Looks like an SMT, not a hard fork. Even better, IMO.
VICE.ORG announces the release of VICE Smart Media Token, Oct 18 2017
Steemit CEO, Ned Scott stated, “Steem’s technology has been proven as a revolutionary mechanism to monetize content and we are confident that Smart Media Token technology will transform every vertical in media. The sooner each niche content industry adopts this technology, the faster they will become integrated with the new digital age”.
Vice.org will commence its token sale in Q4, 2017.
That news article is a couple months old. Their website used to explicitly say Vice would be hosted on the Steem blockchain, etc. A lot of the info recently changed, and they released a white paper following that press release, all of which seem to indicate they’ve decided to use Steem’s open source codebase and start their own chain instead, complete with the ability to host SMTs for other people. This seems to put them in direct competition with Steem for acquiring media partners & content creators interested in SMT tech.
Oh, I see the confusion now. I've read a number of different articles, and all I can say is that it's puzzling. It does look like they've had some sort of change in plans, though - or maybe it was just a rebranding...
Aside from a rebranding, it could be anything from outright betrayal to an ongoing partnership where the partners changed plans and decided they would outsource support of a "Steem Jr." block chain to Steemit, Inc as an independent platform because SMT's weren't going to be ready in time to fit their schedule. We can clarify one thing, though.
I thought something seemed funny about that block number. None of us are getting any of those tokens. Steemd presently has us at block: 18,119,882 - 18 million. Not block 18,095. Block 18,500 was in March, 2016. I guess that's a way to pay Steemit for services.
Holy hell youre right! I was thinking it was just a typo here and assumed it was 18,500,000... but their white paper does say 18,500. Well that just makes this news suck even more!
Looks like you were right, but it was a typo in the whitepaper. They updated the whitepaper, and now it says block 18,500,000.
That block was on Dec 29. Also, their CEO commented here that it will be a fork, not an SMT.
Thanks for the update & links! Good to know the sharedrop is broader, I actually hope they’ll stumble on launching their own chain and just decide to SMT instead though!
Strange, I was browsing for new info and I don't see the change to the block number in the Whitepaper. I tried from a couple browsers, cleared cache, etc. thinking I might be pulling an old copy. Where did you find that listing?
lol. I'm glad I took that screen capture, or I'd think I was going crazy. They're back to the old whitepaper now. What a mess!
LOL, oh well. I just thought maybe I was using an outdated link. Their twitter feed even mentions an updated white paper. Did you notice any other changes? I can only imagine some kind of site backup or tech problem is pulling the old file...
Yet another pre-mine. ; -)
Seriously.
I hope there is some official announcements and better communication soon. Without that I am operating under the assumption that Steemit Inc. is selling their services to competing platforms rather than convincing them to launch a SMT on the Steem blockchain. Not encouraging.
That might be the case....Reading the white paper it looks like I was reading the SMT white paper...talking about the same things.
And I dont understand, if it was an SMT why they would allocate a percentage of the tokens to STEEM holders.....would that be necessary for an SMT?
It is very perplexing how the white paper kept mentioning their blockchain....is it over the top of this one?
After reading some more, I'm not at all sure what's going on, but see my reply to @bryan-imhoff. Block 18,500 was in March 2016. They're only paying the earliest of early Steem adopters.