Hold the front page...
News just in. 
Hive account@misterdelegation (ie Steemit Inc) has withdrawn its delegations from 
Hive account@dsound, 
Hive account@musing and 
Hive account@sndbox.
The delegation to Hive account@dsound was the biggest at 1 million SP I believe.
This seems to have happened without warning. Awaiting more news...
And if one big headline wasn't enough...
STOP PRESS ** STOP PRESS ** STOP PRESS
Read this post from 
Hive account@therealwolf...
STOP PRESS ** STOP PRESS ** STOP PRESS
HardFork 21 - Freedom is just another name...
Hive account@crimsonclad's SteemWave Saturdays show yesterday was all abuzz with talk of the Hardfork 21 Pull Request (PR) that had just been submitted to the Steemdev GitHub.
The PR submitted by 
Hive account@jnordberg (aka 
Hive account@almost-digital), and nicknamed 'Freedom', is proposing to fork Steem to break away from Steemit Inc.
This hardfork if adopted by witnesses will set all Steemit Inc. controlled accounts authorities to the null key.
Hive account@jnordberg comments further on the PR...
Accounts also need to be set into a "neutral" state.
This includes
Removing active delegations
Removing any witness votes and proxy
Removing any withdraw routes
Disabling account recovery
An seemingly innocuous comment on the PR from 
Hive account@inertia had been deleted by steemdev...
If Steemit, inc. decides not to block this, all they have to do is power down. After 13 weeks, if it passes, all you’ll have is bad press after that. E.g: who would be safe from having their stake arbitrarily removed?
This PR would need a super majority (15?) of the top 20 witnesses to back it and so is extremely unlikely to go forward.
The conclusion of the discussion on Hive account@crimsonclad's show was that it was more "a shot across the bows" for Steemit Inc.
Many commented that this HF21 would in effect amount to theft in terms of taking the assets (ie SteemPower) owned by Steemit Inc. This would set a dangerous precedent if anyone's stake in Steem could just be removed by forking.
On a more practical level should Steemit Inc be removed from the equation there is not sufficient alternative infrastructure in place, or immediately available, to support the blockchain, for example in terms of API nodes and blockchain developers.
It may be pure coincidence but the juxtaposition in time between this Hardfork proposition (which includes removing active delegations) and the removal of the delegations from Hive account@dsound and co. might raise an eyebrow or two.
Considering the dominance in the witness voting by one single voter, the nickname of this Hardfork as Freedom, might raise a chuckle or two as well.
Once more to the exchanges, my friend
Today the target is Bittrex.
Leading exchange Bittrex tweeted out...
Let's hear it. What USD market pair would you want to see in 2019?
We all know what the answer should be, don't we?
Get your Twitter boots on and go tell Bittrex - Go STEEM.....
Hive account@theycallmedan, 
Hive account@krnel, 
Hive account@mindtrap, 
Hive account@cryptocurator, 
Hive account@horpey, 
Hive account@ew-and-patterns and a host of other steemians have been rallying the troops to the cause.
And also...
It has been rather a busy news day, else I had wanted to pick up on these interesting posts from 
Hive account@truthforce, 
Hive account@rosatravels (
Hive account@partiko) and 
Hive account@taskmaster4450...
(change on previous day in brackets // n/c = no change)
| Steem price |
US$ 0.275 |
2019-01-13 12:24 UTC |
| SBD price |
US$ 0.770 |
2019-01-13 12:24 UTC |
| Market Cap |
US$ 84,874,900 |
2019-01-13 12:24 UTC |
| CoinMarketCap Ranking |
#51 (n/c) |
2019-01-13 12:24 UTC |
| No. of Whales |
36 (n/c) |
2019-01-11 |
| No. of Orcas |
315 (+2) |
2019-01-11 |
| No. of Dolphins |
1967 (+1) |
2019-01-11 |
| No. of Minnows |
9095 (+3) |
2019-01-11 |
| Alexa rank (steemit.com) |
#4117 (-7) |
2019-01-13 11:43 UTC |
Follow 
Hive account@penguinpablo for more statistics.
NEWS FROM STEEMIT INC
Hive account@steemitblog - Testing Ads on Steemit.com
Hive account@steemitdev - New Year, New DevPortal Updates
Hive account@steemitdev - Additional Public API Change
NEWS FROM THE WITNESSES
#37 
Hive account@blockbrothers / 
Hive account@exyle - When a vlog doesn't come out. All I tried was talk about Steem to none Steemians
#37 Hive account@blockbrothers / Hive account@exyle - Vlog 386: Reasons to join the Steem Blockchain + Question: Could a Steem account be used to login to other websites too as a universal login?
#44 
Hive account@jackmiller - People Telling Me WHAT TO DO WITH MY HARD EARNED MONEY! (u-log)
#56 
Hive account@holger80 - update for beem - get_account_votes improved and signing speed improved
#65 
Hive account@justyy - Fixing Profile Query due to API Change in SteemIt
#75 
Hive account@bobinson - Steem blockchain code changes for humans
To keep up to date with more posts from witnesses follow 
Hive account@witnesspage ...
NEWS FROM KEY PLAYERS & INFLUENCERS
Hive account@midlet - Does it make sense to force some decentralization?
Hive account@organduo - Pay at the restaurant with Steem?
Hive account@organduo - Steem for non-profits?
Hive account@steevc - An introduction to Steem
Hive account@taskmaster4450 - MAGIC Token: Expanding the Steem Ecosystem
Hive account@theycallmedan - Time To Flex On Bittrex Steem
Hive account@truthforce - Some thoughts on Steem and how to improve it
Hive account@whatsup - Lessons Learned Experimenting in Steem
NEWS FROM COMMUNITIES
Hive account@dcooperation / 
Hive account@clixmoney - Help DCooperation community to promote Steem and Dtube on the web!
Hive account@homesteaderscoop - Contest: Product Review - 1000 SP in delegations Reward for Shopping at Homesteaders Co-op
NEWS FROM EVENTS & MEETUPS
JANUARY 2019
Hive account@soyrosa - [Service Announcement] Dutchies & Co Meet-Up coming Sunday Changed Venue!
Hive account@redrica - First London Steem Meetup of 2019 | Friday 18th Jan 12pm onwards | High Street Kensington
MAY 2019
Hive account@dtube.forum - State of the Project - @dtube.forum
DECEMBER 2019
Hive account@steemfiesta - SteemFIESTA 2019 - The First Five Days of DECEMBER - Summer in the South!
NEWS FROM DAPPS, APPS & DEVS
Hive account@justyy - Fixing Profile Query due to API Change in SteemIt
Hive account@holger80 - update for beem - get_account_votes improved and signing speed improved
Hive account@reazuliqbal - Introducing FlagTrail - Steemauto for Flagging Abuse
Hive account@steemchiller - Caution When Requesting Data From Steem RPC Nodes
Hive account@dlux-io - dlux | Architecture
Hive account@esteemapp / 
Hive account@futuremind - eSteem Mobile 2.0.6 User Review
Hive account@justyy - Fixing Profile Query due to API Change in SteemIt
Hive account@partiko / Hive account@rosatravels - Be A Partiko Mentor! Earn STEEM for rewards!
Hive account@spunkeemonkee / 
Hive account@dreemsteem - But HOW do we play Spunkee Monkee? How do the kids get points for tasks? Details explained!
NEWS FROM GAMES
Hive account@chibera / 
Hive account@ecoinstant - Big Projects - Chibera continues to grow and develop - steem-committed MMORPG is a path to millions of tech-savvy users
HashKings / 
Hive account@qwoyn - HashKings Weekly Update 3
HashKings / Hive account@qwoyn - HashKings Planet Plots Sale is Now LIVE
Hive account@magicdice - Magic Dice v1.3 - The MAGIC Token - Earn dividends by playing Dice
If you want to check on progress of development on Steem, check out the GitHub here...
- https://github.com/steemit/steem/branches
If you want to check on the current list of full API Nodes witness Hive account@holger80 provides this via 
Hive account@fullnodeupdate...
- https://steemit.com/full-nodes/@fullnodeupdate/full-api-node-update---1012019
MEDIA COVERAGE OF STEEM & STEEMIT INC
Captainaltcoin.com - How about that for decentralization: Steemit censoring content on their platform
Heavy - The Dark Overlord Update: Hacker Group Banned on Steemit, Reddit & Twitter
This is #41 (12 Jan '19) of this daily news service.
Please let me know of any important posts or key data that should be included. Comment below or message me on Discord Pennsif#9921
[ graphics by 
Hive account@pennsif ]
]