Steem vs Justin Sun - crypto SMACKDOWN!

[pErvinalia]

[decided to start a dedicated thread so that you don't miss a single character of this scintillating battle!]

So some of you might remember that I've been involved with a social media site and cryptocurrency called Steem. Prices were well down, as they have been throughout the crypto market, and while it was definitely a bear market, things were starting to look up a bit. Well it's all gone crazy in the last couple of days. The owner of a bigger cryptocurrency blochchain - TRON (Justin Sun), bought the company that was involved in setting up the steem blockchain 4(?) years ago. That company engaged in what's called a "ninja mine" early on before others were set up to mine the coin. They amassed a huge stake that has skewed the distribution of the STEEM currency to this date. But they have never used that stake to influence how the chain is run. The chain is kept running by a group of "witnesses", who basically run the blockchain code and form a series of decentralised nodes in the network. Those witnesses are voted in by the holders of the steem token. So it's a community consensus on the direction of the blockchain.

When the owner of TRON purchased the companies stake, the witnesses got fearful that he might use that stake to influence the blockchain. The original company had a sort of unwritten social contract that it would only use that stake for the benefit of the blockchain - so development and on boarding new users. But that no longer applied now that ownership had changed hands. So the witnesses did a "soft fork" of the code to isolate that stake from effecting the running of the blockchain. This was a temporary measure until they could meet with the new owner and work out what their intentions were. Well he was fairly prosaic about it, and suggested a date for a meeting. 6th of March. Well in the meantime, he colluded with a couple of large cryptocurrency exchanges who hold users funds (steem) in their accounts, to vote transfer those user's money to another user and that user then used those funds to vote out all the current witnesses and vote in new witnesses that would un-freeze the new owner's stake. So that just happened in the last day. The blockchain has been taken over by a tiny number of people (the owner, and 20 witnesses, which might be just a couple of people).

This has caused a real uproar in the crypto community as the exchanges have used other people's money for the purposes of helping the new owner of the company. What's really bad about it is that to effect witness votes you have "power up" your steem. That means locking it up for 13 weeks. So it's no longer liquid. So if people want to remove their steem from the exchanges, they can't as it's locked up. This new guy and his witness are going to reduce the time it takes to "power down" from 13 weeks to a couple of days. That way the exchanges can get their customers' money back. Shady as all shit.

Anyway, no one knows what happens now. The price of Steem has not dropped as a result of this, which is quite hard to explain. The only thing I can think is that the blockchain now has the backing of a huge player in the crypto industry - TRON, so investors are feeling positive about that. But a lot of us can't help think the price will crater, particularly as the community is resolutely against this action. People are already powering down and disabling any blockchain apps they own/control. Lead developers from the original company are all quitting in protest.

So yeah, I ended up investing money (couple of thousand) in the blockchain in the past. May have to say bye bye to that.

What's next? Well, there's a possibility of a "fork". That's where a group of witnesses copy the current state of the blockchain, and then fork off to new blockchain code and create a new blockchain and crypto coin. If this happens, we'll own coins on both blockchains. But the new coin will devalue quickly until things stabilise and crypto exchanges list the new coin. The talk at the moment is that if this happens, the new code will wipe out the original "ninja mine", thereby massively fixing the skewed distribution of the coin. Basically, cut this new cunt out and we'll all leave his blockchain and go to a new one. Crazy times. And very sad, given the positive direction the blockchain was moving in.

[pErvinalia]

Update on the Steem saga. The community went on a witness voting spree and now have the top 5 witness on the chain (all being former community witnesses before the hostile takeover). With that many it means the hostile witnesses can't force a fork on the blockchain (like the one they intended to reduce the "powerdown" from 13 weeks to 1 day so that the exchanges could return their customers' funds). This battle isn't over yet!

[pErvinalia]

We had 10 out of the top 20 witness spots for a half a day there. Sun's witnesses came storming back, apparently with help from the Korean community on steem, who are whiney little cunts (with a massive stake). Now we've only got 3 of our witnesses in the top 20. That's not enough to stop Sun and his sockpuppet witnesses forcing a hardfork to change the powerdown from 13 weeks to one day. Honestly, it might be good if he did that and then sell most of his stake and fuck off. In a recorded meeting today he said pretty much that's what he might do. Selling that stake would help spread the wealth and reduce the inequality on the chain. Which would be a very good thing.

[NineBerry]

"Justin Sun" sounds like the name of a porn star. (If you pronounce Sun English and not Chinese)

[NineBerry]

Sun's witnesses: "Have you heard about our Lord and Saviour?"

[pErvinalia]

Got the top 7 witness spots back! Looks like we are in a stalemate. Probably the best thing, as it will require billionaire dude to negotiate. Assuming he doesn't just buy enough steem to take back all the witness spots. He hasn't yet, so here's hoping he doesn't. His real problem is that he doesn't have the coders to code a new hardfork that benefits him and his exchange buddies. All the top developers quit from the company he bought in protest. So he's kind of fucked in that regard. I suppose he could buy the witnesses and then do nothing for months while he finds some coders that can work out how to code a beneficial hardfork. Apparently there's another meeting in a couple of days. We'll see what he has to say then.

[pErvinalia]

Turns out the big boys on our side have been planning for weeks to do a hardfork of their own and start a new chain and coin that excludes the Steemit/Sun stake. We'll all leave Steem to this new chain and Sun's investment will tank to zero. So long, commie!

[NineBerry]

It must be part of huge operation to defeat the world-wide deep state!!!

[pErvinalia]

So the hard fork went ahead a few days ago and everything is going peachy on the new blockchain. In fact the new coin is trading at a higher price than the Steem coin! So like everyone else I was waiting for the fork so I could dump my steem coins, but all the exchanges froze deposits at the fork. That meant that unless you already had steem on the exchange you couldn't sell any. Well I've been checking multiple times a day for them to allow deposits, and today I got lucky on one exchange before there was any movement (plummeting down) in the price of steem. So flogged off all my liquid steem for about $1000 Australian. Pretty happy with that. Of course, i chose to gamble with it and bought bitcoin. Bitcoin is going to go up soon. GUARANTEED! I still have a heap of steem "powered up", meaning I have to wait for a couple of months for them all to unstake. By the time they do that I expect the price will be next to zero, but I got a free $1000 today, so I'm happy with that.

[JimC]

Spend it wisely, rEv!

Toilet paper and gin?

[pErvinalia]

Jaysus, HIVE (the new blockchain and coin) just went from 11 cents to 44 cents in 2 days!

[NineBerry]

Can it cure the Rona?

[pErvinalia]

It might be able to cure my poverty problem.

[pErvinalia]

Jeez it's up to 67 cents now! What a pump. I could actually sell everything I've invested now and make 50%. And that doesn't include the $2000 odd I've amassed selling my steem. That's up too, as bitcoin is up 50% from when I bought it. It's actually quite tempting to sell, even though this was all supposed to be a speculative investment hoping for 1000% growth or the like.

[pErvinalia]

93 cents.