction from @steemitblog.

Since then, we have not received any clear feedback on the questions we continue to ask. Instead, official PR coming from Justin Sun or the exchanges he controls have been provided to us, with content in total disagreement with what has been announced!

@exyle Steem is DPOS - Steem is not money, Bitcoin is money. The top witnesses did what they thought they had to do to protect their investments and the Steem blockchain. This would be horrible if Steem was money and some group froze another account, but this could be good for Steem. People throw around the word decentralized, obviously not if anyone's funds can be frozen. Now you know, it's Bitcoin or bust for money, Steem's a great social platform. Invest accordingly.

I was quite surprised when the soft fork happened but initially thought it was the best temporary approach till a better idea was gotten about the intentions of Sun, I agree they are his tokens and he can do what he wants but to have such a big stake holder come in and say we all moving to Tron and having the voting power to change the governance model just like that was a bit of a shock.
I only wished that the witnesses could have suspended the possibility of voting for witnesses for now due to governance concerns but still allowed for all the other elements like power down, vote on content etc. There should also have been a clear exit criteria.
It is for sure a scary time for Steem and DPOS and I hope that this can be worked through.

Some feared he would start voting for witnesses with the stake. So witnesses are doing that softfork 222 in order to protect their positions in the top 20.

I am not in the top 20 and I may be suffering even more from having made this decision. My very first reaction was, like @exyle, "no way to freeze account assets!"

Then I have read the concern of everybody, agreeing or disagreeing, and would have it been a matter of position in the witness ranking, I would have NOT supported it.

The main goal has always been to avoid one single entity throwing out all top 30 witnesses to (brute) force the adoption of a non-Steem community agreed switch to TRON.

They were many witnesses, like me, who at first did not like the idea to prevent some operation for an account. Many of us expressed such concerns. But the vast majority finally came to a consensus to implement the softfork.

Maybe we are wrong. Then it's up to the community people to raise their voice and remove/switch votes to witnesses more in line with their opinion.

I think this is a very irrational fear. Also, protecting from this does not require freezing funds, just making a fork before eventual 'token swap' happens.

I don't think anyone wants STEEM, a normal shitcoin, to become the shitcoin of another shitcoin (TRX). It has 0 chance of happening imo.

Yet 2/3+ of the top 20 at least, agreed and patched to 2.22. Else the funds wouldn't be frozen. Most of the sub-20 are influenced by the bigger ones with more stake.

I am completely following you here, it is the beginning of a war, that can only be turned back to peace if Justin Sun shows "good attitude" in the eyes of the witnesses. But what is the line he can't cross? Will they decide what underwear he has to wear? Which woman he fucks? It is clear theft, in my opinion...

Agree, temporarily freezing pre-mined stake is actually a bold and protective move for the community and all who have honestly invested in Steem. Steemit's stake is similar to Steem DAO and should not take part in voting for example but only be used for maintaining, developing and marketing Steem. That was an unwritten agreement we had the last couple of years and should now be set in code, steem on :)

This whole episode conveys that assets in dPOS blockchains are not safe either by the actions of a single large holder or buy few coordinated stakeholders. We need to think through how to avoid such eventuality, for whatever reasons, through code.

I haven't decided fully where I am with all this, but I just want to commend you for standing for what you believe @exyle. You've put your point out clearly and I can totally see where you're coming from.

You're a man of principles. Thank you.

Well I've been working on switching them up.. I am definitely against freeing someone's account..

You're just proving my point now.

Congratulations @exyle!
Your post was mentioned in the Steem Hit Parade in the following categories:

• Comments - Ranked 2 with 205 comments
• Pending payout - Ranked 8 with $ 39

Hey, @arcange.

I did see pfunk's summary after I wrote my original comment. However, you just filled in details I wasn't aware of after reading at least six (maybe more) such summaries. So thank you for that.

I understand completely that at the very least, the STEEM community must now somehow negotiate with an unknown actor in Justin Sun—at worst, depending on whether it's the PR that's telling the true story, a bad actor that intends to subsume the blockchain into TRON itself.

That for me, wasn't the issue as far as the Witnesses are concerned.

The issue is, ten days of deaf ears is apparently enough to tie up accounts on the STEEM blockchain now if they are deemed to be adversarial to STEEM.

Ten days for accounts that existed for basically four years that all involved agree after the fact should have been dealt with previously. That even though the actor in that case, Ned Scott, was known and for the most part, considered untrustworthy. Even so, no such move was actually made, though it was, kind of sort of slipped unto the table last year.

I agree with exyle—for better, for worse, or some point in between, the door for freezing out accounts has been opened. Reversible or not, the precedent has been set.

As it is now, I've quickly reached the understanding that it really doesn't matter what I think at this point. It's done, and my disagreeing with it is moot.

I do have a couple of questions for you if you don't mind.

Do you know if anyone is now watching to see if Sun is powering up any other accounts? Is there any contingency for that scenario? What are the Witnesses prepared to do if he were to do such a thing, or actually responds in some fashion that is either considered insufficient again or acting in bad faith?

It would be nice to know how the Witnesses will respond from here on out. It would be nice that they communicate that to the community, like they wish Sun would communicate such things to them.

Thank you man, that is very nice of you to say.

I play from time to time, but usually in the gold league with my second set. Maybe we meet one day :)

I can see both sides too. I can understand from their viewpoint the reasoning of why they went to these measures. I just don't agree with it at all.

I think there was no treat but besides that, I think the buy was legit and he owns the tokens and therefore can do what he wants with it.

I think the precedent that has been created that under certain circumstances accounts can be frozen is far more dangerous then blocking steem biggest investor from accessing his legitimate stake that he bought.

To imply that the reason for this action was racially influenced is pretty much beyond a joke for me. I've seen literally zero evidence that the witnesses are doing this for anything related to a racial reason.

The closest thing I've seen to it, and it's not exactly racism, IMO, was Bernie's comments regarding Justin and communism, presumably because Justin was born in a communist ideology and could theoretically be influenced by that. But considering just how many outrageous claims Bernie makes when he's upset, I'm unable to conclude for sure that he even really believes that.

And on personal level, I happen to like most Chinese people I've met, and the majority of my social interactions outside of work are with Chinese people, since my hobby is table tennis. I've even been studying Mandarin for the past few years, in my spare time, so I'm able to communicate better with some of my Chinese friends who don't speak English.

Finally, to answer your thought question, I would certainly have acted the same way with your hypothetical Stanford graduate. I can't answer with certainty for others, of course, but if he had the same history and taken the same actions as Justin has, I believe there would be no difference in the reaction.

Lol, I was waiting for the "Ok, Boomer" next...

So much for "anti-censorship."

"So witnesses are doing that softfork 222 in order to protect their positions in the top 20."

for one, I am pretty sure no one did this to protect their position. As I outlined in my post, this was done having Steem at heart. All for Steem. Steemit Inc's stake as far as we can tell is not voting for witnesses, so that would not change. It is preventing the Steemit Inc stake specifically, which is bound to social contracts, to vote. As they where not voting anyhow obviously this doesn't change anything.

• Or are you suggesting that Top20 (or better said all participating witnesses including even more beyond top20) were afraid of being removed (by using that big Steemit inc stake) because not in line with the "Tron Vision"?

the precedent is more like the biggest whale threatening the safety of the chain and the community reacting to it. you're nitpicking the investment side of it. for any future investors the lesson is keep your fingers off twitter if you dunno what you're doing. not a bad precedent if you ask me.

The main goal has always been to avoid one single entity throwing out all top 30 witnesses ...

Why not just reduce the number of witnesses one single account can vote for?
Five to (at maximum) ten witness votes per account would be enough!
At least it would make it somewhat harder for one entity to control the whole blockchain. I know it would still be possible to use multiple accounts for witness voting, but in that case the stake had to be spread on different account which resulted in less voting power.

Already now the influence of - for example - @freedom on witness voting is far too big.

My preference would be that following this, we reduce the total witness vote to 10.

Exactly! I think five to (at maximum) ten witness votes per account would be fine.

Already now the influence of - for example - @freedom on witness voting is far too big.

governance ...

the simple fact that accounts CAN be frozen whatever the reason proves my point that this thing is about as centralized as any government, a few people decide and you are fucked, and that's that

the exact opposite of what BTC originally intended : DE-centralization ... no one is the boss, this stinks, another reason not to buy one cent of STEEM anymore

lol, any 'future' investor reading this will already have decided and will very likely never tweet about it

although , i need to clarify one thing on some other bru-ha (that has maybe not even reached this walled-off tribe in the forest)

I read first mister Sun had cancelled the dinner with Buffett (on which he spent 4.6 billion with a few friends ... i never read a number on steemit though ?)
and that big dubbelya just gave the coin away to charity ... (which is great, and people SHOULD stand for what they believe and if someone spends 4 billion on a date with a guy then it means thats spare change , (which means the guy is the only one with real money for five light years around steemit , and they gonna hamstring him ? (=lol but i didnt read it completely maybe i misunderstood) ... one thing to say about Buffetts remark

in reply to that id like to say

"gold has no intrinsic value, it produces nothing"

yet for some reason the gold price is at its highest in x time ... make that xxxx time

as for the rest ?

if they can just freeze account when a few people decide that makes this whole thing ULTRA-risky except for the people deciding, but i have seen for a while now: its a great pension fund

for about 20-30 people

...and i spend way too much time on it

some parts of american and chinese billionnaire-types are strange to me but tbh i can not imagine being one, reading this and then thinking : o let's quickly put a billion in that place where someone else can overnight decide about MY MONEY ... (?)
and plus, at the risk of repeating : the fact that freezing is even possible means this whole thing was a centralized scam from the start since it must have been hardcoded ... OOOooor is that what the hf is about ?

so a guy walks in with a billion and you tell him 'just a minute, sir, while we devaluate your money and make sure you can't reach it or do anything unless we allow it'

WELL THEN ... as for 'the' discussion : i have no idea what arguments billionnaires use and Crypton as a planet is fucked to me since the neo-chains and the first guy calling ICO, WAY before EOS scammed their way into billions without having one line of code ... but id say, even if Satoshi (THE MAN!) didn't succeed in realizing his dream as it got quickly taken over by people in suits with no clue :

if it's done one thing, it has created companies with people making money in a time where labour is scarce , mining coin is no different from the fed or BOJ printing extra when they think its time to do so, unless one assumes those people have divine insight and always when the right time is to do what (as if hyperinflating anything will ever be a solution, its like watering down wine until it becomes to thin it doesnt get you drunk)

so it did create jobs and it did get buying power out of thin air, and as for the rest : 1% is hogging all the money and keeping it locked, just like megacorp and the 1% are keeping the trillions pooled and out of the economy ... joe slob and homer simpson ain't to blame for that

SO, feel free to upvote this comment to $4000 (usd please, the bakery doesnt accept steem) and then i'm on my way

... ifyou get enough votes ...

I think you mean: if you get a vote from @freedom ... :)

To limit the influence of single huge stake holders I would reduce the number of witness votes per account to five to (at maximum) ten.

gold is used in many industries.. it's not just a piece of jewelry.

I think you mean @pumpkin ... :)

You can still move to TRON like Justin intended. Youll have a grand time if you like to gamble.

This is the single best thing that could have happened.

Why not just reduce the number of witnesses one single account can vote for?

While this is something I would like to see, it is a major change in governance that should be discussed (and it has already been at length) and will require a hard fork.

You do know that we have Steempower here and not every account has equal vote weight?
What a minnow with 50sp has to say means far less then what someone with 100k SP has to say or what a witness with 40 million SP backing them has to say.

because this can be frozen anytime by the witness

This was always the case. Tell me... would the witness voters (stake holders) allow witnesses to start freezing investor stake left and right???

The answer is no. They would quickly stop being witnesses. This change clearly demonstrates the power of consensus and the ability of a community to act.

This was not a sad day. Quite the opposite.

Lol. I sometimes feel folks dont even understand the meaning of the words coming out of their mouths.

"x first, talk later".

That is probably the most misleading thing exyle said.
We didnt talk to him???
Literally the first thing he comes out with is that he will dismantle the chain.

You answer the question yourself. The Witness didn't ask anyone for that move. Does the witness made puplic request from us comunnity? Not at all....
We all are free people and have the right to say what we think about it, if this decisssion was right or wrong.

You should read that:

https://steemit.com/tron/@cryptogee/the-truth-about-tron

The Witness didn't ask anyone for that move.

1. They did ask people.
2. There were hundreds of posts on the topic where you could determine overall agreement.
3. The community stakeholders gave witnesses votes because they trusted them to act for the good of the blockchain. If they did something stake holders didnt agree on they would be voted out and others would replace them and the fork would be reversed. The fact that their position is even stronger then before clearly shows where the stakeholders stand.

If you disagree vote for other witnesses. Thats what decentralization is about.

Read the cryptogee post. Commented already. He is dead wrong about everything.

I wonder..what is to stop him from simply buying an equal share tomorrow and voting witnesses who he wants?

I like the idea of 5 as well. I believe 10 to still be too high.

It was not an easy decision and I fully respect everyone's point of view because I shared the same concerns. But we had to make a decision and bear the consequences.
I'm OK with all the witness vote removal I got, including yours. This is truly what DPOS is and that's a good thing that people remove their witness vote if they disagree with what their representatives are doing.

Do you know if anyone is now watching to see if Sun is powering up any other accounts?

Yes, the blockchain is under close surveillance;)
This is how we noticed significant STEEM movements on some accounts before the acquisition of Steemit by Justin Sun, without knowing what was going on behind the scenes.

Is there any contingency for that scenario?

Yes, because the Justin/Tron Foundation has a load of money. No, if it's not worth it.

What are the Witnesses prepared to do if he were to do such a thing

Nothing. The softfork is not against Justin Sun or any wealthy enough investor. It is only about pre-launch ninja-mined stakes of Steemit accounts.

... or actually responds in some fashion that is either considered insufficient again or acting in bad faith?

I do not agree to leave the softfork applied forever. Shall he behave like Snaky Ned, I may revert my nodes to prior-SF version (i.e. unapprove softfork) and decide whether I leave the platform or not.

Regarding witness communication with the community, we already did some at the Curation Corner forum hosted by @shadowspub yesterday. I hope she will publish the recording soon.

No, I'm not! I'm just proving that DPOS enables users to revoke the voice they gave to their representatives faster than in real life.

I guess you meant "freezing" (small typo 😉)

Hey, @arcange.

I appreciate the thoughtful and substantial reply to my comment and questions. You're the first witness to do so on this post. I'm glad to hear that someone is watching to see the activity on the blockchain, particularly the powering up of large sums.

I'm also appreciative of your take on how the witness voting goes. For what our votes are actually worth, it is one of the very few ways we do have to show our displeasure with some action, stance or even inaction.

I'll need to head over to Curation Corner and see what's there. Didn't even know that one existed until you told me, so thanks for that information, too.

this will not help. to maintain the status quo one can create multiple account and spread the stake formerly with just one account to multiple and have the exact same influence.

Although the witness voting logistic is certainly open to discussion and potential solutions, this IMHO is not a solution to reduce influence over these lists.

Thanks for replying, but I don't get that:

If I spread my SP to - for example - three accounts, every of these accounts has only a third of the SP of the original account. So if then every of these three accounts voted for ten witnesses, the vote for every single witness would be significantly weaker (than a vote of the original account).

This effect would be even stronger in case every single account could only vote for lets say five witnesses.

Here the link to the recording (hot from the press)
https://steemit.com/hive-171372/@shadowspub/recording-curation-corner-let-s-talk-the-soft-fork-community-discussion

I think you mean ... jk no idea who it is.

Yes, that's a nicer way to put it.

Overall, adding code to arbitrarily change permissions like this is completely against decentralization principles. It also destroys the trust in the STEEM currency. If a mafia of 20 nerds can freeze your funds so easily, why would you want to ever invest into or hold steem?

Today maybe the only victim is Justin Sun, but tomorrow it could be apps or other large investors whose funds are taken hostage in a similar fashion, who knows?

https://thumbs.gfycat.com/DisfiguredLeafyIberiannase-size_restricted.gif

Straight up Gangster, this is a sad day for Steem.

It sounds like a Bank. I did not get into crypto for this kind of crap.

Yeah, it's exactly something a bank would do. For the good of all...

I 100% agree with you. Well done for having your say.

@stevoperon stop voting for Sun witnesses!

Please remove your votes for the [Tron] witnesses running 22.5. They are a cancer on the community and your vote is harming everyone and the chain itself. @stevoperon .

https://steemian.info/witnesses

Another little dick dude, eh?

the process of unfreezing will be interesting.

It was, wasn't it.

yeah it was