Before going into this topic, I do want to point out that Steemit, Inc is a private company that is different from Steem. How many times has it been pointed out that Steemit is not Steem? Holding STEEM means ones has a stake in the Steem blockchain but give one zero holding in Steemit.
Thus, like any private company, @ned is fully within his rights to provide or deny anyone access to the financial status of Steemit, Inc.
@daan put up an article about an exchange that @paulag and Ned had in the comment section of one of the livestream posts. In it, she asked for financial transparency from Ned.
This was followed up by Ned's response.
I feel that both parties are within their rights here. It was a reasonable request that @paulag made and Ned is fully within his rights to say no.
So what is Ned hiding?
Many jumped to the idea that Steemit Inc is going bankrupt. There is no evidence of that and the recent moves actually could be counter to that. More often then not, when companies lay off staff and restructure, it makes them a stronger company. This is why stock prices jump when public companies announce large scale layoffs. It is an immediate savings.
Of course, without seeing the records, there is no way to know. Ned might not be hiding anything. Financial privacy is often something that companies maintain. It is one of their reasons for remaining private as opposed to going public.
This does bring up a much larger point that @fknmayhem covered. It is something that I discussed since the news about Steemit Inc came out. Almost a week ago I wrote a post stating that it is time for everyone to stop using Steemit.com.
https://busy.org/@taskmaster4450/it-is-time-to-stop-using-steemit-com
My reasoning for this article was simple. We need to make Steemit a smaller part of our lives. It is obvious they had too much control, something they could not handle. There are other front ends that do it better and are worthy of the support.
@fknmayhem goes one step further.
Decentralization is the key. The entire reason for blockchain is to avoid situations like this.
In the financial world, we see what is called 3rd party counter risk. This was most evident in the MBS situation a decade ago. These assets were "insured" by AIG who issued CDO. The problem was the CDOs were worthless since AIG was insolvent.
That is what 3rd party counter risk is. There is a risk associated in dealing with another entity. It means having to trust the solvency (sound familiar) of an entity.
Steemians are now forced to take on the risk posed by Steemit. Whether by plan or simply the fact that the community sat back, we see where the ecosystem is exposed.
As was posted, this is an opportunity. It is good that this came to light now. The community has the opportunity to address these issues and push for more decentralization. It is something we all should be doing at every level. While most of us are not developers, something as simple as switching the interface we use is a step in the right direction.
@smooth brought up valid points about the power Steemit wields.
The fact that Steemit has so much in the way of STEEM could be problematic. Could they dump and completely destroy the ecosystem? It is possible. although something I do not think likely. If they did dump, that would be a long term benefit to the ecosystem. While the price would most likely collapse, it would be a buying opportunity.
This, of course, is presuming the development side of things is spread out. As of now, we are the over the proverbial barrel. That said, if Steemit Inc did disappear, I know there are enough smart coders who would be able to take over the development of the blockchain. Again, as @fknmayhem pointed out, that is how open source usually works.
Therefore, I am not going to conclude Ned is hiding something because I do not know. The truth is that most reading these words would probably do the same thing if in his shoes. Most people are not publicly offering up information about their own or their company's financial status.
That said, I am not going to stop pushing the decentralization aspect of things. It is unhealthy for the ecosystem to be so dependent upon Steemit. It is time to take the next step and have other options within the platform. I hope this is something the Witnesses and developers on Utopian are discussing.
Steemit presenting a 3rd party counter risk to every Steemian is not how this should be.
It is time to reduce, if not eliminate, that.
To read @daan's full post:
The original post where @paulag's comments were.
If you found this article informative, please give an upvote and a resteem.
Two items for your consideration;
It seems to me the only reason that you would not even communicate with someone offering a project while in a crisis situation is that you are planning bad behavior.
You expect them to sell your 100k STEEM for 100k USD, putting STEEM at effectively 1 cent evaluation.
I expect them to set up a smart contract and put 400k tokens in a wallet that only I can buy from, for .40 USD for two years. Worst case they offer to sell me 400k tokens at a much higher than current price. Best case I deliver and help steem go back to $3.00 range.
I think it's very telling that ned said:
Doesn't this imply that they are several months away from bankruptcy? Just the amount of time you'd need to power down your account and bail?
I almost feel like a whale needs to preemptively dump on the market and squeeze ned out once and for all. I'd rather rip the bandaid off quickly rather than deal with this nonsense. Anyone who can't figure out how to play it safe in such a volatile market doesn't deserve to be here.
Guys like @fulltimegeek are trying to offer SMT solutions by developing products solo. If one person can do that, what the hell is the STINC team doing?
ned gets a criticized on a daily basis. I would never expect him to open his books and feed the endless trolls he has to deal with. However, nothing about this situation is trustworthy.
While I do believe that @fulltimegeek is working diligently on his project, he hasn't published anything yet (no whitepaper, no MVP) besides a small tweet. When @ned published the idea of SMTs, a full whitepaper was shared at the same time.
If you want to praise someone, do it once the person has actually delivered.
Fair enough. The point I'd actually like to make is that we need to learn how to scale up in a decentralized manner. We aren't going to make it very far if everyone works alone or in small groups.
hi @taskmaster4450, great to see such an engaging discussion on the topic. I read this post earlier today but I did not have the time to reply and really wanted to come back and leave some thoughts with you on it.
First of all I think @m-ssed-t hit the nail on the head, I did not ask for financial accounts, but a list of steem accounts that steemit inc and staff control. Only when reading this comment did it occur to me that maybe @neds response was because he felt that I was asking for financial accounts.
"Could they dump and completely destroy the ecosystem? It is possible. although something I do not think likely. If they did dump, that would be a long term benefit to the ecosystem. While the price would most likely collapse, it would be a buying opportunity."
Yes they could just dump, but I have to agree that would leave a buying opportunity. sure crypto is bleeding out anyway and it would move us to a much more decentralized control and that what we are all after anyway. I would rather they dumped now and let us get on with things than we spending ages fixing the problems, the price to rise and for them to crash it for us again.
STEEM is not steemit inc and we need to change the way people thing about that, steemit inc is a dev company. In the mean time, there is plenty we can do on the block as a community. There are a lot of discussions happening and a lot of people starting to take actions on certain things. The community needs to take control of what they can control and leave steemit inc to do what they want. we have a top 20 voted in witnesses, they do not have to accept what steemit inc are doing :-)
I also don't think that Ned has to disclose anything since we are all invested in Steem blockchain and not in this company. We all know that the amount of SP they hold is massive and if they dumped then the prices would plummet. But this would only be an excellent buying opportunity for those who believe in the future of this blockchain. And this is unlikely that they would dump. Otherwise they wouldn't need to lay off 70 percent of the team.
I started using Busy again when not on the phone. The interface is far friendlier than steemit's. And if in the future they would add a link to blocktrades for buying or selling steem, then there will be no reason to return to steemit. Oh, and having my browser remember the tags I'm using on Busy would save me something like 10 seconds... 😀
By the way, have you seen this announcement by Coinbase that they are looking into other digital assets to add to their exchange? Although Steem is not on the list, lots of people are voting and commenting for Steem. But this one response criticizes several things about it and asks Coinbase not to add Steem at this time. Would be interesting to see an intelligent counter-argument. Here is the link to the response: “Where’s Steem on this list?” by zyx https://link.medium.com/KNXVLX4yvS (Look for Frank Kemnath)
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Even if you dumb Steem down to the basics:
That should already be enough to add Steem to the list. Our API is just icing on the cake.
Oh... our bid-bots are a problem? They operate in a setting of social media. Where's the other social media alternative-coin?
steemit has lacked innovation all year and is only tolerable with steemplus. steemit issue is a drag on steem but hopefully positive changes are finally on the way, but who knows
This is a valid argument, but how does one justify picking other coins that don't do anything yet?
I would actually vote for Maker and Dai before Steem. Those picks would synergize better with Coinbase. We absolutely need a decentralized stable-coin option. Adding Dai to Coinbase would allow businesses to accept Dai directly to a source that could be cashed out to an American bank account.
However, many of these nominations are clearly worse than Steem. Also, none of these coins are trying to do what Steem is attempting. Social media is pretty important.
Your thoughts are not far away from mine, ever since I first read about this development some three days ago. For sure I know that Ned and Steemit Holds a very large part of the Steem we have now and their decision on how they use this stake will have a noticeable effect on the ecosystem. But I'm glad this did came to light and will make everyone who's interested in Steem for the long run to begin to take Steem out of the big picture.
It's time for everyone to ask themselves, how much do we need Steemit and what can we do without Steemit?
I believe in the future of Steem as well as blockchain social media and I'm sure we'll all pull through.
Decentralization is the key.
it is the key, sink or thrive time
We are probably stretching too much. Bear market is breaking everybody nerves. @ned is also human being. He too is scared as most of us. I am sure he won’t dump his stake as most of us won’t dump. Stay on and keep steaming is best way to keep it alive and bring it to the forefront when most other projects collapse dues to lack of real product being exposed in this downturn. Soon they will stand naked.
Normally I would say that private companies have every right to keep their financial information to themselves but we are in a unique possesion because of Steemit inc's huge stake. If they sell all or most of their steem, the price is crushed. If they remove delegation from the apps they are suppprting many of them may not survive. They can be replaced as developers but it could take awhile before they can be completely replaced.
If Steemit Inc are considering leaving they should at least make it gradual rather than unexpected or simply sell their company to someone else who is willing and able to fill the role. Considering the extent of influence Steemit Inc has, they need to be as transparent as possible as their actions directly affect other Steem investors.
Yeah, those were my first thoughts when I read the discussion. Now, I do think Steemit deserves a little bit of slack, they have not shown any indication that they would handle selling off their stake irresponsibly. Just the fact that it's possible for them to do so, is what worries me.
That's true. I believe they have sold some Steem but no major dumps.
They are in very difficult situation with the price drops. Then again, many of the problems they face now were going to come up at some point. The price drop might be the shakeup they needed to sort out their cost structures as well their revenue streams.
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Exactly. People are worried about Ned dumping his coins, but I think a far more likely scenario is that Steemit.com, along with all its accounts, is sold eventually to some VC. I'm quite certain Ned has been approached at least once by private investors during this bear market.
It probably isn't even possible for Steemit Inc to dump the whole lot as there wouldn't be enough buyers. Price would fall to a few cents and they would have to wait until they get enough bids.
Selling directly to someone or another company is a far more sensible option. Maybe even sell off part of the company which includes a particular amount of Steem. There are a few ways out without crashes the price further.
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That's what I had in mind. There is not enough liquidity on exchanges to absorb all the Steem in those accounts. Makes much more sense to sell in bulk to VCs who want to exposure to Steemit.
Am I reading the same original comment from @paulag as everyone else?
I think Ned read "accounts" and immediately jumped on the defensive, thinking he was requesting actual financial accounts of the business.
[I could be wrong here] But I think @paulag was asking for a list of user accounts (i.e. different users on Steem) which were controlled by Steemit Inc., and it's staff, past and present.
That's a very different question, and a very different conversation than the one which seems to be happening here.
Either interpretation brings no obligation to bear on Steemit.
I beg to differ, when stinc have hidden accounts it equals hidden agendas, and when those accounts were created before on boarding people, and when those accounts mined most if not all of the coins, as stated by dan, and when those accounts are cashing out, making the most profit from bidbots, have never made any positive impact on the whole system, then her question is more valid than your comment! Heads in sand never made the world any better.
Your point is well taken, @shepz1. Although good sources have assured me who it is, it has tantalized my curiousity to know who @freedom is definitively.
@themarkymark's recent work on exposing account ownerships had me overlooking his opinion on vote bots and giving him my renewed support for witness.
Yet we all knew, or could have found out, what the stakes were (excuse the pun) before our involvement in the steem blockchain. We all knew, or could have known, that even the minimal 1/19th going to miners was repealed and that even before it was it was a closed club or only extremely gifted software engineers that could figure out how to do it. That was not by chance in my estimation.
The world is not a fair place, but it is times like now that help to level the playing fields. If many more reward seekers jump ship we should be able to run our witness nodes on a 64 GB machine with a noip.com domain address, regardless if Steemit, Inc. gets around to the rocksDB implementation HF. If STEEM drops to one cent then we can become whales to challange even the likes of Steemit, Inc.
But hopefully it need not come to that and hopefully those with the biggest stake have the greatest motivation to see this project work and have success.
But do we have the right to demand anonymity be removed? Not by my way of thinking and it is exactly such governance that keeps me from investing in EOS.
Anyway, that's just how this one user sees things.
Thanks for a superb reply.
It is not demanding anonymity removed from all, more Ned and his alt egos coming clean.
It is clear by now either way that he is no longer needed here. Nothing happens with him hanging around, just excuses or silence.
The only part of this is that surprises me, is that he even bothered to answer paulag, as he does not even bother answering top witnesses.
SMT is mostly all anyone hears from ned.
I am hoping the same as you, that the whole thing gets simplified so it can be run on those 64gb machines, and a 1 cent buy in would be excellent for new people to balance this place out to where in my opinion it needs to be.
We all want this place to succeed or we would not be here, I hope it succeeds though without neds greed.
You certainly have made me hear "the sound of silence" with regards to this issue. Thanks for the discussion!
Most welcome, cheers my friend.
I'm surprised this post is so low on trending. It spawned a lot of great discussion with helpful debate.
I've re-steemed it to help give it greater reach.
Great post.
Glad the discussion is very proactive and we are planning to get it fixed in case Steemit inc is no longer the lead.
Welcome to decentralization.
Keep on postin
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I believe @ned does not hide anything... We just have problem what market - BTC .... we rely depend on this BTC coin too much ... This is the problem. And who manipulates BTC price, it can also manipulate the entire whole market. Just look at all market prices, they all move when BTC coin moves town or up. IS THIS HARD TO SAY ? AND SEE?
This Steemit platform does not have a lot of problems in here , this development in steemit is required too quickly and lot without looking at what happens around as, and the rest of the market.
And I am happy that @ned was send out 70% employees and we can take some Slow down and see what's happening around.
This has been on my mind since my fourth post on the blockchain. It's about bloody time! Being kicked out of the Steemit Nest is the best thing that could happen to this decentralized open source project, in my opinion.
Re: Steemit's Books
How about demanding Trump's tax returns while you're at it. 😎
Or the Pentagon's. Or auditing the Fed. Not that I'm comparing the ninjaminers of Steem to such notoriously corrupt organizations... err, well I guess I am =p
I agree that fledglings either leave the nest, or die in it. We cannot soar above the current enemedia censors while nestbound, and will have to learn to fly on our own to do it. Just as Mommy and Daddy bird can't fly for their fledglings, @ned can't fly for us.
Thanks!
If Steemit breaks then it will happen the same as with Bitcconect. When those who worked and believed do not have much interest in working, then Steem will also pull down. It's not a point in a nice interface, the point is in earnings that investors and users get on the basis of work-blogging. If I were at @ned, I would never shut down Steemit because it was a PR project that promoted Steem from the start. A lot of people have enriched themselves, but there are those who will become rich, but if Steemit does not exist then there will not be a Steem value, at least not for a long time. I wish my opinion would be totally wrong, but it is again based on experience and facts that you can compare with many other missing projects.
The solution is to make Steemit reorganize and train for further work, and decentralization is just one of the factors that can help but not be crucial in this situation and at this moment.
There is some truth in this, but also there are much less obvious issues this touches on. The ninjamine has been an issue from the outset, and remains disturbing today. It's a sort of golden parachute that may yet allow the Goldman Sachses of the world to reform Steem in a way that precludes it's disruptive effect on the enemedia. While that might not appear to be a profitable transaction for such an entity, given substantial investments in legacy media such a transaction might be extremely profitable on other books.
The disruptive potential of censorship resistance, decentralization, and forthright speech in the world today is also largely unrecognized by many. Steemit et al. could well be far more valuable than the focus on Steem by Stinc suggests, particularly were Steemit able to be a vector for SOC (SMTs, Oracles, and Communities). However, upending the apple cart of media social control is fraught with resistance. There are mechanisms (such as the extant bear market) that are extremely difficult to overcome, and Stinc may be unable to have much certainty of successfully prosecuting such a revolution.
I am not at all surprised by this, given my own experiences with such opposition networks.
My point is that Steemit may be far more than simply PR for Steem, and that @ned and Stinc may not have the ability to capitalize on their opportunities to advance both business models presently. It has been proposed lately that Steemit users setup a kickstarter and simply buy Steemit out, which would decentralize ownership of the ninjamine stake (floating that golden parachute, albeit at an inopportune moment in the market for the miners) and separate the two very different business models, leaving Stinc free to pursue their present focus.
@ned may well rightly grasp Stinc's capabilities, that business model, and have a sound plan for effecting it. He may also be right that Stinc isn't the appropriate team to run Steemit from here on out. If the folks that need Steemit and such mechanisms to prosecute free speech become organized enough to purchase and manage it, that could well be the true beginning of a revolution Steemit currently but hints it potentiates, and mark the institution of the fortunes of a new class of media moguls who eclipse current social control mechanisms. Those folks could be us.
The extant media model is hopelessly totalitarian, utterly coordinated by banksters to impose social control on a global population relatively fractured and generally incapable of seeing potential beyond the services that are on offer, censored and controlled though they be. The rise of a social media platform, freed of the scent of the original scammy ninjamine and managed by a team derived from the extant market and dedicated to delivering censorship resistance and financial support to a global population that needs those things, does indeed have the power to change the world, and prosper while doing so.
It would still need Steem, and were Stinc a leaner machine focused on that, this would be a good and profitable thing.
I didn't come here for ROI. I came to contribute to censorship resistant society, and continue to hope that the tokenization mechanism can fuel a popular adoption of that society. I am confident I am not alone, and that there remains a huge market for that revolutionary society, and further, that the would be overlords of the media are ripe for toppling right now.
I concede that Stinc may not be able to execute satisfactorily on both business models, and that @ned may have well chosen his path towards success. The truth seems to be that the aftermath of a bloodbath reeks of the scent of opportunity, and we seem to be in the midst of a cryptocurrency bloodbath, as well as a crisis on Steemit itself.
The right team running Steemit might well capitalize on the oppportunity, and Stinc's leaner and more focused execution could be critical to that undertaking. We'll have to see what shakes out as the market heaves and shudders in crypto, and legacy bankster controlled enemedia like Twatter, Fakebook, and Youtool continue to shed users and drive folks towards disruptive platforms like Steemit. Other UX are extant, and may prove to be ready for the challenge if Steemit does not.
Thanks!
Steem On to the end
I really think this is just the beginning. Folks that invested in 1990 in internet startups realized incredible gains that the dot com crash did not erase at all. Just like the internet in 1990, Steem is only a couple years old (I set up my first computer network in 1987).
This is a new disruptive technology, just like the internet itself was back then. I expect exponential growth soon, and the foibles and mistakes being made will be quickly forgotten when that growth happens.
I am sure 100%
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Bankruptcy and restructuring are different animals... Bankruptcy comes when you can no longer pay the obligations created from contracts and the such. It seems as though (trusting Ned) Steemit has no debt which is great given the burden that creditors can provide to a business model. Therefore, it is currently about expense management and segregating effort to develop given the ecosystem’s needs. However, as we try to decentralize, its shifts the value creation from them to us so if will be more a reflection of the community rather than one person or entity.
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Better not depends on actions made by Steemit Inc and to have more independants actors that provide value to the Steem blockchain.
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EOS is up big and STEEM just sits on low volume
To me, EOS is Ethereum with too much governance. Once STEEM can handle smart contracts they may be in the same playing field as EOS; and because of their toned downed governance would be more attractive than EOS to me.
interesting, ty
@smooth's comment is quite rational, and I reckon the logical conclusion to be made from the current situation is that it's time for the ninjamine stakes to be decentralized. This can be done quite easily (and potentially profitably for all) by a large group using Kickstarter or something like it to pool their resources and simply buying Steemit out.
@ned may have to focus on making Steem a platform for all UXes, and Stinc may not be the team to run a social media site into the future. I'd just as soon they didn't run it into the ground!
The market for censorship resistant social media is growing, and a team focused on disrupting the extant enemedia totalitarian business model can capitalize on that revolutionary potential to attain astounding market share and financial success. That may not be a job for coders, and Stinc focusing on it's strengths would not be a bad thing, well complementing an independent Steemit.
Thanks!
Im just to confortable using Steemit frontend...
On the cellphone in the web browser over all i feel steemit very minimalist. I feel difficult to read and browse in alternative front ends (for me at least)
Most of my interactions this days are from my cellphone, so i mostly browse tags. But the alternative front ends has the same way to organize entries (as far as i know)
If the Steem blockchain becomes more decentralized, then we could get to a point where Steemit Inc fails and Steem keeps going. At this point, we'd be in rough water if they decided to pack it up and leave. They still hold a majority of the Steem tokens that have been mined/created. They still have been doing a majority of the development. They still pull most of the strings (remember them suggesting that the witnesses approve HF20?).
Maybe Steemit Inc is perfectly within their rights to refuse to give out their financials, but like Smooth said, it's going to be difficult to get organizations and large investors to partner with you if your actions (and inactions) aren't open and honest.
Things can continue as they are, but there's potential for so much more if some positive changes are made. In this case, I think transparency would be one of those positive changes.
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Do not miss the last post from @steemitboard:
If Steemit Inc goes away, support for exchanges that list STEEM or SBD goes away. In addition, there will be no CEO to communicate the possibility of future listings on exchanges.
I’ve asked @ned to officially divide this task between select witnesses, but he refuses to acknowledge this with a response.
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