My Thoughts On The Steem Hostile Takeover & Moving Forward

in Threespeak - OLD4 years ago (edited)

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My response to Justins recent blog post: https://steempeak.com/@justinsunsteemit/progress-being-made

I speak on behalf of myself only, as the 3rd biggest community elected proxy voter & I am the 3rd largest Steem hodler on the entire blockchain.

I leave emotions out of things and think of business logic first. I am not here to be anti-Tron nor do I have any desire to continue battling you if you were to remove the sock puppet witnesses currently occupying our blockchain.

In order to move forward, you will need to retract your "hacker" statements. Now that you know the truth those statements should be retracted and an apology is needed.

Steem has lived with the Ninjamined stake, promised since day 1 that would not vote and be used for community development. Steemit INC (USA based company) provided guarantees to the community about how the funds would be used. We never locked Steemit INCs funds, nor forked him out.

As a show of good fate, I would like you to remove the sock puppet witnesses, so we can talk on the same level rather than from a hostage standpoint.

"Meanwhile we would like to reassure you that we intend to commit to Steem for the long-term and we plan to bring a lot more value to Steem than even the value of our holding. We see the potential for growth here for both of our chains is tremendous and sincerely look forward to working with you on an ongoing basis."

These are the type of statements Steemit INC made since day one. That is why a lot of investors invested in this ecosystem because we knew there would be funding for future development. I would like you to publically renounce interfering in our governance with the Ninjamined stake. These are not demands, this is me letting you know what I would feel comfortable with as a large stakehodler on this platform. The current 30% of the Steem supply is enough to cause strain on decentralized governance.

In the town hall talks, you said you would be willing to donate a chunk to the SPS (Steem DAO) to help fund development and further decentralize the stake, as always intended. This would lower the amount you hodl thus lower the threat of a possible takeover if you ever go back on your word.

You ask us to say we won't support witnesses that freeze funds. Asking us to agree to that spins the narrative. We can agree that we started off on the wrong foot, there were no ill intentions at all. Ned did a shady deal without informing you, and with the hostile token swap/migration marketing, lack of communication, Zion account voting SRs in, Ned keeping all this a secret, and weeks of time passing, the witnesses implemented an easy to reverse soft fork. I, OF COURSE, would NEVER support any malicious witnesses that went "rogue" to freeze user funds. I have never voted for a malicious witness and I won't start today.

Regardless of the thoughts here, we can agree there was no ill intent. We simply wanted to inform you of what you purchased and see how you would react. From there we can either fork if we disagree and move on or work together if the plan sounds good. At least we wouldn't be blindsided. So if users want to "fork" out your stake, that would create a new chain and we would have Steem and the new chain. I would not support anyone forcibly taking anything away from you nor anyone else. From the VERY beginning, we wanted to know your intent. This is all voluntary.

Getting exchanges to vote was the worse thing you could have done and I hope you understand it is best to communicate directly with us asap when you have concerns.

With all of this said, of course, I would not support any witness with ill intent, meaning to cause harm to our blockchain.

Once you remove the puppets, and you do what you say you're going to do in that open letter, I believe there is a shot at keeping the community here. Any funny business and it will lead to a fork and split the chain. I believe a fork is ineviable at this point, but I will never give up on STEEM, and I will always vote for community elected witnesses here. If there comes a day you retake the entire network and force us on tron, I will consider it game over and would move on at that point. But as long as we have community elected witnesses that have even a remote shot at getting in, I will stay here fighting the entire time. We just want our home decentralized, we don't want 1 person to make all the rules. So if there is going to be a fork, and you're publically promising to do the right thing, it puts us back at the same place we were with Ned.

I really dislike Ned. I don't really dislike you. I really disliked a lot of what you said and did, but I am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt with the rough start. Regardless it does not matter what I think, STEEM is here, if you stand down and release our chain, let's at least see what happens from there.


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This is a nice strong and clear statement I was hoping to see. Not some of the roundabout ones I was seeing that basically said "Justin bad" and not offering clear ways of moving forward.

Funds safe, do what you want, if you screw with us you'll lose us. Simple.

This community does not need a leader! @ned failed. Justin failed in a couple days!

What we do need is Strong voices, thanks for being one @theycallmedan!

With strength are voices will multiply!!
Steemwar-on!

"I'm a stubborn S.O.B...." LOL You and me both man...I think every single person on Steem that has gone through the bear market as well as this latest drama believe in something the rest of the world doesn't yet see...

But they are starting to see it!

And I have never been more honored to be a part of this community!

Let’s create S.O.B community jk 😂😂😂

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We all are stubborn SOB's 😂👊

Community theme song:

Good work man, This needs to spread. Justin gonna lose all of us and all his investment if he doesn’t work with us.

I selected you as my proxy voter because I trust your judgement and because you have a proven history of involvement in helping the STEEM community. Reading your post today, it makes me happy for my decision. Well done, @theycallmedan!

I so sincerely hope that you can take a part in the talks that the witnesses have with Mr. Sun @theycallmedan

I have a feeling that Mr. Sun is motivated by profits and if someone like you could bring him around to see that your suggestions can work, that he would be more amendable to participate, rather than to fight.

I am known a straight talker and there is no sweet talk to win your favor here. Just matters of fact that affect all of us!
Hope that this can come true!
Blessings to your efforts!

I have to read and read it again, you really pour out some emotions here and your feelings too. It's clearly written underneath your words.
The emotions you have for Steem, the love that bind you to it to never see Steem fail.

The good people of Steemiverse wouldn't let it let. If you don't give up on Steem, we can't give up. We are all in this together.

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I didn't know you are this big. Respect.

You are freakn killn it! Stand strong, no backing down!

This is one of the best posts I've read in the matter. I personally do like Tron & I welcome their community but both have to make amends to satisfy both parties.

Im Always skeptical about what witnesses and large stakeholders do behind the scenes (Not making any accusations) but it’s easy to see who cares about this place and I would much rather side with people who care. So despite my natural skepticism I have to admit that I’ve personally seen nothing but good from you, and I agree with your statements most of the time, especially right now. Thanks for speaking out man

Hello!

This post has been manually curated, resteemed
and gifted with some virtually delicious cake
from the @helpiecake curation team!

Much love to you from all of us at @helpie!
Keep up the great work!


helpiecake

Manually curated by @solominer.


@helpie is a Community Witness.

Good communication full of good intentions. Rescue, at the end of it, and in total agreement:

but I will never give up on STEEM, and I will always vote for community elected witnesses here.

We just want our home decentralized, we don't want 1 person to make all the rules.

but I am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt with the rough start. Regardless it does not matter what I think, STEEM is here, if you stand down and release our chain, let's at least see what happens from there.

I sincerely hope everything stabilizes @theycallmedan

Absolutely we said. We must keep moving forward. Steem is not steemit

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We fight together. For the love of steem.

Crypto Batman 😂👊

Resteemed!! The community needs to hear this! 💪🏼🙌🏼💯

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Great response. I wouldn't trust a single thing Justin Sun says right now. If he was misled by Ned then you would think he would be unleashing all his fury in that direction. He wanted to take over, make money and move on to his next victim.

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I felt like I was in church!

Ask everyone not to sell their steems on all 3 exchanges and ask for withdrawal

I'm with you @theycallmedan, we've invested and been holding for too long to just let this fall apart.

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ahahahahhahah THE ENDING IS GOLD! "STEP DOWN OR GET READY FOR THE LONGEST FUCKING BATTLE OF YOUR LIFE!" AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAH

Amen brother!

Thank you for everything you've done, and are doing for this community Dan.
What is your thoughts on doing some kind of crowdfunding so the community can buy the stake back from Tron, assuming they accept? Now that everyone is so fired up, I feel it's the perfect time for something like that. I'm by not means well off, but I'd dump everything I could into that myself.

Speech like out of a Movie! Real Shit!
I overstand Dan, who invested so much...
but i'm not sure how much of a "Family" this place ever was or how
much "business skills" the witnesses have/had...
But what i always respected about Steemit (and also Threespeak) is
the Freedom of Speech , we (still?) have here...
This could be the most valuable thing here...

Did you go to Steemfest last year? If you did, you would understand the bond we all have.

The bond of holding a lot of stake and making HF that favor those people, yeah, i overstand Dan ;)
I mean with all respect for the real value that i mentioned before, that is the "familys" direction...
Still, y'all are better than Tron Boy...

Think that about sums it up. In the style only you can do. I agree

Let's send @ned to jail yo!

Justin Sun sing Softfork song

Holographic Justin Sun sing popular Softfork song -Lets have some fun:)
Although the situation is serious

@theycallmedan, Definitely Sock Puppet Witnesses should go out and we should bring our Community Witnesses back.

But in my opinion we need Improvements our side too because, if Witnesses are Community Witnesses then before Soft Fork they should have discussed it with Community, because Community have the right to Agree and Disagree beforehand.

Steem is greatest Community out there but Froze Of Funds from both side in my opinion brought and raised concerns regarding Safety Of Funds on Steem Blockchain and for outsiders these concerns are very valid.

I want to see Steem Culture like before and hope that we will see it very soon. Stay blessed.

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This. Softfork immediately deployed after secret meeting, without any community validation, is the opposite of decentralization. Also, a precedent on freezing is a precedent, no excuses; the code was not temporary at all either (no matter the claimed intent). On top of that, many have added that xenophobic .4444 as version number.

Yes, sockpuppets must go immediately, and never again come back. But right after that some introspection is in order.

Let's hope that everything will get aligned in good way in near future. Stay blessed.

What about offering a concession to get Sun to offer a concession? Would a 4 week powerdown interest Sun at all?

I'm against making special rules for people who "push in line".
All of these deal makings were done in a corporate, NDA, style hubub, without talking to the community.
If they could have leveraged their intentions, without the protest of the community, they would have robbed in a truly opportunistic, venture capitalist, way.
The fact that they tried to barge into, and to control, the entire decision making core, just shows a lack of empathy to anybody but for their heroes; Greed, Ego & Big Boots.

This Facebook-esque type of behaviour could have propelled Steem into the limelight, and relevance, up the chart, like a rugby player tucking the ball under his arm and charging forward.

Steem may have wallowed into obscurity from a biased, inequatable power system - as it is still trying to evolve & morph into something relevant.

The power down system has done its job by ensuring there isn't any reactionary behaviour - which is awesome.
The controversy has really opened eyes within the community, outside of the community, and creates discussions as to what is Steem, what is Ninja mining, what development is required & in what direction, who should have an influence, is a hard fork necessary, is splitting beneficial in the longer term & many such great discussions.

The recent resignations provided those individuals a pivotal moment to reflect on where do they want to spend their efforts.
Existing leaders can now decide how they want to move forward, or backout, of their involvment in Steem.
The Witness ladder became so much more relevant/poignant than from the many articles I have read.

What a great crossroads that we in the Crypto world are experiencing.
It's right up there with many pivotal decisions made in history when change is forced upon groups.

👍👍

!trdo

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This is great. I hope Justin wants to make money. There's no way he can win fighting the Steem community but we can all win if he joins us.

Justin said he would stop voting if witnesses promise not to freeze his assets.

Why don't we just compromise and make a soft fork that removes his voting rights, and exchanges' voting rights? This is what should have been done from the start.

That would be not offer any real protection against someone going back on their word because the stake can always be moved to other accounts to vote. In the case of exchange accounts which are normally kept liquid, this can be done instantly, and in the case of exchange accounts that are now powering down, they will soon be able to do the same.

There was a good reason that the soft fork restricted transfers as well as voting, because that is the only effective way to guard against the stake voting, as well as guard against the stake being powered down and whisked away, leaving nothing but empty words and broken promises in its place.

Witnesses who ran something so easily circumvented and insecure as a mere vote block without a transfer block would demonstrate lack of understanding of the relevant blockchain mechanics and would certainly lose my confidence.

The ninja-mined stake needs to remain where it is so that there is continued transparency and the community can continue to exercise oversight against bad actors who do not do as they claim they are going to do, and instead attempt to just pocket the funds and run off, as we unfortunately and carelessly already allowed Ned to do. Stakeholders and witnesses are currently in a position of "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me."

Of course, it can be withdrawn and spent at a reasonable rate as long as funding to develop the ecosystem is maintained (as Steemit did, albeit even then incompetently, at least up until the sham "layoffs"), and as Dan mentioned in the post, SPS can be part of that.

One possible compromise is Justin can own the Steemit Inc stack that he purchased outright but only after a certain length of time. For the sake of argument, let’s say that length of time is agreed upon to be 5 years. It could then be hard coded into the next fork so trust is not required anymore.

The way I see this coded is a continuous line with 0% ownership on day 1 and 100% ownership on day 1825. If on day one, Justin powers down, 100% of the power down goes to the SPS. If after 1 year, 80% goes to the SPS, and 20% he can keep. And so on.

Neither side will like this compromise, which indicates to me that it is likely fair. The biggest negotiable would be the length of time.

This Compromise has several benefits. The first is it is coded so it removes the trust factor. The second is it is a win-win mutual compromise for both sides so we can move on from this together as one. A split of the chain is not a good idea, especially when the exchanges are likely to side with Justin.

This is a win for Justin because there is now an agreed upon time that he can get his “full ownership”. The lost is it will not happen tomorrow.

It is a win for the community because this keeps the chain together and hard codes the trust out of the agreement. It also keeps Justin’s skin in the game. If he wants a return on his investment, he will need to develop it over this time frame. This also gives the steem blockchain more time to dilute the initial mined stake, reducing governance concerns when this stake becomes free for Justin to use as he pleases. It is a lost for the community because eventually Justin will gain full control over the stake.

No one will like this, so let’s all agree that it is truly a compromise.

In five years there isn't much dilution (about 25%). It would still be a massive, essentially consensus-breaking block of stake. Other than that I don't think the idea is all that bad (maybe that makes it a bad compromise!)

Oh yea. The hard numbers I know nothing about. I just made up the time frame.

justin is making > 15,000 SP each week with just 50% of top 20 witness. That's 3 quarter million SP a year. or 750,000 each year.

why in the world would he agree to those terms to lock assets that he already paid 100% with cash for?

note: 750,000 SP with 10 top 20 witness = 1,500 Mvest of votes increases doing nothing each year.

For the betterment of steem which he will do because: “large steem stake x 0 = 0”. “Large steem stake x large value = cash money”

justin is just buying time, time to:

  1. get a hf ready to reduce powerdown time for rich accounts belonging to exchanges, when he's ready he can powerup a few more million SP from reserves (and from exchange anon accounts)

  2. time to earn 750,000 SP each year with just 10 top 20 witness (currently he has 11, and 9 others also earning)

  3. time to code his Steem migration to Tron ecosystem airdrop, so he can attract Steem users to tron via generous airdrops that requires participation, before he exits Steem

don't pay attention at what rich people say, pay attention to what they do.

Yes, standing down would be appropriate at this point Justin/ Tron! Let the witnesses and large stake get some sleep. I bet you could use some too! #onkill

In my opinion I would choose to fork out and start a new chain. We don't know what Justin would do next considering that he got the means and he could get hostile. We don't want anymore of that. Ned should face the consequences not the community

I sent you a message on Twitter. It isn't spam. It's important.

Posted using Partiko Android

This is mental. In my mind, the witnesses need to give Justin his money back, they can then make demands from the moral high ground.

Cg

During the acquisition justin would not clarify to the community what his intentions were with the SteemIt funds, nor would he acknowledge the prior agreements made between the community and SteemIt regarding those funds, like how they would not be used to vote. Why did he refuse to engage with the community and answer these simple questions?

The duly elected witnesses agreed that this back-handed deal and justin's silence on these important matters was a threat to the entire Steem community and made a last-resort decision to temporarily freeze SteemIt's funds until we could get some answers. If Justin thought this was an unjust decision, he could have taken the moral high ground by appealing to the community to vote for his witnesses and reverse the soft fork. Instead he completely neglected the voters and colluded with exchanges to misappropriate customer funds and overturn our democracy. His actions and those of the exchanges go against the basic principles of decentralization.

He has another chance to take the moral high ground by removing his sock-puppet witnesses and returning power to the community.

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interesting also when I think about it, I also want to do it

What’s the likelihood he will do anything he says he’s going to do?

Posted using Partiko iOS

Good post

You speak for me, too. Well said.

I'm sorry Dan, while I appreciate your efforts, I think you fail to recognize the power dynamic at play.

This isn't some 'fair' 'democratic' system.

Justin is the OWNER now, like it or not, the rest of the platform is subservient to that, you saw what happened when the witnesses made a fork to protect the platform, you saw the 'resignations' that followed.

Have you seen Justin's track record with his investment 'properties'?

I'm sure many appreciate the fight you've taken on, the efforts will be futile in the long run.

We can agree to disagree. He does not control the network. We are at a stalemate, and as long as we have a chance I am not quiting. Others can do what they want.

I'd like to hope you are correct.

I feel bad for those who have invested real money into the platform, it is starting to look like the ending phase of a ponzi scheme. AKA the point where people begin to withdraw their money from 'investments' and we find out who actually made money and who is left holding the bag when all the money has been extracted.

Congratulations @theycallmedan!
Your post was mentioned in the Steem Hit Parade in the following category:

  • Pending payout - Ranked 1 with $ 109,35

I am only a small fish here, but I do not give up to always support the positive things for steem and steemit. even though I know I can't do much. but I can still help, even if only for the selection of real witnesses. I always hope for the best at Steemit.

oya your steemit's name is a bit the same as one of the cities in the country. I was impressed when I saw your name, I thought if you were Medan.

link maps kota medan
Medan
Kota Medan, Sumatera Utara
https://maps.app.goo.gl/4KY36na9pieH8u886

wow. this is amazing. i'm speechless. true passion.

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at this rate, justin will likely quit Steem, hence we will technically win inside of steem, but before he quits Justin will powerdown, and so will other Asian investors, and so will the koreans

OR

he will bring as many users from Steem into the Tron eco sphere before he leaves, by offering them Steem-tron Airdrop....which you will also take I'm sure, diluting the community's time and value, and increasing the Tron based community, then he will powerdown tens of milions of steem and leave, and hence we will technically win but only inside of Steem

either way, justin wins outside of steem, the fact that DPOS favors oligarchy and the big stake holders means Justin will win somehow..... and I suppose so will you as long as you stick around to get his steem-tron airdrop, and hopefully he powerdowns slowly.

the bull run of any alt-coins comes only when big investors comes in and don't leave immediately after benefiting

Dan, giving your word is not enough in this trustless environment. You need to figure out how to guarantee that his stake will not and cannot be frozen again and he will remove his witness votes, it's as simple as that. He has said over and over again he doesn't want to be involved in the governance, he just doesn't want his stake frozen. Figure out how to trustlessly guarantee him that his stake will not be frozen again and the stalemate ends.

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