STEEM is still not Steemit, even if Tron buys Steemit.

in #tron4 years ago (edited)

Okay, this needs to be repeated. STEEM is not Steemit. I talked about this two years ago:

STEEM Is NOT Steemit. STEEM Is More Valuable Than Steemit.


STEEM is still not Steemit, even if the Tron Foundation buys the Steemit, inc assets.

If you're not clear what's going on, check the latest posts from the major crypto news outlets and PR wires:

Cointelegraph: Steemit to Shift Its Proprietary Blockchain and Token to Tron Network


Where did they get "proprietary" from? Proprietary is relating to an owner or ownership and the Steem blockchain is not (to my knowledge) owned by anyone.

Coindesk: Steemit Sets Up Shop on Tron Network


Businesswire: Steemit Joining TRON Ecosystem


Steem is a blockchain run by independent block producers called witnesses distributed around the world. You can see them listed here: https://steemd.com/witnesses

Controlling the "Steemit" logo, brand, .com website, and the like does not change who runs the chain and ultimately makes decisions about the protocol and technology. Code is currently developed primarily by the Steemit, inc team and proposed to the active, token-elected block producers for their evaluation. Some hard forks have been rejected by the witnesses before, so it's not a rubber-stamp process.

As you can see from https://steemproposals.com/proposals, some decisions are voted on directly by the token holders as a signal to the block producers how they should go (such as the power down period change discussed as a potential addition for the next hard fork):

I say all that to say it's ultimately the token holders who have the final say in DPoS governance for what Steem (the blockchain) does. There are many different front ends to the Steem blockchain beyond just Steemit.com. The Tron Foundation and Steemit, inc can come up with various plans on how they want to move forward, but if the Steem community doesn't agree, they can simply ignore any agreements and move on forward using the existing chain as is. I'm not suggesting that's the best plan of action, but I want it said clearly so people understand this is a decentralized community-run blockchain. Centralized companies making agreements about their own token stake and sale of assets doesn't include the blockchain itself, as far as I'm aware (but I'm no lawyer).

As to the token holders, they've been through a lot:

To this day, STEEM has been one of my worst financial decisions (I think I put in around 9 BTC near the left side of that graph only to see $2-$3 STEEM go down to $0.07). A lot of people believe in STEEM (myself included) and held through the bear market because it's a blockchain actually delivering value to normal people and doing the thing it set out to do. It's also been one of my best life decisions. I've made many friends here, enjoyed three years of Steemfest events, and created a home for my content. This is my home on the blockchain as I mentioned 13 hours ago, before I knew about any of this Tron business:



So where are we going from here? What will happen next? Will there be a chainswap of content or tokens over to Tron? Will the community support such an activity? Will Steem users have to get Tron wallets to interact with some new chain? Will the token price go up, go down, or become something completely new as a reborn Tron token?

I think it's accurate to say no one really knows yet. If the Tron Foundation controls Steemit's token stake, it's possible they could vote in their own producers and centralize everything. It's also possible the community could decide to fork out their stake to create a new chain (similar to Ethereum Classic or Bitcoin Cash). I think it's far too early for any such speculation, but I am happy to see STEEM and Steem back in the news (even if it's just because of Steemit). If you're still not clear about the differences between those terms, see my post from two years ago referenced above.

Either way, it will be a wild ride. I'm happy to be on it with you.


Luke Stokes is the Managing Director for the Foundation for Interwallet Operability as well as the Interim Executive Director for the EOS Foundation. He's passionate about voluntary systems of governance and has been involved in bitcoin since early 2013. He's been a witness for the Steem blockchain since early 2018 and a custodian for eosDAC, a community-owned EOSIO Block Producer and DAC Enabler, since its inception. With a computer science degree from UPENN, he built, bootstrapped and co-founded the shopping cart software company FoxyCart over a ten year period and is now focused on blockchain technology as a means to create a world we all want to live in. He currently lives in Puerto Rico with his wife and three children and enjoys discussing everything from philosophy, to consciousness, to voluntaryism, to love and awakening. lukestokes.info UnderstandingBlockchainFreedom.com fio.foundation eosdac.io

I'm a Witness! Please vote for @lukestokes.mhth

Sort:  
There are 2 pages
Pages

Today, TRON joins forces with the Steem community & Steemit. We are so excited about this collaboration and value the voice of this thriving community.
By committing a meaningful percentage of the STEEM token, TRON now aligns the same interests with the Steem community, to bring the value to STEEM token, to keep the core value of decentralization, to grow a one-of-a-kind decentralized social media platform.
Steem community and Steemit team have been pioneering the decentralized social media initiative and now with this strategic partnership, together we have more resources, capital and bandwidth to make this goal achievable. The fact both TRON and STEEM went up today post the announcement only proves that the market and industry at large view this partnership as a mutually beneficial alliance. We will work closely with the Steemit team and Steem community on the details of how we will execute this collaboration step by step.
Please join us in this endeavor, follow me on Twitter @justinsuntron, and voice your opinions as we pursue this exciting journey!! Thank you!

Hello Justin. I'm sorry we didn't get to meet each other at Satoshi Round Table this past weekend.

There are a lot of worried community members here. Block producers, token holders, bloggers, dApp developers, and more... many people have invested years of their life into this platform. They love it dearly. They've been through a lot, and they've put up with a lot. They've seen promises broken and partnerships fail. They've put their trust in leadership and been disappointed.

They are worried.

Many cashed out a long time ago. But many stuck around and made the Steem blockchain their home. This is their one spot on the internet where they can't be censored or removed. Even if they get flagged, the content is still here, on the blockchain, and it's theirs. The way this was announced, with no community engagement, consultation of the block producers, etc... it adds to that worry.

With that said, I look forward to the AMA tomorrow. I hope there will be a partnership and not contention. I hope we can all work together for mutual benefit. I also hope it's clear that Steemit is not Steem.

Thank you for commenting.

i think justin worries only about money and his coin tron, otherwise he could develop steem as a member of the steem community, if he was really genuinely inspired by this idea. if we will jumping every 4 years from one blockchain to another, it will be not wise idea. this is very stupid action, guys, leave it and develop steem.

I know you will stick up for us Luke you have a big heart. And nothing will happen to Steem blockchain, we will continue this pathway towards success together, as a community.

The fact both TRON and STEEM went up today post the announcement only proves that the market and industry at large view this partnership as a mutually beneficial alliance.

That's just low market cap cryptos being low market cap cryptos. We need more time to decide if the market is approving, especially since the details regarding this partnership are very much unclear.

That being said, welcome to Steem. Interesting times ahead.

Also, the announcement he's referring to is his Twitter post. It didn't hit Steem until many hours later. I found out about it from the Steem post last night, by Justin's brand new account.
So the initial rise has nothing to do with how Steem users feel. We'll find that out over the next couple days and weeks, as people power down, sell, buy, etc.

Welcome @justinsunsteemit to Steemit and the Steem Blockchain YEHHHH you get another UPVOTEsteemit upvote cliff jump.jpg

Lets always encourage one another to do great things

You realize he's here to destroy the steem blockchain, right?

Why? He's got cold hard cash at risk. He doesn't want to destroy it. He wants it to prosper and make him rich. I do too.

The problem is he may not understand how to do that, and may think things will make it prosper that will destroy it. It's up to us, who know who we are and why we're here, to enable him to well understand what will work, and what will destroy.

They want to turn the Steem blockchain into a dapp on Tron, because they only care about the userbase. Most likely they feel its a necessary strategy to stay competitive with EOS now that it will have Voice.

That's exactly what I'm talking about. Sun is a Tron prophet. Absent good reason to also support Steem's vision, he's going to take of Steem what he profitably can use to benefit Tron, and ignore our separate raison d'etre.

By demonstrating our unique value proposition, which I believe is actually every bit as valuable as Tron's, we can proselytize Sun into supporting Steem as in independent entity rather than folding it into Tron.

To date the problem has been that PoS enables governance to be controlled by whales, and those whales have an obligation to due diligence and financial prudence in managing their stakes. This has resulted in over 90% of rewards inuring to whales, and a retention rate below 10% YOY. It's not that the whales wanted to kick new users off the platform, but that their prudential duty to managing their stake was primary, and retention secondary.

Sun is exceptionally competent at marketing, and this is an incredible opportunity to benefit from that. However, it will require diligent governance on our part - on the part of the whales that effect governance absent deployment of Tron's 75M Steem that can undertake governance at it's sole option, making other whales no more relevant than the rest of us - to raise retention to industry standards, and allow rewards to encourage high quality users to stay.

Sun is not going to send profiteers waves of new users at great expense just so the whales can profiteer away all of their rewards and keep their ROI high. @ned did, but @ned wasn't able to rein in those other whales because of his philosophy of decentralized governance. I'm not convinced Sun shares that philosophy to that extent, and he may well deploy that stake to do so - if we don't do so first.

Our governors effected EIP in HF22 which successfully reined themselves in to a degree that shocked me, ending the blatant vote selling that nearly destroyed Steem completely. This reveals they aren't utterly incompetent at governance, and are able to grasp that there is a point at which profiteering becomes insuperable and must give up some value to allow rewards to flow to creators.

While that EIP has been successful, it is not successful enough, and we yet retain an opportunity to deploy our competence to raise retention nominally to justify Sun's marketing expertise to invest in bringing new users to Steem. He can simply replace our current governance with the stake he purchased from @ned, and if we don't act now to raise retention to support onboarding, he will do so at his sole option.

Retention is ~5% YOY, and we continue to bleed highly valuable content creators today, because our current governance flows ~90% of rewards to whales, valuing their stakes more highly than platform growth. This has been proved to reduce their long term ROI, but they are risk averse as is prudent, and cash is king.

Sun has cash to invest in onboarding and is competent to do so beyond industry standards. We need to invest in retention right now so that he doesn't need to deploy his stake to make investing in onboarding financially superable.

Whales need to encourage retention by allowing nominal rewards to flow to content creators. A good gauge of nominal rewards is the original vision in the White Paper. ~30% of rewards was expected to flow to creators originally, and this would probably sufficiently encourage users to remain onboard instead of giving up when they realize their work was simply profiting whales through financial manipulation of rewards by stake weighting. Either the whales presently executing governance grasp this and undertake to make it happen, or Sun will do what @ned did not, and effect governance at his sole option using that stake to rein in profiteering so that onboarding masses of new users will result in platform growth - probably on Tron, rather than Steem - and the rest of the whales on Steem will be no more able to govern than the rest of us.

Either we demonstrate we can effectively make Steem a platform that is best allowed to profit Tron by being independent, or Sun will have no choice but to fold it into Tron and make it profitable to him using the stake that enables him to do this at his sole option.

Sun doesn't only care about his userbase. He wants to generate profit, and the userbase is the source of profit. So far Steem has sacrificed it's userbase to flow rewards to whales, and Sun will not pay to flow new users to our profiteers so they can extract the rewards of their content and gain ROI.

re you on Twitter sir?

Welcome to Steem! Looking forward to learn more details of this partnership

Welcome to Steem, Justin! Looking forward to this being a Win Win for Steem and Tron. I will be at the AMA tomorrow. Cheers!

Time for changes. For better or for worse.
Welcome and good luck.

I agree.. At least now we got some capital to help Steemit grow!

Creating a brand new social media platform, calling it something that already exists, and copying all of it's content is not joining forces. Why not clone Facebook's content to Tron and tweet that you're now joining forces with Facebook? Much bigger audience and just as legitimate.

Where did they get "proprietary" from? Proprietary is relating to an owner or ownership and the Steem blockchain is not (to my knowledge) owned by anyone.

Sorry sir, but you are utterly wrong. At a level of content and tokens you may be right - even though the steemit was sold with its tokens and licences, the rest of tokens belong to users. One need to look at the whole ecosystem. When you rip off a significant part of economy/ecosystem - steemit is a major window for user of greater value than tokens themselves - you either take users as hostages go with me to decrease your losses or die with your crippled economy.

Major player f*** us over and forced us into China-based and prone to censorship hands.

"...China-based and prone to censorship..."

Big nope from me on censorship. Imma get the fork outta here at the first whiff of it. I bet all my SBD that someone, somewhere, is forking Steem right now.

Thanks!

Welcome to the Game of Thrones blockchain edition, half seem to want a purge and are happy for a change, half are debating if you and/or Ned are Reptilian overlords.
Battleaxe, long time blogger and maker of Memes

The fact both TRON and STEEM went up today post the announcement only proves that the market and industry at large view this partnership as a mutually beneficial alliance.

Does it? Or does it simply prove that people are willing to buy any token to speculate on an upswing for any news/press hits?

I have faith in our shared vision for what lies ahead. Welcome to the family!

What’s up justin!! Waiting for the AMA tomorrow!! Let’s hear some great news man! 💪🏼🙌🏼💯

Posted using Partiko iOS

Great job. Don't sure what happening.

Posted using Partiko Android

Hi @justinsunsteemit. It is great to see you here and glad to see that your values align with Steem. There are several win-wins here that we all should be working for, but, as i am sure you are aware, we have to be very careful about the way we put the vision for this to the community.

Hopefully you are aware that based on the information that you have released so far, the community is very worried about what the next steps are and there is a lot of talk about a potential fork away from Tron within the Steem community as many members presently see this as a hostile take over by Tron and not a mutually beneficial partnership.

In order to calm nerves and bring stability to this deal, it would be beneficial for the communities from both chains, the Tron team and the Steemit Inc. team members if you could focus on the following with @ned in tomorrow's live stream:

  1. Win-win for Tron and Steem communities - what does it look like to you?
  2. a guarantee that you are not planning on swapping out the Steem token for a TronSteem token - from what i am reading on Steem from earlier today, this would basically cause the community to immediately fork away from Tron
  3. A guarantee that a win-win will be created by having Tron integrated into Steemit.com so that a dual relationship can work where both a Tron based token and the original Steem token can coexist on the same platform
  4. a guarantee / commitment that the current ongoing work on SMTs and communities development on steem will be continued to completion
  5. A guarantee that tokens currently listed on exchanges as the current Steem token will remain as such, and that the new Tron-Steem token will be a separate entity on exchanges

From what i have picked up today, these are the main concerns from the community and closing these items out in the live stream tomorrow would benefit everyone. Additionally, positive answers to these items will almost certainly result in token price boosts to both Tron and Steem and a sustainable growth together in the future. Taking on board what the community is saying, un-clear resolution of these issues will likely result in a break down in the deal and a hit to reputations on all sides, as well as a hard fork.

This is a good new notice.

Hi @justinsunsteemit
This is a great news, I do actually believe it is good for Steemit.inc...etc
But just as a reminder the Steem Blockchain is #Decentralized and we have Witnesses and the community to run the whole thing smoothly ! Beneficial to all of us using Steemit.
We need investors more than anything, I do like the recent price increase of Steem Token , Do you mind selling some good old tron to power up your Steemit account?
Screenshot_20200215-104533.png
Welcome to Steemit btw!

This is a copy and paste response that is just the original post he made here: https://steempeak.com/steem/@justinsunsteemit/excited-about-tron-and-steem-steemit-collaboration

Some real communication like a real human being would be nice... just saying!

Waoooo super great I am very happy to know and that is why many very important people are joining steemit see the potential of a decentralized social technology blockchain and epale great characters come together as justinsun of #lujo we go for more


vamos comunidad de steemit

Let's wait for the AMA to know where are we headed. Its good to let them know the sentiments of the community. We are hopeful they also want community to be on their side of deal.

Right now it seems like everyone is just milling around in a circle, not knowing what's going on.

THAT part, sadly reminds me of the old days of tech/dot-com companies where millions billions were made and lost simply on "Big Announcements" that had none of the functional implementation aspects even considered. The great investing guru Peter Lynch (creator of Fidelity Investments' famous "Magellan" mutual fund) liked to call it "di-WORSE-ification."

I don't know, though. And I understand the distinctions you are making, but I am still confused as to what this partnership means. I guess we'll just have to wait and see...

Yeah, sometimes a wait and see is the best approach. It's important to get the fundamental terms correct first though. So many people (for years now) have not understood the distinction between Steem, STEEM, Steemit, inc, and Steemit.com let alone the intricacies of DPoS, blockchain, and cryptocurrency (or SBD, Steem Power, etc).

Best we can do now is educate people on the facts so when more information does come out, we can make educated decisions about how we, the STEEM token holding community, want to the future of the Steem blockchain to be and how that will relate to the existing Steemit brand.

Hey lukestokes, i was wondering if its possible to guide or point me in the right direction to information that breaks down the differences of steem, STEEM, and steemit. I have a very general basic understanding but would like a more detailed explanation.
will do my own due diligence, would appreciate tools you have used.

The post I linked to first is a good start.

Here's how I understand it:

STEEM: The Steem cryptocurrency
Steem: The Steem blockchain (or the code, protocol, or running mainnet, depending on context)
Steemit: One of two things:

Steemit, inc: The company who launched Steem and primarily develops the Steem protocol and owns...
Steemit.com: The primary browser of the Steem blockchain. There are many others, but most conflate Steemit.com with Steem, when really they are different. Steemit.com is just a centralized website run by a centralized company using a decentralized blockchain (of which they do happen to have a large, centralized stake of tokens which apparently they just sold to the Tron foundation).

Appreciate it, i know its just surface info but it gives me reference point of where and what to look for. This way it doesn't feel like I'm traveling down a rabbit hole.

but I am happy to see STEEM and Steem back in the news (even if it's just because of Steemit)

I took a quick glance at your post from 2 years ago and saw no distinction between Steem and STEEM.
Not sure what you meant.
Great post though, I really think that the present hype could be bad if people don't put their watches on the same time (as we say in french).
Headlines are always really simple but it's quite the task to accurately simplify a community led or decentralized business.
It's good that we are at least challenged to capitalize on this momentum and it could help set ourselves apart from other crypto.

The distinction between STEEM and Steem is kind of subtle (similar to the distinction between Bitcoin (the protocol) and bitcoin (the cryptocurrency)). As far as I understand, "STEEM" is the token. "Steem" is the blockchain. You could go deeper if you're trying to tease out if it's the protocol, the code, or the running mainnet we call the "Steem blockchain", but we won't get into that.

Oh! I find that to be a useful distinction, thank you!

TRON and Steemit’s development teams will immediately begin working together to bring Steemit and other Steem blockchain based DApps to TRON blockchain

old STEEM token to a new TRON based STEEM token, giveaways to the existing TRX users with the new TRON based STEEM token

It seems pretty clear Tron plans to abandon the existing Steem chain and move everything over to Tron, timing unspecified. Witnesses can't do anything about it as Steem witnesses have zero control over the Tron blockchain. Furthermore, Tron has already initiated a token swap on Poloniex, and other exchanges are likely to follow. Once swapped to TRC STEEM, current Steem witnesses will lose all control.

Of course, current witnesses can continue the current chain as Steem Classic or whatever, but Tron's future of Steem is pretty clear now.

Excuse the plug, but some discussions about this here: https://steemit.com/steem/@liberosist/steem-classic-anyone

The big question is if there will be a fork, of if all major witnesses will move to Tron.

There is also a few interesting things to notice:

  • steemit Inc. Stake will go to the hands of Tron. Even if a fork happens it seems that Tron will still have a big power over the forked version. (Unless they dump the stake, Wich would also damage steem price on the short term
  • where will witnesses a and developers go? Although we could have a fork, if major witnesses a and developers move to Tron, steem will suffer. (ie ethereum classic still exists, but 99% of developers sitcked with vitalik ethereum)

There is a lot of unkows now, and honestly wouldn't be a bad idea to make your steem liquid and be ready for the worst.

There's no fork. As you know, Tron is an existing chain that's worth 17x as much as Steem. They are just moving everything from the Steem chain to the Tron chain. They have their own witnesses, they don't need Steem witnesses. Of course, timing is uncertain, but there might be an interim while they still support the current chain, but the goal is clear. Abandon current Steem chain, move everything to Tron chain.

All they need is exchange support for the swap. Poloniex has already announce the swap to TRC STEEM. The money will follow.

Hi @liberosist

I wasn't aware that tron is worth 17x more than steem. How did you get that number? What is it based on? Just curious.

Yours
Piotr

If it’s the TRX coin, it’s worth less than the PRE token that I’ve got lol. Haven’t heard much about Tron but looks like I’ll start to find out about it now.

Hi again @cmplxty

Can I ask you for little favour? I joined contest called "Community of the week" with project I manage and I would be grateful if you could RESTEEM it and help me get some exposure and drop some encouraging comment :)

Link to my post: on steemit or on steempeak

Thanks :)
Yours, Piotr

It's TRX's market cap, currently $1.7 billion. STEEM's market cap is $0.092 billion.

Hi again @liberosist

Can I ask you for little favour? I joined contest called "Community of the week" with project I manage and I would be grateful if you could RESTEEM it and help me get some exposure and drop some encouraging comment :)

Link to my post: on steemit or on steempeak

Thanks :)
Yours, Piotr

Tron's market cap is now at 1.7 billion while the market capitalization for Steem is around 0.1 b.

https://coinmarketcap.com/

Hi again @heroic15397

Can I ask you for little favour? I joined contest called "Community of the week" with project I manage and I would be grateful if you could RESTEEM it and help me get some exposure and drop some encouraging comment :)

Link to my post: on steemit or on steempeak

Thanks :)
Yours, Piotr

how are they moving everything? other blockchains maybe don't have people, but steem does, and you can't just move people. From what i understood tron wanted user base (because as small steem is, in cripto it is big in the real people doing stuff every day) but with what they wrote people will not be happy to move.

Yeah like if we're powered up how we moving?? lol

No idea how they are moving stuff, I doubt they know either.

I suspect that your money, and I know my money, will only follow with certain assurances. I also expect that if those assurances aren't met, there will sure as hell be a fork, and it won't include any money that failed obligations regarding those assurances.

Some of us here have principles that mean more than tokens.

I know you do. I'm pretty sure I do too.

Many unknowns. It's possible witnesses could decide to fork out Steemit's stake which is now Tron's stake. That has been discussed in the past. The question of where the Steemit, inc employees will go who are working on the protocol is also an open question, including the APIs and such which much of the infrastructure currently relies on. That will have to be answered by Steemit, inc.

Already been answered.

TRON and Steemit’s development teams will immediately begin working together to bring Steemit and other Steem blockchain based DApps to TRON blockchain

They (i.e. Steemit Inc employees) will migrate all current Steem infrastructure to Tron, and it's safe to assume continue to develop the migrated platform on the Tron chain itself.

They're not slaves. I mean maybe they're being paid well to work on Tron, who knows. But if they really want to work on Steem they can always quit that job. The Steem blockchain has its own funding system via SPS which as of today is running about $800K/year, probably enough to pay devs.

Not that much stuff gets funded. The SPS is just another way for Witnesses to feed themselves more. Yes the SPS could do a lot but if the exchanges do the swap it is unlikely that the SPS would be able to support getting listed on other exchanges for Old STEEM unless some key bag holders here really rallied the troops and they did it as a power play. Then they would have a heap of other issues like hosting.....etc. It is unlikely that Old STEEM would retain as much value as the Token on the TRON chain and one by one the STEEM Saviors would sneak out the back door and do the conversion in fear of losing more funds. It would likely make more sense for them to head for high ground and continue the circle jerk on TRON instead of risking ending up like Scorum, WEKU, BearShares, WhaleShares....etc

The SPS is just another way for Witnesses to feed themselves more

This is utter bullshit. Other than having a SP vote like anyone else, witnesses have no say over what gets funded on SPS. I have little doubt that competent Steem developers, if they wanted to work on Steem, would be funded.

As for the rest, we will have to see. Hosting isn't really an issue. @anyx has already said that his node infrastructure can probably handle the load and could also be expanded (it currently only costs $15/day via SPS).

I think there are a fair number of people involved with Steem who want nothing to do with Tron, but I could be wrong.

Exchanges will follow the user base. If there is a user base on the existing chain, they will support it. If the user base goes away (which was already happening to an extent, and this new development doesn't fix that at all), then they won't.

In the above comment thread, we've been referring to Steemit Inc employees. Point taken, they can quit Steemit Inc/Tron and continue work on the legacy Steem chain, but until they do, they are still Steemit Inc employees under Tron's management, currently tasked with moving all of Steem's infrastructure and dApps (with Steemit.com confirmed) to Tron.

It was a hypothetical, in the event that the Steem blockchain and whatever Tron wants to do go forward in parallel. I have reason to believe that at least some of the Steem devs would rather work on the Steem code than work on Tron, if an economically-viable pathway exists to do that. Whether that will ever happen I have no idea.

We both know a Steem classic token will not retain that value and that will impact the resources flowing to the SPS.

It depends. A well-managed transition wouldn't necessarily change much.

There isn't anything particularly remarkable about the current value. Yes the price has gone up recently and some might attribute that to this announced Tron deal but I'm not so sure. Steem's market cap ranking is about where it was for most of the past year when frankly nothing visible was going on. It seems to be mostly going with the flow of a mild 'alt season'. Actual development supported by SPS would be an improvement.

But of course, we'll have to wait and see how it plays out.

It would be naïve to think that most of the migration hasn’t already been planned and set to occur shortly after the public announcement. I’m sure this entire buyout and migration has been in the works for at least several weeks/months, as Sun had apparently made a large purchase of STEEM around January 20th...which kind of doesn’t make sense if they’re migrating everything.

What we’ll likely see is all of the previously hosted content published via Steemit.com moved to the TRON chain, where that TRON content will be viewable on the new SteemiTron.com interface (pretty sure it won’t be called that).

Regarding the other comments about continuing the current Steem chain but forking out the STINC/TRON stake...

I would support that.

That was my first thought, then I realized Steemit Inc has been tasked partially with handling the migration. Yeah, it's going to take several years to move everything... The token swap is imminent though.

Thank you for the link, definitely appreciated.

As you say:

The answer is, they can't. The Steem witnesses, and indeed, the existing Steem chain at large, will have nothing to do with the TRC STEEM token.

Then again, I was not aware of the Polo token swap announcement you mention: https://support.poloniex.com/hc/en-us/articles/360043406513

It may all come down to how the exchanges respond and how the liquidity in the market responds.

IMO, the urgent plan of action from top witnesses should be to collaborate, contact exchanges and Tron, negotiate a hold on the swap ASAP. This stuff needs to be discussed and worked out. If the swap is allowed to go forward, it'll be too late, the Tron STEEM will be the new STEEM.

What if the new price of tron steem open up less than a penny? lol sounds sketch to me in the conversion details alone!!!!

That does seem like a rational plan of action but who has direct contact with the exchanges? It's most likely Steemit, Inc.

And Steemit, Inc. is now owned by Tron, which is why the odds are stacked heavily against the witnesses of the current chain. There's not much choice but to contact Tron and the exchanges and work it out.

@lukestokes what about Steem that is powered up and locked for 13 weeks, has anyone considered this??? Then there is the question about Delegation's.....

Hold on a second, polo sold all steem they stole from traders by closing markets, and now they want to swap? For fucks sake, you can't make this shit up

I got blocked out of polo, and some steem too!!!

It's a mad, crazy world.

I'm glad I got off Polo three years ago and never looked back.

and other exchanges are likely to follow

Why would they follow?

Because Tron is a big player in the crypto industry, currently a $1.7 billion project. Meanwhile, Steem witnesses are a bunch of randos exchanges have never heard about before. Where do you think the smart money is going to go? And as you put it elsewhere, CZ is buddies with Justin, if Binance and Poloniex announce support for TRC STEEM, do you really think other exchanges are going to go the other way?

I agree. Just wanted to see someone else say it.

Dude i am super confused lol craziness

Anything specific I can help make easier to understand? There are no stupid questions, so ask away.

No stupid questions? Wow aren't you nice. I just felt like commenting sorry it wasn't the most insightful comment ever. You seem pretty confused too

He meant something like “shoot it. There aren’t stupid questions, only stupid answers”

[There are] no stupid questions.

Yes, I meant there are no stupid questions. I upvoted your comment so that you'd get some visibility. I'll edit my comment for clarity.

This one thing people will have to wait and see what reality is going to bring, we can speculate and it is fun to do so. If the witnesses do not want to go the direction steemit.inc wants to travel they just do not approve any changes to the code. Nothing will prevent steemit.inc from forking off steem and trying to merge the Tron and Forked Steem block chain, but steem block chain should continue.

I know some people think that steemit.inc developers are the only steem block chain developing team, but there are others. Steempeak has a team of developers, they have some changes they would like to see and from what I read on one of there post they are prepping their proposal and asking for user input on what will be their HF proposal for after the SMT hard fork. So development will not die as some people seem to think.

At the end of the day I think we are all going to just need to wait and see, maybe Monday will bring more light to the subject.

Well said.

Seems like it's going to be a big mess... but I'm hoping for the best.

If what is being said is true, it seems like the Tron Foundation plans to render the current Steem Blockchain and current STEEM token obsolete... which gets me thinking... was this purchase really just an attempt at a hostile takeover of the network?

It very possibly could be. The level of decentralization in Steem (and potentially DPoS) will be tested.

Thank you for this! I knew it to be true but it is great to hear you say it. I have awarded you my witness vote just now.

I am building quite a few projects on steem right now, including @quintaesencia working with the Transparency in Governance initiative, so I will do whatever is necessary to defend the independence of our infrastructure.

Thanks for your support. I live in PR, but I still have to learn more Spanish. I hope to understand your posts someday. :)

I would love for you to take the effort! After this debacle is over, I look forward to discussing with you how these technologies can best be used to incentivize sustainable development initiatives across the developing world.

Tomorrow I will be fully engaged

I am of the "all publicity is good publicity" bandwagon. This will either shake up the ecosystem in a good way which we all agree with; or finally motivate the people here with vested stake to start a truly independent blockchain without steemit. Either way we will win in the long run I think. My guess is that they may simply link the steem token to TRX in a claytons way; steem really runs on steempower not steem so they could have steem on Tron and then when you vest it is linked as steempower on the steem blockchain which continues to do its thing and have its own governance structure. I think his main game is increasing perceived user volume on TRX DAp listings so he can get closer to ETH.

I played around with some ideas like this: SteemDAC: A Plan We Can Start Today to Decentralize Steem Governance and so it is possible to keep track of Steem Power across chains with oracles and use that to influence governance... but it would be tricky.

where there is a will there is a way

" This will either shake up the ecosystem in a good way which we all agree with..."

Well, THAT will never happen. I don't even agree with me most days.

Funny. I responded to your tweet before I saw this article on Steem! Ha! For what it's worth, I think that this could be a terrible development for Steem. Tron has numerous instances of bad governance and centralization. I much prefer the structure of the current Steem blockchain despite its flaws, but the way it sounds like Tron is governed would be an absolute disaster for those who want more decentralization and autonomy on social media networks.

For all these reasons and more, Witnesses will be watching this situation very, very closely.

Do you think there's an appetite amongst the witnesses to keep a "Steem Classic" running and let the Tron forkers go their own way? :)

It's certainly one of many discussions being had. I think it's prudent to plan for any potential outcome, especially given the lack of facts to work with from Steemit, inc at this time. Maybe we'll know more during the AMA tomorrow.

I am curious what the large, unspoken votes on the chain, say/... like Freedom, and what about the rest of the witnesses?

What are they feeling?

Discussions are certainly happening in various places from Slack to Telegram to Discord.

I too am various curious about the Freedom stake. Maybe they will come out of hiding for this and make their opinions known.

I am anxious to see,
maybe we'll have more answers when the MSP show takes place after the AMA on Dlive.

isn't freedom and ned the same person though?

I actually don't think so.

Mebbe @dan.

tron may offer higher scalability and people able to create accounts without a hassle. This could be a huge thing. The official team to my understanding is running out of money and i think these type of partnerships are good for future, lot of blockchains will do alliances in near future and we have seen that happening already.

Only thing to worry about is tokenomics, will old chain operate alongside new one or what. However experience with Tron Dapps and DEX's been pretty much hands down best after EOS, so im looking forward to this.

I also will support people forking out or moving to other chain. I'm very excited nonetheless of the future :)

Thanks for providing that perspective. I don't know enough about Tron from a technical standpoint, other than what I hear in FUD and see in memes. I have some learning to do.

Tron has gambling ponzis.. Thats it. Steem is superior in every way, especially with SMTs.
He just has more money and is trying to buy a fucking blockchain. If he manages that Steem on Tron will be worthless since he would LITERALLY buy a blockchain.

I have put nothing into STEEM except my time and creative effort. I am curious to see where this goes, but I will withhold judgement until there is something more concrete to consider.

Aren't your finite time and your creative effort two of your most valued assets, though?

Your time and creative efforts are still worth a lot. Even if you didn't contribute outside money to the platform you still contributed and reinvested your gains in the platform. To me it's more impressive and valuable than simply buying your influence.

You and I both know he could easily control consensus with Steemit inc stake and his.. he can do whatever he wants.

The wording in the announcement is a slap in the face as it’s very much implying they control all of Steem.

Do you remember the drama about the community threatening to fork out the Steemit stake? Anything is possible.

This will be a test for decentrazition :)
Not entirly sure that they control all of it

I am not sure I trust the witnesses to do anything but lock step their way to tron. Shouldn't the witnesses have been putting pressure on Steemit Inc to actually do something with this place? Seems like a massive problem that could easily be forked out of the equation once sun has control of inc's tokens.

The token swap/sale is direct evidence that Inc cares little for the user base as has been evidenced the past years. Sad really.

Sometimes the truth hurts!

No one knows what is going to happen next. The fact this was done on a weekend / Friday means we'll probably be waiting for further news and more answers through to next week.

It's an interesting chain of events for sure, but it also makes me regret the fact that once upon a time, several years ago I didn't know the difference between Steemit and Steem. The cresencdo in that is the fact that my car's licence plate still reads "Steemit".

How I wish I settled for "Steem" instead, the true vision that everything I say in a certain place has an immutable history that can be audited by anyone. I like that element. That's what allowed me to make a home in this abstract, yet decentralised platform that feels like the most familiar place, as highly technical as its underlying architechture may be.

Imagine my dismay when I got the STEEM/Steemit logo tattooed on my leg, only to see them change the Steemit logo a few weeks later. My initial reaction was fear in that my new tattoo made no sense. Delighted to see that the STEEM logo was in tact, still the exhaust coming out of the rocket ship ;)

There is a scheduled live Stream on Saturday.

There's a lot of negative talk going on, but you are right that Tron will not control the Steem platform, although they may end up holding a lot of Steem. It is resistant to hostile takeovers. That's not to say the witnesses cannot come to an arrangement with Tron. I will be interested in what Ned has to say tomorrow.

Think the first straw could be Steemit Inc shutting down or otherwise deprecating public RPC nodes.

Second could be public RPC node providers to begin shutting down nodes as load cost continues to mount likely prompting a user exodus and probably sell off -> market crash.

Last straw will be private node operators to shutdown as well as witnesses. Steem will then be a memory.

This is my "doomsday scenario" but I'm not all doom and gloom. I see potential opportunities in all of this to rebuild.

We need to start staging and deploying our backup strategies now. I've already tweeted /posted to this end and to my surprise. @CA_dawg was diligent in putting together a massive repo of forks.

Steem, condenser and much much more.

Think we are gonna be fine ultimately but there does seem to be a storm brewing imo.

@cadawg I mean. Lol sorry mixed up your username. Link it anybody wants to show appreciation.

https://steemit.com/steemit/@cadawg/re-anthonyadavisii-q5phzr

@anyx has suggested that his SPS-supported node infrastructure can probably handle the load, and even if it can't, his SPS funding could easily be increased (currently only $15 per day). So your second step probably won't happen.

Uhhhh Ohhh @lukestokes The Super Delegates are coming for your lunch.

The 50 or 60 people pumping a profit on this chain are shook.

Most of us don't really care. I have a bigger investment in Tron at this point and a lot of others have quietly went out the back door with the majority of their money.

If they do take it to a TRON token and Binance does that conversion because Justin and CZ are boys Bittrex would likely follow suit and the old STEEM wouldn't really be able to be traded anywhere and the community wouldn't be able to rally together and pay the extortion fees to get on these exchanges so it would just end up as a ghost chain with no exchanges like WEKU or something. Also if Steemit INC wasn't doing updates it is unlikely anyone would continue to push updates if the incentives weren't there.

Most people would fall in line to hopefully join an ecosystem that hasn't slipped so far down the ranks on CoinMarketCap.

Maybe @ned will play a new song for us tomorrow.

Those in power will seek to remain in power.

As a member of the community and Steem enthusiast however, I am concerned that Steem will lose its core values and meaning, wonder whether our voices are truly immutable or if they have been up for sale all along the same as on all other corporate social media platforms.

Ironic that this place you're speaking of, and linking to, this place that is immutable and permanent.... is Steemit.com :D

Sort of funny that you said that, after this post, and the title you gave it.

As we know, Steemit DOES censor and deplatform. It's the Steem blockchain itself which doesn't.

I guess you would have linked to that, if you could, but there's no direct link to the blockchain, only to front ends.

Don't ruin it. The price is going up. Let it hit $10 before making this kind of pragmatic post mate.

I thought people were supposed to buy the rumor and sell the news? Everything is upside down now. Heheh.

There is still one piece of news: when it goes live and swaps and airdrops start

LOL.
I just had a filthy thought. I'm sure it's occurred to others too, especially witnesses.

How about HF23, fork out Steemit

Well, as you said, token holders ultimately have the choice. Guess who is the only token holder that matters, with the biggest stake? Steemit, Inc. And as you also said they bought Steemit, inc.

I honestly don't understand how you're not making that link already.

It's not because the current management at Steemit, inc don't use the stake that Justin Sun won't as well.

You got burned hard by Steem... Horrible investment... Steem is a good crypto but some of these witnesses are absolutely ruining this chain.

Nobody actually wants to buy Steem anymore and if they do now its because Tron is making the currency popular in the short term. Might as well start selling Steem soon, after this Tron news breaks out to the masses, that will make the value of Steem climb and then it will collapse once regular users get wind of what's going on with Steemit... Steemit is the second largest DAPP on the Steem blockchain, this move to Tron is a MAJOR blow to Steem (currency).

Short term gain, or a long term loss. People need to choose soon.

We will make any necessary transitions, but we will likely dual post on Steem and Tron.

but some of these witnesses are absolutely ruining this chain.

Can you elaborate? How the some witnesses ruining the chain? Are they proposing bad code changes or not running nodes effectively?

this move to Tron is a MAJOR blow to Steem (currency).

I don't see it that way this early on. Too many unknowns.

Can you elaborate?

I've had a run in with TheMarkyMark and Stem geeks downvoting bots and downvoting farms. We've already seen people try to enforce "proper tagging" with downvotes back in 2016... it failed then, alienated the smaller channels and ended up pissing off a lot of smaller channels. Its a repeat of the failure from back then.

I agree. Some many users have been alienated here for various reasons. I'm glad I got the majority of my money out of here. Oddly enough I have a significant amount of TRON so if their is a large airdrop to TRON holders then I might be suddenly more powerful.

At the end of the day there are about 50 - 60 people making money off this place while others lose. Things could have been different.

It is interesting that DLive and Steemit will be on the same blockchain again.

some of these witnesses are absolutely ruining this chain.

By following stinc's lead despite know their history of acting against the good of the community?

Nobody in the community wanted linear rewards.
Most of the eip was proposed two years before the stagnation began.

This is our chance.
The albatross around our necks has taken flight.
Why would we tolerate another?
#nedstrikesagain

Good point. This place has turned into another government. Doing things against the wishes of the users/populace, enacting changes with no public discourse, extremely poor ability to manage. Now is our chance to get rid of the problem. If only we could manage to keep devs on board we could just fork Inc/Sun out and move on with things as we have been.

I think it may be a done deal.
Have to wait to see what is in the next fork, and if the fellas are ready to cut some nuts and stand on our own.

SMT code is pretty much done, right? And public?
So its possible Steem could end up on Tron, and Steem-classic could roll-out the SMT hardfork, minus SteemitINC's stake; meaning each of us owns our original stake, but now on Tron, PLUS a larger relative share of Steem classic, now with SMTs.
Or am I missing something?

Where did they get "proprietary" from? Proprietary is relating to an owner or ownership and the Steem blockchain is not (to my knowledge) owned by anyone.

Steem is a blockchain run by independent block producers called witnesses distributed around the world. You can see them listed here: https://steemd.com/witnesses

Just wait till Justin give that dormant STINC stake a little push, eh?

That's certainly a possibility, but in so doing, he risks the community rejecting that stake and hard forking it out. It's been discussed before.

He would have gotten what he wanted then. The name, etc.

Good luck to the forked chain to actually stay on exchanges. And what? Are you gonna develop for this theoretical forked chain?

There are a lot of things to consider than oh, we can still keep going.

The exchanges will most likely determine what the token "name" is unless we have a full on naming war. This is full on ship of Theseus stuff. What is "STEEM" anyway?

Nice reference! I never see Theseus Ship in discussions much.

One of the best ways to think about identity problems in philosophy.

HAH! Perfect analogy!!!

But hey, if it does come to that and you guys reject them, mad props to you all.

Witnesses should fork and remove steemit inc stake. Simples

That's but one step.

There are other intricacies involved for the survival of the chain. Exchanges, devs, resources, etc.

Devs and resources is largely addressed with SPS. Exchanges is somewhat harder, but many exchanges will support a chain that has a real user base.

The bigger problem is that Steem/it has been circling the drain for a while. If you reject the Tron migration, what do you really have, and what reason do exchanges really have to support it?

Not impossible, but I think people forget all the challenges that were already there, if not new ones.

@blocktrades would still be an option, no?

Almost certainly. Good point.

The bigger problem is that Steem/it has been circling the drain for a while.

Because of the albatross around our neck that has suddenly sprung to life and beat feet out the door.
#nedstrikesagain

If we remain calm, nothing changes until the next fork goes live.
Then, god only know, atp.

I think we could've floated our own boat the last time that stake tried to screw us.
But, boat still equals bust out another thousand.
No telling how deep the cancer has spread in the interim.

Watched the video with @justinsunsteemit and @ned. At least Justin knows how to use social media and has actual resources to commit to steemit's development.

You are repeating the same thing for years, but fewer and fewer people are listening.

If Steem is not Steemit, please, Tell me who is using it and for what?

Oh, yes, there are several online casinos and several sub-mediocre games with 100 active players at best

How do you people imagine to do something constructive if you keep repeating the same self-deceptions for years?!

Sorry, I've forgotten... It's Steemit... Place where marginal people who became gods at one moment enjoy their glory

Yikes, now they are going to try to take STEEM away just as the altcoin rally begins, I hope not! Hope this all works out, fingers crossed????

This will be good for the two projects below the fears above the prices and together they will close much more to decentralize the network

I'm pretty sure that if Justin is going to migrate steemit to the Tron blokchain, steemians will be given their fair share of the new coin. He is not going to screw over the original users as that is the core of the entire platform. I'm pretty optimistic that this will be a big win for steem holders. We are now backed by a billionaire!

Yes, but at what cost? Will this still be my home on the blockchain, uncensorable by billionaires or governments?

Exactly @lukestokes!

I am still wading through all these comments (as well as many other articles and comments) trying to wrap my head around the larger implications but... your statement below sums up my 'gut reaction' to all of this.

Yes, but at what cost? Will this still be my home on the blockchain, uncensorable by billionaires or governments?

uncensorable by billionaires

All but one?

If you kneel to one you kneel to them all.

steemians will be given their fair share of the new coin.

Well, Mr Sun effectively only bought a name (brand) if he doesn't include the existing community on his version of the platform , which would effectively leave him with an empty social media platform and a lot of pissed off former community members who, I'm sure, would be looking into their legal rights to be appropriately compensated for their "percentage ownership [of the Steem blockchain]" (possible class action lawsuit in the making). I'm certain that he's covered his ass regarding potential lawsuits, though.

You are the first witness to speak about this and point out the thing that steem community knows ... steemit is not steem.... there is a lot of confusion now, and the manner in how this was done and announced is not so welcomed.... will see how evrything goes

I agree. No announcement from @steemitblog is unsettling. I'm hoping @andrarchy will say what he can when he can. I imagine things like this are taken very, very seriously. The coordinated news rollout and PR announcement and such happens through lots of planning (as I'm sure the deal itself did). They've probably been sitting on their hands for some time about this, but it is a bit dissappointing to see tweets from Ned (who for some reason still has me blocked) and Justin but nothing on chain from the Steemit team.

yeah, everyone acting like they signed an NDA until the AMA

Probably accurate.

Hell, I announced it two months ago. ; )

Hahahah! And you even bought the rumor too, didn't you? :)

Well played, Randy.

Ironically TRON Foundation made their announcement on Medium.com instead of Steemit.com

Thanks so much for your thoughtful words regarding the Steemit/Tron activity. This would be a good read for those who do not have a full understanding of the distinction between the STEEM blockchain and Steemit.com. STEEM ON!!!

Nice read.
Some people are confusing steem for steemit.

I love the steemit community as I have learn a lot here and build relationship, I'm just hoping the new leadership is going to do a great good to the community

What are your thoughts on the possibility of a potential airdrop of an entirely new token on the Tron blockchain for Steem holders and mayb that works similar to steem power...?

Anything is possible, but at the moment it's mostly speculation.

Thanks for sharing this helpful information about steem and steemit partnership with tron or justin sun its helpful to clarify some aspects of this partnership and its affect on steem blockchain

There’s so much we don’t yet know. But I’m not liking the sound of the token swap. And nowhere is @elipowell mentioned, just Ned. And we’ve seen what kind of communicator he’s been.

Yeah, I hope the Steemit, inc team can chime in soon.

I was feeling reassured until I saw @liberosist's comment and your response and now I'm not so sure again.

No point in worrying about it though at this point.

It would be a huge shame if the communty is lost and I was so looking forward to Steemfest this year.

Thanks for making this post Luke. Let's hope we hear from a few more witnesses soon.

I don't know why, but I thought about you when I saw this news. haha.

Ha, ha, ha. The feeling's mutual @adetorrent. I thought of you when I saw it but unlike you I do know why. 😂

We will make Steem what it is. That will never change.

My early thoughts are that there must be an incentive to current stakeholders to move and swap to a new blockchain which may be dilutive to our stakes. In the finance world, majority stakes have a premium.

Posted using Partiko iOS

We do not need Steemit to stay in business. The changes made by the community over the last two years have made it more sustainable. Steem can live without Steemit as was proven during the same period.

Posted using Partiko iOS

If we get censored, we truly lose everything.

No amount of tokens is worth my voice.

"...here on Steemit..."

I am not on Steemit. You are not conversing with me on Steemit.

In addition to you not grasping the difference between Steem and Steemit, I utterly and vehemently disagree with you regarding censorship, and expect to see that disagreement reflected going forward during this transition.

Go with Steemit. Steem will be better off without you.

I am hoping they (the witnesses) cannot be bought.

Well said. I have seen so many posts on my feed about this lately and yours is by far the most level headed and well explained given the information we currently have. I will be interested to see how things move forward from here.

Thank you.

At this point, I will continue as usual and adapt to this change!

100% agreed Luke.

We're home! :v:

Thanks for the info. Following you to know more about future developments and to see how this goes ahead for the community in general.

Good to see and read that words @lukestokes - my first reaction was similar. Due to job related busy times I am bit off towards all developments and news. Usually I only have time to play and use a lot of the great DApps on the Steem blockchain in the evening or over the weekend - but now I was a bit shocked and concerned. It is way to early to judge what will happen though. Glad to have people like you still here.

Thank you. I've always been here, but busy also with many cool projects like FIO, eosDAC, and more.

Steem is still my home on the blockchain, and I hope it becomes stronger and more secure through this transition, whichever way it goes.

Great post and thoughts. Very nicely formulated. I never liked Ned but he really is a piece of shit...

Hahah... wow. I try not to create enemies, but for whatever reason he and I haven't really clicked. He still has me blocked on Twitter.

This is very explanatory.. Thanks for this

Luke, THATS THE NARRATIVE!!!! And thats whats important with the exchanges. You guys need to band together and "virtually lynch" the witnesses Ned told about this ahead of time.

We need to stand together and throw such a massive punch to the face of the fucker Justin that THINKS he can buy a blockchain. Thats what he is trying to do.

HE WANTS TO BUY A BLOCKCHAIN.

If he manages to do that then Steem has no point in being a cryptocurrency. Dlive was just a centralized website like Twitch and he bought it.
Steem isnt Dlive.
What happens to witnesses? They dont need you. They have super representatives.

There are 2 pages
Pages