Hey Andrew! Sorry to hear about this. Must've been a tough call to make.
Thank you for updating us and more importantly for your contribution and all the effort you put in to help steer things around. Much appreciate all your effort brother. We're here for you man.
Probably not too tough of a call given STINCs participation in a hostile takeover of the network today. But it is good to see that the takeover is obviously not supported by @andrarchy or @vandeberg given their resignations.
Now here's to hoping for a more decentralized chain run for and by community that can employee these two individuals in the future to continue their great work.
But can it become more decentralized if witnesses leave? Are we losing decentralized witnesses? In other words, how many witnesses are owned or somewhat connected to Sun, etc?
I believe just 20 (currently the top 20). You can see which witnesses these are by looking at the witnesses @dev365 has voted for at https://steemd.com/@dev365. These sock-puppet witnesses are @car2001, @respect888, @paintingclub, @toke2049, @onestepaday, @bostonawesome, @nicetry001, @waitforyou1, @jumphigh, @flyingfly1, @aheadofslow, @happylife123, @hunger365, @cloudysun, @night11pm, @agirl10000, @coronashallgo, @high46, @eastooowest, @goodguy24
The community-elected witnesses will not leave. Either they will regain control by getting more votes, which has almost happened or there will be a community fork where users decide to adopt a version of the blockchain without Sun and the attackers.
So, in other words, we have seen Steemit staff resign but many or all of the former top 20 witnesses continue(d) to be witnesses, that is their servers are still running. Is there only one official website for voting for witnesses? I've voted before like two years ago. Do I have to vote again? Does my vote expire? Do we have like elections, like terms of like two years or something? I am guessing not. But I could go back and look at my votes. I voted for Jerry. It appears his name was crossed out. So, I probably have a few free votes, assuming I can only vote for like 30 witnesses.
No there are many sites, because voting at the end of the day is just a type of transaction on the blockchain. Here are some sites you can use:
Votes do not expire, but you should use more of your votes. There is no downside to voting for multiple witnesses. I'd recommend voting for all of the community witnesses that are close to surpassing the sock-puppet accounts.
Let me know if you have any more questions!
Another option is to vote by proxy to a user like @theycallmedan. See his post at
The benefit of this approach is that you only have to do one action and your votes will update whenever @theycallmedan updates his votes. Hopefully he will keep them updated to which witnesses need them most.
How many witnesses can you vote for? Up to 30?
Yes up to thirty, but at this point it's most important to vote for community witnesses on the cusp of being in the top 20.
Go vote for the witness from 21 to 41
is there an official website for witness voting?
Yep!
https://steemitwallet.com/~witnesses