Ausbitbank Witness Update 12/6/17 (New Weekly Giveaway)
It's been another week of crazy user growth, volatility and the usual chaos on the blockchain.
I now have 310 witness votes and I'm at rank # 27 :D
Witness node operations
I've climbed the ranks, but thanks to last weeks upgrade my witness node is handling the increased workload just fine.
- No missed blocks this week (9 ever)
- I'm now witnessing an average of 50 blocks each day
My seed node address has now been merged into the default seed lists for steemd making it one of only 31 currently listed in the official source code.
If you have a reliable seed node and you're not listed please consider add yourself to the default seed lists for steemd. I think everyone in the top 50 should be doing it, considering the current price of steem ..
You can see live stats at http://seed.steemviz.com:19999
Price feed and current network parameters
We ran into an issue this week due to the massive increase of activity on the blockchain, and it resulted in some new users being temporarily unable to transact. You can find more information and discussion about this issue here .
After further discussion with other witnesses I'm now voting to increase the maximum block size to 131,072 , and encourage others to do the same.
So far I only see 21 out of the top 100 witnesses voting the same way.
- I publish an unbiased price feed - last update was $2.269 SBD / STEEM .
- SBD interest rate remains steady at 0% - to discourage hoarding whilst SBD is overvalued
- Account creation fee remains at 0.2 STEEM - attempting to reduce signup cost (info)
- Maximum block size changed to 131,072 - to lower the SP requirements to transact.
Steem Dollars still trading above $1
Steem Dollars continue to be in high demand, currently priced at $1.90 USD per SBD .
I'd still really like us to attempt timcliff's proposed solution to restore the $1 SBD peg (TLDR: Reverse Conversion) .
Steemians should be taking advantage of these higher prices and sell SBD above face value while you can.
Do not use the internal convert option in your wallet for SBD's at this time - you will get a better deal on exchanges.
You should also avoid doing 100% Steem Power posts at this time, you will make more money if you use the 50/50 option and then trade the SBD you get for Steem.
Steemfest Travel Fund
I've been fundraising for the Steemfest travel reimbursement fund using post beneficiary splitting
Donated so far :
- Steemfest Travel Fund post rewards donation #1 - 552.036 SBD / ~$1050 USD
Still waiting on :
- 1 full powerdown of 1346 Steem within 2 days (currently valued at $3000 USD)
- 70% of the post rewards from my seed node announcement within 24 hrs (Post currently at max accepted payout of $1337)
- 50% of the post rewards from my from 0-100k AUD in 11 months post within 3 days (Also currently at max accepted payout of $1337) .
I hope this will allow more people to be able to travel to steemfest and get to meet their favourite authors and supporters in person.
Minnow Support Project and the Peace, Abundance, Liberty discord
@aggroed , @teamsteem , @canadian-coconut and myself are all moderating and supporting the new P.A.L community chat and @minnowsupport initiative .
These initiatives are focussed on helping new users (minnows) learn how to use steemit most effectively, act as a general social venue & support forum as well as a growing curation guild with more powerful bots on the way.
- Join the P.A.L discord chat
- Minnow Support Group on Steemit.chat
- Follow @minnowsupport and @aggroed for updates
- Minnow Support Project Weekly resteem thread
Team Australia
This is a new initiative started by @sirknight to help the aussie community network and support each other on the platform.
I'll be watching the #teamaustralia tag closely and have followed everyone that introduced themselves in the announcement post and the initial call for Aussies from @sirknight .
- STEEMIT OFFICIAL PRESS SUBMISSION: 'TEAM AUSTRALIA' ESTABLISHED - 11 JUNE 2017
- A call out to all Australian Steemians - please raise your hand!
- New TeamAustralia channel on steemit.chat
Witness Update Post Reward Giveaway
From now on, each weeks witness report will split the post rewards between 8 accounts.
The first 7 splits go to a user who posted something that were processed and packed into a block by my witness node - 1 for each of the previous 7 days.
My node processes currently creates 1 block every ~25-30 minutes giving me around 50 blocks a day to choose from.
I compile a list of all posts made in each days blocks, remove posts that have been flagged by cheetah / steemcleaners and then select a random high quality post with low earnings from the posts that are left - one for each day.
I already do a lot of manual curation, but I'm always surprised by some of the hidden gems I randomly find in my blocks.
You do NOT have to be a follower or witness voter of mine to win
HOWEVER if I ever have to choose between 2 posts of equal quality where one of them is written by a follower/voter then I will be biased towards my supporter.
As well as a large vote from me and exposure to my followers each winner will also receive a 10% share in this posts rewards.
This weeks winners:
- Split 1 goes to @tarekadam for "Product Design - Mobile phone stand with STEEM Logo" (block 12749805 on 2017-06-12T07:31:54 )
- Split 2 goes to @drewleyfor "Gold and Silver - long term view" (block 12739493 on 2017-06-11T22:56:12 )
- Split 3 goes to @tabzjones for "My latest creation is a bit odd..for me." (block 12708815 on 2017-06-10T21:22:09 )
- Split 4 goes to @nigelmarkdias for "Lies, plain & simple. The saga of James B Comey & the deep state." (block 12676044 on 2017-06-09T18:03:33)
- Split 5 goes to @redtravels for "Great Barrier Reef, Rottnest Island - Fish, Sea Lion & Turtles - Underwater photo series" (block 12635343 on 2017-06-08T08:04:18)
- Split 6 goes to @breakingtonight for "Food Is Definitely Art! But Is The Beauty An Indicator Of Its Taste?" (block 12613061 on 2017-06-07T13:29:42)
- Split 7 goes to @gabosh for "DIVERTIMENTO" (block 12583372 on 2017-06-06T12:44:33 )
- Split 8 The remaining 30% goes to @minnowsupport to make the curator bot more powerful.
I'd love to hear any feedback on this giveaway idea, or any adjustments you would suggest for the selection process before next weeks update
Proof-of-split
I originally tried for a 10 way split - TIL you can have 8 beneficiaries max
Like what I'm up to ? Vote for my witness!
If you think I'm acting as a positive force for the platform, please consider voting for my witness on this page :
https://steemit.com/~witnesses
Every vote counts! For more information on how and why to vote for my witness see this post .
steemit / twitter / gab.ai / keybase / steemit.chat / patreon
I also made :
steemviz / steemvids / steemcap / steemleak / more tools / post index
Thanks so much for all the hard work you are doing with the new initiatives. Speaking for myself, after only a day or two i can see the difference it is making. Plus learning lots!
Fabulous work and thank you for supporting teamaustralia :) I have given you my witness vote ❤ Wishing you many many more.
Woooo .. I've seen good growth on steemit this month and I was able to read a very interesting post about the spectation on the price of the steem. I' m sure steem will growth enormusly all over the cryptocurrency's system.
Isn't it better for the SBD peg to go above 1$. Whats would be the difference in long term. The main point should be that the SP isn't touched that much so we can keep a price.
Great post in other words ♡ Thanks for sharing with the community.
SBD will only ever be redeemable for $1 USD worth of Steem - I think people buying it at double the price are willing to lose up to half the $ value in order to lock in massive their massive $ gains on bitcoin without having to go into fiat.
Once that becomes less appealing again and demand drops then suddenly we'll have a race to take any premium/free money left on the table.
Buy SBD < $1 , sell SBD > $1.50 and keep the bitcorns to buy Steem on dips imo thats what I'm doing with extra SBD these days. It's hard to be dissapointed selling post rewards for double what they're displayed as.
What an honour to make it on top of your list, I am very happy about it and appreciate all you do for this community. Thank you!
I like your reports and the work you are doing as a witness. Btw you have another witness vote now :) Thanks for the tips on SBD conversion, although I don't have any at the moment but nonetheless it is good to know.
The description of how you "mine-curate" your processed blocks for hidden gems is amazing. I feel like future generations of historians may be mining the chain to take the sociological temperature, in retrospect, much the same way.
Thats a trippy thought, you're probably right
I would love to mine me some Babylonian Blockchain^, find out if Nebuchadnezzar II was really the "great re-builder" history claims him to be, or just a tax-and-spend stimulus-program type obsessed with hanging gardens.
^Trademark me for future use as a band name, alcoholic beverage title, etc.
I have to do some studying and look up what witness votes are, sounds like very exciting stuff. To be honest all of this Steem language and technical stuff is Greek to me but I am doing my best to learn more - I just joined SteemIt this month and I am trying everyday to gather up more Steem Power.
Its a lot to take in at once , and not something you have to deal with straight away (or ever really) - but if you want to learn more I recommend @timcliff's post "What Are Steem Witnesses And Why You Should Support Them!"
I've been here since March but steem I steem teaches us about bitcoin too because now we know about blocks but yeah bitcoins have no witnesses just nodes or miners and so steem is just more advanced! But yeah u can't go wrong with more steempower ... u can leave the technical stuff to all the steem witnesses they all seem to be tech people so it's liken those who aren't good at programming can't basically start working for Steemit and get a witness node working and generate steem that way if they're socially awkward but even social awkward Autists are thriving her even a small they can post the results of their technical work on steemit and all the th other tech savvy peopoe upvote it and even people who don't gettin it they upvote even more because they are mesmerized by there even beeing this muh tehnical jargon for steemit! Must be a good sign right? Proves we are advanced ?
You have my vote @ausbitbank. Cheers
Always an interesting read. What are the minimum requirements for a Witness setup? Any articles you could direct me to for some more clarification. Love your work. Cheers
My original backup node was an 8GB VPS with 300gb HDD , but it was sloow and restarts/resyncs took forever. 32gb 8 core dedicated machine is much better, SSD's are a huge boost too but will be expensive as the chain expands.
The top tier users run way more powerful hardware again with redundant backups, I'd recommend browsing back through the #witness and #witness-category posts for more info
Cheers. I'm interested and keen to support the platform. Just gotta get my head around where to start!
It's not something I'd suggest for a new user.. I was using the platform for at least 9 months, networking and developing apps and learning about the blockchain and ecosystem before I felt ready to announce my witness campaign.
Thanks for the advice. I really appreciate it. I obviously need to spend more time networking and getting my head around the platform before is try and jump into something complicated. I hope you don't mind me calling for advice when the time comes!
No worries, message anytime