While controversial, the move taken Sunday night was probably the right move to take for Steem
If you haven't heard by now, the top witnesses (and many others) had been working together for much of the last week and into the weekend in order to do something they felt would protect the blockchain.
And protect the blockchain they did!
They initiated what was called a soft fork where the majority of the top witnesses started running code that basically locked the known steemit,inc stake.
It can't vote, or be transferred out.
But wasn't this the stake that was just purchased by Justin Sun for $10 million (rumored amount)?
Yep, which is exactly why this move was so controversial.
As it stands now, Justin Sun basically spent $10 million (again rumored price) for steemit.com the website and possibly the steem name depending on how this all shakes out. His pile of tokens are currently worthless after the soft fork.
A hefty price to pay for a website that can barely generate $20k per month in ad revenue and possibly a brand name that may or may not be heavily tarnished within the broader crypto community depending on who you talk to.
Given all of that, this was still probably the right move to make to protect the steem blockchain...
Why do I say that?
Given all the circumstantial evidence, there was good reason to believe Justin Sun's ultimate goal was to move steem over to the tron network and have it operate as steemtron (or whatever name he chose).
Some of that evidence being the fact that he said as much in numerous news reports.
He would later go on to walk some of those statements back, only to have them said again at a later time.
His statements were confusing and contradicting to say the least.
Adding to that evidence was the fact that another one of his acquisitions, DLive, is currently seeing the blockchain that it was running on undergoing a token swap/exchange:
(Source:
)https://twitter.com/BitTorrent/status/1232251068119052289
- BitTorrent
Keep in mind that lino is/was very different than steem.
Lino tokens were not trading on other exchanges and were currently only available on Dlive, so just because he is moving the lino token holders over doesn't necessarily mean he would have done the same for steem...
but still...
The smoke is there.
Steem the blockchain now more likely to survive going forward...
By the witnesses taking the actions that they did, they made the chances of the existing steem coin being swapped/exchange for another token less likely, though it could technically still be offered.
If this would have happened the steem coin and chain as we know it would have lost a lot of its potential.
Right now steem is being built to be a fabric chain.
A chain where many other projects can build upon.
Had steem migrated over to tron, that fabric chain possibility likely goes out the window.
It could have continued to run on its own of course as steem classic, but it would have turned into a head to head battle with the swapped coin, steemtron.
A battle for exchange listings, users, brand etc.
Sun would have likely used his connections to get steemtron listed on numerous exchanges and possibly even gone to our current exchanges and convinced them that steemtron was the new steem coin.
Measures like this would have likely resulted in lower prices for steem classic and possibly eventually resulted in its demise.
What was done recently by the witnesses ensures that the current blockchain is allowed to survive and hopefully thrive.
It remains to be seen what kind of deals or agreements can be made at the upcoming meeting with Justin Sun, but we are in a better position now than we might had been had this not happened.
Personally, I am cautiously optimistic and hoping for the best.
There could be negative fall out from this still, possibly in ways that we can't really see as of right now, but as it stands right now the worst case scenario is likely less-worse than the previous worst case scenario could have been.
When the dust settles and this is all said and done, this may go down as one of the best things ever done for steem or one of the worst, time will tell.
The odds lean much more heavily towards it being a good thing though in my opinion.
Stay informed my friends.
Image Source:
https://coinrivet.com/incentivising-social-media-how-steem-is-powering-a-new-platform/
-Doc