Binance is the most liquid exchange for Steem with 33M coins. Initially, Binance has taken illegal action with voting witnesses using its customer's asset without their consent. Though it apologized for its mistake and started power down its action is shady at best.
Though there is a negotiation going among witnesses, community and Justin Sun for weeks, yet no compromise on solutions are made. However, in the background community is buying up Steem and powering up to vote for real witnesses. On the other, it is rumored that JS is also buying up Steem to keep his sock puppet witnesses in the T20.
Now that Binance has powered down and will get back 2.44M Steem in next 22 hours, what will happen next.
Will the community withdraw their Steem and powered up to vote for real witnesses?
Or, Justin Sun will buy up from weak hands and power up to regain t17 witnesses. The sudden fall of prices due to COVID19 should also help Justin Sun to buy up cheap Steem with his deep pocket.
Or, there will be enough community members who will start price war with Justin Sun to keep real witnesses alive. If Justin Sun wins and runs his own hardfork, then Steem will probably split.
Will JS take Steem to his own direction such as swap to TRON based token and airdrop to his TRON ghost army. Will he be able to lure the community? Probably no.
On the other the split chain (e.g. Steem classic) will run by mostly old guard witnesses and community devs. It will face hostile attitude from the biggest exchanges such as Binance, Huobi or Poloniex.
Though theoretically it will be a dream decentralized blockchain without the central authority that comes with the large stake from STINC. Will Steem classic be developed further with help of SPS without STINC's leadership? Will this steem classic be able to lure enough exchange to enroll it to have decent liquidity for better price action?
In that case, theoretically overall asset value of Steem may rise, similar to combined value of BTC and BCH. However, will the dream of Steem being the top 10 or 20 cryptocurrency diminished forever?
However, the best scenario would be a win-win compromise between the witnesses, community (e.g. South Korean community) and Justin Sun. Best case scenario would be that JS will finish the SMT developments and will perform aggressive marketing, sell the large portion of his bought out stake form STINC. As STINC's stake will be reduced to a very low level that it may not able to put any sock puppet witnesses in future.
Since STINC may not have any fund or interest on further developments, then SPS can take control. SPS can be increased to 20% of reward pool from the current 10% of the reward pool. Former STINC engineers or community devs can work as freelancer to develop further. A truly DPoS based blockchain will arise from chaos.
Hope that the best case scenario arises from the current indecisiveness.
Disclaimer: This opinion is not a financial advice, it my personal perspective and opinion. Please seek professionals for financial decisions. This opinion is only for educational purpose.
Image sources: Most images are open sourced (e.g. Pixabay, Wikimedia etc.) with Creative common license. Some images are used with due courtesy to respected owners.
Thanks for reading.
Cryptominer , occasional trader and tech blogger since 2013
Posted via Steemleo