We Neutralized an Existential Threat, But Exposed A Threat to The Individual

in Steem Think Tank5 years ago

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I guess I'll give my two Satoshi's on this. Also I won't leave you in suspense, at the end of the day, I support this move. Although it makes me sad that it came to this.

In case you live under a rock and don't know what's going on here's a simplified timeline.

  • Ned/Steemit Inc. Ninja mined a huge stake during the birth of the Steem blockchain. To simplify, they gave themselves a huge stake to start off with.
  • Ned promised that this stake would not be used for governance or voting and would only be used to further the progress of the Steem blockchain.
  • For the most part, but not completely this promise was maintained.
  • Fast forward to present day. Ned over the counter sells his stake and Steemit Inc. to Justin Sun of Tron, without telling anyone, apparently not even the staff of Steemit Inc.
  • Tron/Justin Sun do a media blast right after the sale saying that the Steem token will be swapped for a Tron Steem like token, and all Steem dapps will be moved to Tron.
  • REEEEEEEEEEEE
  • In an AMA Justin walks back these comments, but with the now infamous "For now..." attached.
  • Community and Witnesses talk openly about ways to prevent a worse case scenario.
  • Tron continues to put out misleading(?) marketing content AND Justin Sun uses his huge Tron stake to do the very thing we'd fear him doing on Steem, he influences governance.
  • A super majority of Witnesses execute a soft fork that freezes all of Steemit Inc's stake that was promised not to be used for governance.

There, so you should be all caught up, but more than likely, you already knew all that.

So, while shitty, I do think this was the right move on behalf of our witnesses. I don't think it matters as much that Justin Sun made no aggressive moves towards Steem, and that all the language coming DIRECTLY from him was pleasant. The threat he represented was existential. I know some people would say, in the worst case scenario we would just hard fork and do our own thing. I have no doubt people would try, but I think realistically if that worst case scenario played out, that would be the end of Steem.

That's not a risk I'm willing to take.

In my eyes, it's not so much WOULD he move forward with a worse case scenario. I think that there is a very good case to be made(I made it myself) that that makes NO SENSE. Why would you spend millions on something just to torpedo it? I get that, I said that, BUT when weighing the stakes, I see on the far end of the negative end of this scale, the total destruction of the Steem blockchain. It's not a matter of whether or not he would, it's the very fact that he COULD.

So now we've crossed a line that can't be uncrossed and we'll have to live with the consequences. Now we've exposed an existential threat to the INDIVIDUAL.

Now we've exposed the fact that regardless of the justification, a small group of people can decide to freeze your property on Steem. We've exposed the reality that we value the whole more than the individual.

Justin Sun didn't ninja mine that stake, he bought it, it's his. Let's not kid ourselves with what just happened. We took what was his and said "Slow down there sunny boy, why don't you tell us your plans before we LET you have access to this property that you just bought"

It's all in all just a bad situation. I know some want to say, it's all Neds fault, he's a scammer, it's all the witnesses fault, they should have done this before, this threat isn't new. It's all the communities fault, we should have voted better witnesses, whatever, I'm not really into pointing fingers. I think it's more useful to look at the current situation and figure out what's the best path forward based on where we are.

To me that looks something like this.

  • Some sort of resolution with Justin Sun where his property and CONTROL of his property is returned to him.
  • A systemic and codified agreement on not only what will be done with his stake, but protections over systemic threats in the future.
    What if some random billionaire bought that much stake off the market and publicly stated that he was going to destroy Steem. What would we do then? I think we need to start brainstorming solutions to this sort of threat in the future. Like an extended powerdown time based on stake or something like that.
  • Along with that a codified solution for the individual needs to also be implemented. Without this change as well, this will always be a shadow hanging over Steem. Some have said that this would NEVER have been done if it wasn't the ninja mined stake, but if I'm remaining ideologically consistent, it doesn't matter if we think people or future witnesses WOULD do this to some random community member, it's the fact that they CAN.

So those are my thoughts on the current situation. I was hoping that everything would get resolved without much bloodshed, but here, we are, we've gotta deal with it now. Let's hope things get de-escalated from here.

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I appreciate the summary... simple and sweet. As usual, I believe it'll all be okay... constantly polishing rosecoloured glasses. Interesting to see what will come of meeting. The idea that people would spend silly money to destroy something boggles me. Send some silly money my way and destroy my mortgage instead please.

Great thoughts and reflections you aired there. It sounds quite very emotional at some points. However it's said in one of the African proverbs that what a man fears is what actually may down. Let's look at the point where Sun's response was quite logical and hope that the March 6th meeting with top witnesses comes out well. Sorts as this would always happen so we all learn. We have the pros and cons to everything that happens here.

Posted via Steemleo

Yes a line was crossed, There is really no good way out of this. If you keep him from accessing his stake he will probably attack legally and he has enough funds to have the edge and anyway he at least has to have his money back, and if they reach an agreement we will see that all was just a move by big accounts and top witnesses to protect themselves because they will in reality be agreeing that Justin keep what is in fact stolen property. Do you see any way out of this?

theycalmedan said in his video that there is some legal mambo jambo if Steemit used it for voting on witnesses. they mined it so steem would not be Security (not really sure how that works), they used a loophole and by voting could get in trouble. Not sure how that works, and what would happen if justin voted.
Out from this is easy if justin was not lying. He will make a contract that the stake will not be used to vote and influence witnesses, and we all live happily ever after. maybe.

The thing I see now is that they would be letting him use something that is illegal (the ninja mined stake) that would about kill the witnesses reputation.
Apart from which I am pretty sure @freedom ninja mined too.

it is not about ninja mined steem per se. steemit had an unfair advantage in that mining so they got shit ton more than others (there was also a restart at day one or two because some problems, and some speculate that steemit had some problems with mining so they did not do as well as they thought. not confirmed). and they said it will not be used for voting and influencing witnesses.

The problem is that that is the excuse being put out that the ninja mined stake is stolen, that is what is used to get users behind this soft fork, but that means Justin bought stolen property, how can you reach a deal with someone who is known to be the owner of stolen property? Seems unethical to me.

well i feel that the main point in this was not stolen (it was mined in a bit shady conditions and therefore promised to be used for development and so) , it is misused.

Well we shall see, but actually what I have read is that it is considered to be stolen.

Greatly summed up. I must say I am of a very similar mind to you. Although part of me agrees with what the Witnesses did, a Pandora's box has been opened and can never be closed.
This Ninja mined stake will always be something hanging over the communities head no matter who holds the keys.
I wish it could be neutered in a way that it could not be used for governance but still hold the same monetary value.

What if some random billionaire bought that much stake off the market and publicly stated that he was going to destroy Steem

dump it all to him and others following the market, because buying 50-70mil steem on the market would push the price really close to that moon.

witnesses WOULD do this to some random community member, it's the fact that they CAN.

they can also just implement a code and crash steem. they can do anything if supermajority consensus is reached. Anything. So we vote for people that we think will not do stupid things, and if they did they would most probably not be in the top 20 anymore.

REEEEEEEEEEEE

Perfect picture of what happened!

The problem about this whole situation is that there was a "silent threath" when every news, including Tron Foundation releases talked about a token swap.

If this was intended or not, we might never be able to say, but for a community that spent years to hold this place together, under a failed leadership that was @ned, it's pretty much understandable.

Worst yet, after the initial announcements, a lot of people asked for clarifications about what 'token swap' meant, and no good answer ever came.

I get your point of view coming from a ultra-libera/ancap vision, and the ethical question this situation creates, but any community need to defend themselves from possible threats.

But Steem blockchain works more as a democracy, and that means that the community put their faith in some individuals will be able to make decisions for the betterment of the individuals.

The good part about the democracy is that, if the actions of those ellected doesn't match the people expectations, they can be voted out of it (Yeah, i know there is other issues like stakes, distribution, etc, but the main idea remains).

And now, it's even more important to know the witness we all vote for, and watchout how they act.

  • but if I'm remaining ideologically consistent, it doesn't matter if we think people or future witnesses WOULD do this to some random community member, it's the fact that they CAN.

They CAN, how can any future investor ever trust any witness with their STAKE now?

I don't think I'll be eating with your soft fork ;D

I keep reading that the thing is reversible so I guess the code goes when the existential threat is dealt with however it's dealt with in which case no further problem. With the witnesses theoretically being able to do this thing to anyone they please, well there needs to be a lot of them agreeing to it right? And it's easier to agree when they all perceive an obvious threat (which I think this one is) than for something a bit more muddied (like large accounts wantonly downvoting because yes) or paltry (maybe someone hates our art styles and decides they want to fork us out because why should they have to look at it XD).

Also I was under the impression that the soft fork code just stopped them from voting and delegating and they could still dump/sell it if they wanted to, but I may have completely misread the thing.