Thank you for your post and giving us all clarity on the situation!
One thing I’m left wondering about:
If the main problem is “the unaccountable actor” and the proposed fork would solve exactly this issue - wouldn’t that be a good solution?
To me, a fork would mean that we’ll have two Steem blockchains and people can choose which one to join. Wouldn’t that be the best way for the community to choose wether they want to stay here or move to the new version where Ned doesn’t have the kind of control he has here?
Or am I misunderstanding something? I don’t understand why this proposed fork is being labeled “theft” when all it does is give people an alternative. If nobody joins it, it won’t change anything. And if everybody or most people join it to co-create something new and much fairer - then that’s a good thing and shows the power of decentralization and the “people freeing themselves from centralized control”, no?
At least that’s how I view it, but I might be missing something.
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You're not wrong to think it is a potential solution, but "good" really would depending on how it's done and is ultimately subjective. I don't understand the "theft" label though either, nor do I understand a lot of the reasoning behind what they're doing.
There were basically two way the fork could have unfolded, one of which I think gets the "theft" label more commonly than the other, but when you think through the label doesn't make sense in any situation...
The two ways it could have played out are:
In the first scenario, which is the more aggressive play, it alters this network specifically. The one we're using to talk right now. If that were to suddenly happen, I can only assume that Steemit Inc would deploy a new chain and reverse the hardfork. They would then point steemit.com and all their tools to use this new blockchain.
The end result is: 2 blockchains, one with the hardfork applied and one without.
In the second scenario a brand new chain is just launched from a snapshot of the network we're using today, while applying the hardfork, while the old network continues to operate as it has been for years. Steemit.com continues to operate on the old chain and a new ecosystem is developed around the new chain.
The end result is: 2 blockchains, one with the hardfork applied and one without.
It's the same result no matter which way it's performed, so how is one theft and the other not? I really don't understand the logic either.
The one "dick move" part of the first scenario is that by taking over the live chain, all of the exchanges and external services Steem users would be on the hardfork-applied chain immediately, and service could potentially be interrupted. This was one of the best reasons against the first scenario, since that sort of external facing drama could cause exchanges to drop support for Steem all together.
Once you get past this slanderous narrative being spun, it's a pretty damn interesting topic to talk about lol.
True enough. I've heard @ned refer to Steem as an experiment and it has been damn interesting watching it develop. Maybe it's time for a second experiment, a second chain not with just Steemit Inc's premined stake removed but all the premined stake removed (or as much as can be identified) and let's see how that would develop. I have a suspicion that people will people and much the same situation will evolve even without the premined stake.
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People will people! Love that and I suspect you are correct but maybe a less extreme model. :)
sometimes you just got go for the tough test lol
That is absolutely true! :D I am totally fascinated by all this and the possible implications (regardless of price), while also trying to understand the argumentations of both (or however many sides).
In the end - to me - this all about some pioneer humans trying to handle the gift of decentralisation they have been given, and they just don't know how yet. This is a learning- and also sort of personal development experience for everyone involved, even the ones just watching from the side lines.
Everything comes down to consensus. How do you do consensus best in a decentralised network? It's great that so many people are trying to figure that out right now, especially here on this blockchain, right now, over the past week. If you have different agendas, it's time to part ways --> fork.
Steemit could go down in blockchain history, depending on how this is being solved.
Thanks for explaining the two options in detail. I didn't know about the first one with the 17/21 witness vote. I can see how this one could be seen as theft technically. However philosophically I would argue that it's more of a "returning of what belonged to the community in the first place". I'm not talking about funds, but about power.
I kind of like the thought that "bad actors" who are more committed to their own profit, rather than the wellbeing of the whole network and community, can be voted out by that very community. So, as long as everyone contributes to the network, there's consensus and the community can thrive. The moment someone does something "out of consensus" they get rejected. Just like a bad transaction on the Bitcoin blockchain, only with humans :)
But still, like you say, it would be sort of useless, since Steemit Inc could reverse the fork. Also it seems this game could then go on forever :) Makes me wonder when Dan's Steemit 4.0 is coming out... ;)
I've not once heard of a single situation where an exchange has dropped support for a coin/chain because of the need for an update, or an unexpected crash, or a hard fork that resulted in two chains (in the last instance they may or may not support both chains, of course).
This claim is about as close to pure FUD as one can get, given that it lacks any historical precedent whatsoever.
The only scenario relating to exchanges in the event of a fork that required a code upgrade to get the chain going would be that it could result in downtime. History in this case supports that the downtime might be significant (months, though not likely for all exchanges, but some of them).
Not disagreeing at all, but I'm curious to know how you think a sudden hardfork by the witnesses would have played out in regards to exchanges.
I don't think there's much historical precedent for it, probably the closest being Bittrex delisting Bitcoin Gold over the recent 51% attack, but even still that's a fairly difference scenario.
I suppose framing it as "exchanges are out to make money" and really don't care otherwise sort of defuses the entire idea. Maybe I'm assuming Steemit Inc has deeper relations with exchanges than they actually do (probably in part by Neds mocking comments about "thinking more" about directly powering down to them).
Probably about as you predicted elsewhere. Steemit makes a new code release to restart the exchange nodes on the old chain, resulting in two chains (and points steemit.com at the old chain). Whether exchanges end up supporting both chains is hard to predict but has plenty of precedent in general. From an exchange perspective, chain broke (stopped reporting new blocks), devs fixed it. They're pretty wedded to the model of getting code releases from the "official" repo and probably would never agree to run code from some allegedly-community repo (mostly understandable) even if the Steem (sort of) consensus rules say that witnesses get to decide on hard forks. Yeah, that all seems pretty stupidly centralized but that's the crypto exchange view of the world 2019.
Delisting after 51% attacks is reasonably common, though not universal. Yes that is a different situation.
Likely a good first order model.
They didn't actually do that, which may say something.
Hey @smooth! Is there a way to reach out directly to you, whether on discord or steemit.chat? Thank you ;)
You can DM me on steem.chat. I only check it occasionally though.
Awesome i just sent you a message there - so today may be a great occasion to check your account :-)) M.