Since the Tron purchase of Steemit a little over a month ago, I've written a number of different post drafts that I subsequently scrapped and never posted. It takes me a really long time to get my thoughts together and get them written down in a clear and understandable way, and things happened so fast over the past month that every time I finally got far enough along on a post draft the situation had changed such that a lot of what I had written was no longer relevant or applicable.
I've also been so swamped with work for Splinterlands (you have no idea how much stuff we are working on) and now we have this Corona virus mess to deal with and I just seem to be falling more and more behind on everything.
In spite of all that, a number of historic events have occurred - not only for the Steem blockchain, but for the entire blockchain space and decentralization movement. To say that I'm completely flabbergasted about what has taken place over the past month would be a huge understatement.
Never in a million years would I have guessed that major exchanges could be convinced/tricked into powering up their customers' STEEM to help take over the chain, that the Steem community would then rally to outvote the Steemit, Inc stake, or that the Steem community would be able to successfully get a forked chain up and running with so many tools and services available so quickly and get so many people to support it and move over (although Justin helped a lot with that last part).
Moving On
This will be my last post on the Steem blockchain. Going forward all of my personal activities will be focused on the Hive blockchain. Even though I don't post very often, I have put a lot of time into the Steem blockchain in other ways, from development to raising awareness, and all of that time and effort will be put towards the Hive blockchain going forward.
Like many people here, I have no interest in putting time and effort towards growing a platform that's not owned and run by its community. This is the same reason that I don't put time and effort into platforms like Facebook, Twitter, or Reddit, and now Steem falls into that same category.
Similarly, I have disabled my Steem witness and am running a Hive witness instead. I hope to be able to contribute to the growth and success of the Hive blockchain going forward and I am excited to have the opportunity to represent the stakeholders as a consensus witness on this new chain.
NOTE: I hope that it's clear that the above only applies to me personally, and not to Splinterlands. Splinterlands' plans since the hard fork have been posted here and are completely separate from what I (or @aggroed) may do personally.
The HIVE Token Airdrop
I would also like to say that I do not agree with the decision to exclude accounts other than those owned by Steemit, Inc. from the HIVE token airdrop. I want to be clear that my support of the Hive blockchain does not imply that I support that decision.
I understand the reasoning behind the decision, so you don't need to explain it to me, but I think that Hive is going to need all of the support that it can get in order for it to succeed and I know that a lot of people will not support it as a result of that decision - far more than just the ones who were directly affected by it.
I know that it may be hard, but I encourage everyone who was affected by or disagrees with that decision to try not to dismiss or discount the value of the entire Hive blockchain because of it. Just like Steem was greater than SteemIt (whose decisions I also regularly disagreed with), Hive is much greater than the group of people who created it.
What "Decentralization" Really Means
Finally, I want to talk a little bit about what decentralization really means, and who really has the power on the Hive blockchain. It's not the people who created it, it's not the top witnesses, it's the Hive Power holders. It's you.
I constantly hear people complaining about what the witnesses do, or don't do, or saying that it's "not decentralized" because "the witnesses control everything", but the reality is that the witnesses control very little. If the witnesses do anything that the stakeholders don't support, then the stakeholders can easily reverse it. The witnesses are completely beholden to the stakeholders, which is how it should be.
In the past many have countered the above by saying that there is nothing that the community can do because a very small number of stakeholders (@freedom in particular) have a controlling stake. I think that the events of the past month clearly demonstrate that this is no longer, and was never really the case. After the Steem takeover, thousands of smaller stakeholders came together with voting power worth multiples of @freedom and many other large stakeholders put together.
That's what decentralization really means. That's why the whole blockchain community is watching what happens here. We're showing the power of decentralization in action, and it's really, really hard because it requires a whole lot of people to actually give a shit about what's going on and to take action. Something that is very rare in the world today.
You may think that it's over now that Hive is launched, but in reality it's just getting started. Code can be changed. Past actions can be undone. A specific group of like-minded people may have created the Hive blockchain and gotten it started, but it's up to all of the stakeholders - it's up to all of you - to create its future.
I don't know about you, but I'm really excited to see how it turns out.
Thanks for the update and for your resolve in helping to build the hive.
You are not the first top witness that has stated their disagreement with excluding non SteemInc accounts. I would like to see more more discussion on this form the community.
My favourite and one of our best tools on Steem dApp is Steemworld.org I hope that @steemchiller can be included here.
Love your post thanks for chiming in.
As for the airdrop part:
We can choose to see it as allowing the decision for those 300 accounts to be given to the community. So not as an "exclusion" more of a delay on decision and passing the decision on to that community that you were praising at the end.
@steempeak is willing to support our users that it affected and help promote their cause. There is some belief that those users aren't presently and maybe were never interested in the hive blockchain. But if they are we should help them out. There were plenty of Splinterlands users it affected we can rally behind... again, If they actually want to be a part of the Hive blockchain.
Any comments on the physical centralisation of witness node hardware? Do you think we have enough distribution worldwide? (let's ignore the place of residence of people running witnesses, and look at where the servers are hosted)
Physical distribution of servers is important, but probably a lower priority compared to a lot of the other work that needs to be done to get the new chain going.
Very succinctly put and I agree with your stance, so you've earned my vote.
I look forward to what we, the Swarm can do to liberate our Minds through the Hive platform. This is our chance to show the world Decentralization is the most civil way forward. Not only in the virtual sphere, but in our lives as well.
Glad to see you plugging along @yabapmatt.
Stay safe and keep hacking away at that code. We need a ton more developers on here but, in the meantime, the ones here have to stay busy. 😀
Together, we will all make this place grow.
@yabapmatt need to start a coding school on the blockchain. How cool would it be to learn from the best! I know you don’t have time...but someday maybe.
I second this, the easier it is to onboard and help new developers the quicker we will grow. Would love some tutorials myself tbh
Thank you for the update, I would like to see more top witnesses like yourself to monthly do up a simple post about happenings on the blockchain so that the average joe like myself can attempt to stay informed.
Agreed!!
You know how much you contributed thanks to Splinterlands, its API, and the numerous services you deployed on Steem which have been dramatically important to the whole blockchain.
Thank you again @yabapmatt for that. Whatever people will do in the future, it is in great part thanks to you; and there is no better thing than this imho. I am very happy for the next years :-)
By the way I noticed many people are still using steempeak instead of peakd.com. That forces me to double post this week. Note that on steempeak we also receive downvotes from korean players I never read or followed; I received my very first downvote that way.
I don't dare inquire more in fear of having downvotes by a "gang of superior powers". It is their right but it is obvious they downvote for political partisanship instead of my project. Steem social network is under so much bad influence right now; you are right to post here; but at least it can explain how partisanship has affected the communities badly, and why it should stay out of our creative works.
I wholeheartedly agree with everything here!
Exciting times indeed!
I would really like your opinion on SMTs
I would like to know what SMTs would have to be to be a drop in use case for Dark Energy Crystals.
It appears... i really didn't follow it because i never got in with any steemit developers, that SMTs were going to be ... something that they never should have been, and not smart tokens at all, but more like Shtupid tokens.
And, your opinion on if SMTs should be completed on HIVE.
Thanks
I definitely think SMTs should be completed on Hive. It will be very helpful to allow communities to have their own tokens and their own reward pools that work how they want.
I have been waiting for an official article from you for a very long time. I especially liked the fact that you remind us that everything depends on the cohesion of the community, and not on a few dozen people at the top of the witness list.
On the other hand, we did not even dream in a nightmare of the number of actions that witnesses do.
If simple, I am VERY glad to see you on HIVE!
Great to have you here @yabapmatt. What are your expectations for Hive? Do you think it has the legs to make a top 20 project on CoinMarketCap?
The first thing I look for is whether it will be ahead of Steem as far as usage and market price. That will be a huge win and will show the wider community that this is for real.
The price seems to be holding so far. 😀
Thanks for everything, Matt.
I'm quite excited for the future. You can just feel the energy buzzing when talking with people and all the things they want to do now.
Thanks for the update, true that why there are those users who didn't receive an airdrop like we did. But I respect their reasons about it and I don't want to interrupt about that matter.
Thanks for explaining about decentralization. I have no idea that the witnesses only control a little. Now, it's being very clear about this so called decentralization.
I don't know you as well but your words moved me. Thanks again..
Hello and thanks a lot for being here on Hive where the real freedom is :)
I only wish I could play Splinterlands from Hive too since I don't intend to do anything any longer on Steem. Except for the pure basic transactions like powering down and transferring funds out of the chain.
I hope that that will come in due time. Things are moving and working very swiftly and smoothly on Hive. You all did a great work, congrats!
I second the motion to come to agreement with @steemchiller. If apologies are needed then do them. This is pointed to people involved and not to you personally, of course.
Glad to hear this from you. Do you have future plans to restore those tokens?
The tokens are in the steem.dao account and my understanding is that there will be a process for the people who did not receive the airdrop to submit proposals to recover the tokens in the future. I intend to support those proposals assuming they are reasonable.
It is also possible for a single proposal to support airdropping the entire bunch, essentially reversing the exclusion in its entirety. If that's what Hive stakeholders want, it can be done.
It only takes one person (and 20 HBD) to create "for" and "against" proposals on this matter and we can see how the stakeholders feel about it.
I'm really glad to see this post and that you're supporting hive from now on. It's great to have so many witnesses with us. Also I'd like to express my gratitude for all the hard work you're doing. Hive on! 😊
Also really happy with this... for starters... its historical already. dPoS already proved some stuff is important on this tech. But more importantly is the little tweaks the community around it added over the time. This is a long term experiment that is becoming something very worthwhile to be present at...
as part of history to start with, and then as edge technology evolving via open sourced software aimed to solve real world/communities problems.
This is such a neutral and humble position you are taking with your statements here. I really appreciate this post. It's truly exciting and I also think this was needed. I only started voting for witnesses because I always thought that DPOS had the potential to create a upper class hierarchy. The ones I have voted for have profoundly proven themselves to the whole community. I am also very excited moving forward.
Thanks for sticking with us Matt!
I am in tune with everything you have exposed, you are one of the most coherent witnesses in the
SteemHive Blockchain.This idea convinces me that despite all the adversities, we are moving in a good direction.
That's a good news to hear in the first place and second of all thanks for the update so far. We shall win 💪 together on hive mind too.
Great news! Thanks for your hard work, man.
Glad to see your dedication to Hive.
Thankfully here we are. And ready for the next stage.
I totally agree with you at that point of decentralization! I joined steemit in Aug 2017. Till now I've seen enough, observe enough. And I know for sure that united we stand, divide we fall. I'm not a software guy but I know crypto and also I've known quite few more things and I'll try to give my best to this community!
That fact that you set beneficiaries to Steem.Dao shows real leadership. You have nothing but respect from me @yabapmatt also my Vote. I bet your the only Witness that did this..... That should be Hive.Dao thought right?
Despite that it is the Hive development fund, the account is still steem.dao as it is a special account hard-coded into the blockchain. Perhaps it will be changed in the future (although someone has already claimed the hive.dao account name) but it's probably not a high priority.
Oh, Ok. Thanks yabapmatt.
It wasn't changed due to the rapid nature of the fork. It probably will be changed in the future.
BTW, the person who claimed the hive.dao account has already stated it was done to reserve for the community and it can be used for the Hive proposal system if desired.
Thanks for your words - i agree with you. The blacklist stopps the engagement of many people - that is not good, because the start is important. Re
steemblogI agree with everything you have wrote but most especially that the Steemit-owned accounts should not be excluded. Even though I am not affected by it, I feel like some people are and they are being felt as if Hive has turned away potential support.
Test! <3
I am in tune with everything you have exposed, you are one of the most coherent witnesses in the
SteemHive Blockchain.This idea convinces me that despite all the adversities, we are moving in a good direction.
All good! Is it normal that I can't check my HIVE balance?
I am logged on hive.blog with my posting key. I can comment and upvote, I posted once but when I am trying to post now it gives me an error: 'Missing posting authority. '
Do you know why?
after commenting this, it worked so I posted already, thanks, sorry for offtopic
Thank you for your comments. nice to meet you . I'm so sad when steem was sold
I'm in big hopes that hive will not end up just in a few whale hands and the governance will emerge to support the underground of the platform mainstream in some way let's #ThriveOnHive engagement4
I got a airdrop of 0.05(something) HIVE because of the STEEMP I had on steem engine LOLOLOL
I feel more positive with hive.blog. , Also started blogging there.
But there interface is not confusing. I am not able to access the wallet. Also could not find the info about how to start the account and house the reward works there.
If you have any information, please help
I'm one of those voices in the background and find a lot of the mechanics seems to go over my head. In fact, I'm not too sure what you mean about the hive airdrop...Are you saying the majority of us won't get an airdrop of Hive and only the steem.inc accounts will? If so that does sound like a kick in the goolies. Anyway, I have been fueled by the actions of those who've gone out of their way to make the move to Hive as smooth as possible, it really is inspirational. Keep up the great work and lets keep this place rocking!!
Everyone was given the hive airdrop except for a list of 300 specific accounts
That's what I initially thought. The way it is written in this post suggest otherwise. Thanks for clarifying :)
Well put my friend, Lets keep the Hive Thriving...!
very extraordinary. good luck continuing
While i appreciate your move to Hive it was expected that you would be against the decision due to having a fair number of Korean players in Splinterlands and by supporting the move you would lose all of them.
You will be the first person I vote for as witness on the HIVE chain.
Thanks for all you do @yabapmatt.
My thoughts exactly. Glad to have you on board!!
I agree 1000%! You're my only witness vote so far!
Your new photo is bad ass!
I'm addicted to @splinterland, waiting for the whole thing ported to HIVE.
Thanks mate love your work over the years
Disagree with not airdropping people who disagree? Vote proposal 83, we can burn some HBD of "theirs" which was arbitrarily added into the Dao.
I really like your post and thoughts, but according to my own new rules, set to support decentralization of HIVE, I have to flag every trending post with pending rewards greater than 80 dollars. :)