The Truth About Tron
So my prediction about a competent businessman taking over Steemit inc. has come to pass, Justin Sun CEO of Tron has bought ex-chairman's Ned Scott's stake and is now a majority shareholder, happy days, let's start running the company properly and seeing Steemit prosper, right?
Nope, because it appears we are fudding all over place, with lots of bizarre claims being made and a soft fork around the corner, so let's dive in and see what all the fuss is about.
Embracing The FUD
Fear Uncertainty & Doubt is something that comes hand in hand with the crypto market, people who spread it are often called 'fudders' and right now we have an awful lot of people fudding about the takeover by @justinsunsteemit of Tron. In my mind this is madness, Steemit inc. has been run awfully these past four years. It started as a great experiment, but bad management decisions and a complete lack of awareness in regards to how to run a successful platform has seen the Steem price plummet, 70% of employees being sacked, and a complete disregard to the original Steem whitepaper.
Make no mistake people, if Steemit had been run properly, the site would have come out of beta after about 6 months and not 3 years, there would be no Google ads on our posts and the Steem price would be buoyant.
Enter Justin Sun, an entrepreneur who started Tron about a year after Steemit, someone who understands business to the point that he has already secured a deal with Samsung, one of the largest companies on the planet. In addition to this he has attracted 10 million users to the Tron chain.
Think about that for a second, even if 90% of the accounts are inactive (which they aren't), it still dwarfs Steemit's user base. Why? Because he has some kind of clue about how to run a business, beyond just code.
About Business
So Justin is clearly a savvy businessman, you don't get deals with companies like Samsung by acting like @ned and mumbling about SMTs for almost four years without producing anything. Or taking three years to come out of beta and still not have a search function that works properly.
No, Justin is better than Ned because he is creating a thriving ecosytem with millions of users and mega-deal partnerships. Which is why it beggars belief that people are attacking him right now.
Oh no! He's going to destroy Steemit!!
Yeah right, because that's what savvy businessmen do, they buy stuff just so they can make it worth less . . .
Hmm
Somebody who is prepared to pay money, just so that they can have dinner with Warren Bufffet has more business sense in his left pinky toe, than Ned has in his entire body, in fact more than the entire Steemit inc team.
Soft Fork 22.2
As if to highlight this lack of business knowledge, the top Steemit witnesses (who technically are not part of Steemit inc.) have almost unanimously (with a couple of notable exceptions) voted to fork Steem so as to stop Justin accessing the funds which he legally required. Their reasoning behind it goes something like this;
Ned has promised not to touch Steemit's 75 million Steem, and by selling it to Justin he has broken that promise. We don't know what Justin intends to do with this Steem, ergo we are preventing him doing anything with it.
Erm guys, hate to tell you this but Ned's promise means nothing. He did not write that promise down and turn it into a legally binding contract, he simply made an empty promise to you, and just like the rest of his bullshit, you swallowed it. The reason being is because anyone who disagreed with him, was voted out of the top 19 witnesses, so it paid to show him deference.
However, he's gone now and you have a new boss, and I don't think it's wise to piss him off. If he wanted to, he could have you all crushed legally. Steemit inc is a private company, it is not some non-profit hippy dippy love-in. It is a company registered in the United States of America and is therefore subject to her laws.
A Sunny Future
When all is said and done, Justin will set about making Steemit the great platform it deserves to be, he will secure deals for Steem in the same way he has done for Tron. He'll run this place like a proper business, and I'm sure in a year's time this place will be unrecognisable from the shambles it is now.
It might sound a bit harsh to say that Steemit is a shambles, when so many good things have been done. However, I challenge you to try and use the search function on the site, or in the new communities section. A site's search function is just so damn basic, so for it to still not work after almost four years is laughable.
The fact that a site that literally prints money has to resort to Google advertising to raise funds, is also shambolic. The fact that a managing director is appointed and given zero budget is shambolic.
Justin has already shown that he understands how to grow a company beyond the crypto community and add value to millions of lives.
In my mind, the future is bright, the future is Sunny.
WHAT DO YOU THINK? ARE PEOPLE CORRECT TO INSTANTLY MISTRUST JUSTIN, OR ARE THEY SIMPLY DAMAGING STEEMIT AND THE STEEM PRICE?
AS EVER, LET ME KNOW BELOW!
Very well said.
I have a feeling that it's all about top witnesses protecting their asses.
Some witnesses are entrenched at the top 20 for many years, maybe they think the chain is their property now.
They didn't like the idea of changing the voting mechanism for witnesses (which would have solved the problem from its root) because most of them know that they're at the top because of 2 or 3 whales voting for them (the idea that they are there because the community supports them is delusional).
My research indicates this is untrue, despite the fact that the present witness election system is faulty. There is ~210M Steem presently, and @justinsunsteemit now owns ~100M of it. Of the total, a significant percentage isn't voting for witnesss, whether from lost keys, bailed users, or whatever. @justinsunsteemit presently holds ~150% of the stake historically available to vote for witnesses.
No election system I can conceive of will make that weight of stake in a DPoS mechanism incapable of instant control of governance of Steem at will.
Thanks!
Wouldn't highering the number of consensus witnesses and applying the example you mentioned before allow the community to get few spots? 100/30 (or lower value with each vote) + limit number of votes / will give us a value than can be easily surpassed by some current whales to push many users to the top. What do you think?
The goal is to make it harder not impossible. We will always be in a situation where one or two people are controlling the top 20 spots, which is already the case now. If we nullify the stake of X the one behind it will again become the new player. But I guess this is a natural thing on a DPOS Blockchain.
Tron didn't mention if they brought the whole package (I mean all the Steem in all the accounts) but I can't see them sending 100 to null just for the sake of it.
See, this is why I like smarter people than me. I never thought of raising the number of consensus witnesses. Since that can be increased without limit, then at some point the stake of the minnows can at least elect a witness. Maybe through some combination of increased number of witnesses, per account limits on numbers of witnesses voted for, and making 1 Steem = 1 witness vote, control of the consensus could be prevented to any single stakeholder.
I think it's unlikely, but I'm not a competent mathematician.
Thanks!
That's idea: limit account voting up to 3-5 witness rather than 30 witnesses.
i am aware of certain users that have more than ten thousand accounts. Each of those accounts will be able to cast witness votes, which will allow that user to get around the limit on witness votes an account can cast. Many, many users have ten or more accounts.
Each Steem needs to only vote once for witness, and not 30 times.
Thought experiment:
Someone has 1000 SP. They vote for max number of witnesses. The witnesses each receive a 1000 SP vote.
Someone has 1000 SP. They split it amongst two accounts. 500 SP for one, 500 SP for the other. Each account votes for max number of witnesses. The witnesses each receive 1000 SP of votes.
Sybil attack is not possible with witness voting due to the "proof of stake" part of DPoS.
Here's an example of how extant 30x multiplication of stake weight inflates the value of substantial stakeholders in governance. User A has 1M Steem. User B has 100 Steem. User A votes 30x for witnesses, and casts 1M votes for each. User B does also, casting 100 votes for each.
In total user A casts 30M votes. User B casts 3000. The difference between the fiat value of their respective stakes is 999,900. The difference between the weight of their votes effecting governance of the blockchain is 29,997,000. This dramatically multiplies the impact the founder's stake has on governance, and contributes to Tron's ability to control consensus witnesses. If Tron is able to vote with 75M Steem for witnesses, it is able to cast 2.25B votes.
Each Steem should be counted once in governance/witness elections, to provide equitable weight to all stakeholders in governance of the blockchain. The extant voting method has now proven to be an immense security risk to the blockchain, whether you call it a Sybil attack or not.
And at least five of them hold ninja mined steem.
Agreed @dr-frankenstein, it is well known that without the @freedom vote you will not get into the top 20.
Cg
Good to see level headed thinkers
There are many, they just don't want to expose themself, I guess.
It has become a good ol boys club with Top Witnesses hasn't it.
I think every one of the Top Witnesses that was involved with the Soft Fork should set down indefinitely to show that this was actually about preserving steem and not about benefiting themselves financially, which it looks like it was.
Agree.
I think there is some of that, but overall there's a lot of fudding from outside the witness pool as well.
Cg
Investors are not welcome here. All these witnesses together did not invest even 10 percent of what @justinsunsteemit did. Even worse; most of them have origin in ninjamining "business". Is that true @smooth?
I will support @justinsunsteemit with my purchased stake and I'am not the only one.
Sun spent $10m. You are claiming the witnesses and stakeholders involved in the fork do not have a collective $1m invested into the ecosystem? If so, no point in debating you because you are clearly not going to stick to any facts anyway.
It just takes a second to see who you are dealing with. Most (not all) of those opposing this change either are blacklisted, hate downvoting or have history of abusing the reward pool.
As is the case with friendly stranger
Are you planning to lock my stake too?
I don't think that anyone would lock your stake, because your stake is not ninja-mined.
The ethics of ninja-mining are simple: It is wrong to ninja-mine.
The only thing I can ask the witnesses is this: Why did the SiNMS not get banished or locked sooner? It should not exist.
There are much more ninja mined coins here. That's the problem.
All Steem originated in the ninjamine. Inflation and rewards have subsequently increased the total. The ninjamine isn't some potential line in the sand that can resolve inequity.
The inequity has always been inherent to Steem, and nothing short of dissolution can resolve it.
You're right. There's nothing good about ninja-mining, especially on chains where more stake equals more power.
We just gotta do what we can do, even if it's tough.
Those other ninja mined coins didn't promise to not vote, didn't get an operation hardforked in to decline voting rights, hf14, then not use that operation out of obstinacy/skullduggery, nor have they forced through deleterious forks.
@smooth and the one I won't name, amongst others.
We still don't know how much stake Ned still has, it can be hidden in sock puppets.
Any undoxxed accounts are suspect.
Freedom? Pumpkin?
Wtf knows?
The fact is, when it first happened @ned told us that the coins were pre-mined in order to stay within US federal regulations regarding setting up a company and its assets. They didn't want to do an ICO which at the time were under a lot of federal scrutiny.
The net result of course is the same, however the key point is, that the Steem is a registered company asset, and trying to prevent someone who paid for it access, will no doubt be illegal.
Cg
Perhaps the scrutiny was warranted, if this happens.
The point of law is not to enforce it. It's to maintain peace and fairness.
When that does not happen, then the law no longer matters. I won't tolerate you playing a game of legal loopholes. What matters is justice.
Or does this law matter to you? It doesn't to me. I don't think law is anything other than the abstraction of justice, codified, and that code can always be broken if need be.
And I think it needs to be broken, if indeed it is illegal. However, we must question: Is it actually illegal? The courts will decide if it comes to that.
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I think it's a case of hope for the best and prepare for the worst. Justin is a bit of an unknown and I think the witnesses do care about the future of Steem. Most of them do not make a huge amount and some cannot cover their costs. The Steem price is mostly following the market. It didn't go up that much after the sale of Steemit and it's still higher than a month ago. I do wonder if Justin really knew what he bought, but he's obviously smart. I'm cautiously optimistic.
Thank you for being a voice of reason throughout this.
I'm an optimist and try to see the good in people. It's an interesting time for Steem, but we have had challenges in the past. I think the community is strong, but small. It's worth fighting for what it could be.
I've been discussing the state of Steem and some of the issues with a friend. That may inspire another post. Need to have conversations about what could be better.
The messaging coming from Justin Sun/TRON regarding Steemit and Steem reads to me like a complete deprecation of the blockchain. They came out of the gate with imminent token swaps, moving forward with TRON blockchain-based tokens. Further communications including his open letter stick to this plan. Sun may have bought Steemit Inc. but he didn't buy Steem. This is why the witnesses took action.
I'd take Justin over Ned if he didn't seem so keen on imploding Steem and pretending like it will live on on TRON. The messaging points to that though.
I totally understand the desire to be optimistic and hope that all the best things for Steem would come true courtesy of Justin, but there's too much pointing in the other direction to ignore.
I wrote a post trying as best I could to set the context of the decision of so many witnesses to support the soft fork.
You're completely right.
I'm not a fan of naivety, and it's beyond obvious that Justin's plan is to turn our community into his customers. And he will do anything to accomplish this. Even give out millions of dollars.
Question this too: Why did Ned sell to the highest bidder, and not just a high bidder who would actually be a benevolent replacement? There are people who would be willing to buy Steemit, and then use its power to give Steem the practical changes it needs to finally shake off the dust.
But instead, Ned sold it to a person who intends to destroy Steem?
What a shame that the world is like this.
[citation needed]
Tron may certainly have been the most benevolent of bidders, IMHO.
I am utterly confident that @justinsunsteemit has no intention of rendering his investment in Steem worthless by simply destroying Steem.
That's just silly.
Goolag, Fakebook, et alia would have, but why would they invest $M's to destroy Steem? They are investing such wealth in censoring their own platforms to far greater effect already.
Destroying Steem is not silly.
Haven't you heard of EEE?
Did you not read the balance of my comment? I said that Tron destroying Steem was silly. I don't think others destroying Steem is silly. Tron has made a series of acquistions including Opera, BitTorrent, and Poloniex, along with Steem, and these entities are all advancing decentralization. This indicates purpose contrary to any conception that Tron is going to decrease Steem's decentralization or success. It's a matter of considering actions as indicative of intent, and I submit that there is an underlying purpose that concatenation of the capabilities of all these entities can serve strongly empowering Steem and it's stakeholders.
And I have not heard of EEE. What is it?
EEE is Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.
A Microsoft business tactic.
As for owning Opera, BitTorrent, Poloniex, and others, I will state clearly:
By having Tron own all of those entities, he has centralized them under the Tron umbrella. That is absolute centralization.
Ownership of private stock corporations is centralized no matter who the majority stockholder(s) is. What those companies do is increase decentralization. Opera provides a builtin VPN, which makes it's users far less able to be tracked, banned, or otherwise impeded in their communications online. Poloniex is a gateway to fiat for cryptos, clearly advancing decentralization financially. BitTorrent is a mechanism to crowdsource data downloads, one of the most powerful decentralization mechanisms online. Steemit I assume you grasp how it's a decentralizing mechanism online.
Ownership of those companies was always centralized. Tron putting them all under it's umbrella reveals the company is seeking either to use those technologies and foci to advance decentralization online, or to prevent them from being useful for that purpose. I find them not doing the latter, which they could have done easily as soon as they bought them.
Tron has clearly not EEE'd any of those companies, in any way.
BitTorrent has been associated with Thom Yorke (yes the musician) one of the biggest darlings of the world of centralized media. So, no. there’s absolutely no way I trust Justin. Just another verified face of the global media. In your frame of mind, centralized use of blockchain is an acceptable replacement for cryptocurrency. You might as well be replacing your bitcoin with jpmorgan Monopoly money right?
Very good article @pfunk, and it did open me up to some info I wasn't aware of. However as I mentioned, the danger of this happening was always on the cards. I said as much 3 years ago in my article about Steem only having the illusion of being decentralised. It's just that Dan, and then later Ned, were honour bound not to do anything with it.
However Ned did use it to control the top witnesses and get through the forks he wanted. Look what happened to Bernie when he went against Ned, and anyone else who disagreed with him was voted out of the top 19 using the very Steem you mention in your article.
I saw it as an inevitability that this would one day happen. Hopefully yourself and some of the other witnesses can guide Justin into taking this platform and subsequently the currency into the future.
Cg
Yes, he will also cure cancer and breast feed little children. You know that he uses he's own stake to vote on "representatives" on Tron right? It's one of the most centralized blockchains that run simple gambling apps and that's all. No one is using it so he figured out he's gonna buy a community and just move whole steem on tron. Well - nope.
This is absolute nonsense.
Yes. Even if he didnt say he would token swap Steem and basically dismantle the chain in the end taking over all the exchange listings, Justin is still not a trustworthy figure.
The fact that he made his intentions public off the bat justify completely freezing his stake.
This is something that was supposed to be done years ago.
Look, it is your guys right not caring about your Steem investment, which you obviously dont since you apparently arent even phased by someone taking over the chain with the intention to dismantle it and move it to TRON.
But most of us do.
Witnesses made the call (a very good and very smart call since a soft fork maintains the exchange listings) with stake behind them to protect the chain from ninjamined stake being used in a hostile way.
Nothing else matters.
Just because Ned sucks doesnt mean we let Justin take over the chain. That would be idiotic.
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The thing is, you keep talking about the chain as if it's ours. But only your stake is yours. My stake is mine. And Justin Sun's stake is his. Very simple.
Maybe Ned's stake was ours. It 's debatable, it was just a promise. But he sold it anyway.
I mostly agree with everything you have said. The fact that there are ads up I feel is a responsible way to profit from the huge SEO funnel. Now maybe you feel that the entire ad engine should be internal and not adsense.
But yes, Steemit Inc has been primarily a joke and the witness voting has been a sad story.
STEEM was essentially on life support. Justin coming in and getting Steemit.com and the STEEM blockchain back in the conversation is a positive thing.
That is why I announced
Semi Flaccid Hard Fork 22.3
Posted using Partiko Android
Well at least it's going to get interesting around here again! :)
Cg
True. A lot of people did pop back in when they saw articles about the Justin Sun acquisition so it at least came back into the conversation.
Yes.
So, as always neither the problems nor the solutions are simply resolvable in binary terms. However, that's how people deal with life.
FUD is the basis for science. It's not some evil that destroys all that is good and useful in the universe. If you look at my own post on the matter, you'll see that I also recommend adherence to principle regarding private property as it pertains to the purchase and sale of @ned's assets by @justinsunsteemit. I do not disagree that the SF should be reversed immediately, without reservation. I do not agree that it should be because @justinsunsteemit is the Great Leader we have always needed, and we will thereafter ride off into the sunset happily forever after.
That's just silly. The witnesses secured their power, that @ned had allowed them, temporarily with the SF. @justinsunsteemit has wisely proposed negotiations to resolve the matter, and not litigation. We'll see what comes of it, but we're just along for the ride, except as we vote out the current crop of witnesses, which the majority stake on the platform will not do, because they're dependent on these witnesses for the maintenance of their majority - which @ned allowed them as well, and is no less threatened by @justinsunsteemit than is these witnesses power.
Thanks!
Im personally kinda torn on the matter. Strangely enough, the acquisition took place around the time I joined Steemit, and all I was hoping for was that it wouldn't affect my experience.
So far I have enjoyed using Steemit immensely. It's a way for ke to expand my influence and such as a writer. and the community is really supportive.
I don't know if i could ask for more than that, and I think that's the MAJOR issue that people are dealing with:
How will this affect my experience?
Just the musings of your friendly neighborhood Internet Asshole here!
In crypto everyone loves to hate everyone else's product, I haven't figured out why except maybe age and lack of experience.
I also was excited about the potential of Tron.
However, I do think there is plenty of reason to use caution with Justin, but the panic and hyperbole is amusing.
Of course there are lawsuits anyone in the nearly billionaire group is going to have law suits and lots of press both good and bad.
In addition our community seems to have forgotten many of our apps go mostly unused as well.
Then why did the pitch deck Sun received pretend there are millions of Steem users active on hundreds of dapps?
You realize Sun was likely sold a fraudulent misrepresentation of a product by Ned right? It is not our concern about Ned's fraudulence in this deal. The softfork gives Sun a chance to get properly informed about what he purchased and he can even pursue Ned in court if he wants.
@ned @justinsunsteemit
Yeah as I said... Lot's of reasons to use caution that being one of them.
Our own marketing (not that we have it) insists we have hundreds of apps. In reality there are a handful anyone uses.
This ignorant user is spreading dangerous lies in order to attempt to gain popularity and attention from the new commie overlord. Ignore the ignorant twat bag, you'll immediately feel better about your life.
You're so right. Sometimes I read stuff from other Steemians and I wonder what drugs they're on! I think Justin will really sort us out, it's going to hurt some feelings, but ultimately it will be better for the platform.
I just hope this softfork doesn't go ahead, it's already affecting the price. :(
Cg
Just huffing some gas today. Don't mind me.
I'm on Advil PM's
No it isn't.
Unless it is also affecting price of Enjin
XRP
And nearly every other alt coin out there.
capitulation is coming.
Yes. But not because of the softfork. I should have waited a little longer to buy :)
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Honestly this is just as ignorant as when Sun said the STEEM price was going up in response to the acquisition when it had just been announced. Despite the fact that Bitcoin had been rising too.
Guess Sun buying steemit caused that Bitcoin rise also right?
bitcoin is now falling... must have been the softfork right?
They sold the EIP on the (incorrect) narrative that the Steem price sucks ... in the middle of a bear market. Now the (correct) narrative points away from the softfork because Bitcoin is having a moment. Funny that.
Yeah I don't buy arguments based on the current price of Steem which isn't framed within the context of the price of BTC and the other alts. It seems a lot of people forget or ignore that the price moves in relation to the markets. Yes, there is influence from what happens on the platform but it's not the driving force.
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This ignorant user is spreading dangerous lies in order to attempt to gain popularity and attention from the new commie overlord. Ignore the ignorant twat bag, you'll immediately feel better about your life.