RE: Steem Town Hall - Today in 1 hour
(Edited)
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Huh!
I am okay for the 1.non voting
All the rest is up to Justin Sun. He bought it legally and therefore we cannot decide unilateraly to do whatever we want with this stake ! That will be equivalent to stealing and therefore I would not support it…
We have to find a solution to support Steem's Blockchain Development Team but if Justin bought Ned's stake, we cannot take it away from him except if it was writtent in a contract that he couldn't use it as he pleases (which I Believe was not the case).
Dear Witnesses, Be careful not to go too far in this "fight"...
Update post clarification
@aggroed is actually looking for proofs that Steemit Inc. said they would use their pre-mined stake to do the Following.
- non-voting
- used to develop the chain
- used for onboarding
- any other mention
Sorry for the misunderstanding
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You misunderstood.
We are looking for reference to the original mention of the usage for the STEEM INC stake. Likely buried in the blockchain 4 years back.
Yes people told me that afterwards. I understand more and I am less worried now :D.
Sorry !
Right. Nevertheless I back your sentence:
The door should stay open for constructivly seeking for solutions which are acceptable for both struggling sides.
We shouldn't neglect the fact that Justin Sun is capable of buying and using even mosre STEEM if necessary.
That said, it is fascinating to see the STEEM community fight for their chain, like Asterix and Obelix against the Romans. :)
Do have a look at my reply to the OP, in which I copy and paste specific statements made by @dantheman that state restrictions placed on the Stinc stake that is what Tron and @justinsunsteemit purchased. They didn't purchase something without restrictions. They purchased what Stinc possessed, which had been alleged from it's conception to be used for a specific purpose, not simply unrestricted Steem that could be sold without obligation to subsequent investors.
I may not fully have an understanding of the situation, but, if there was an agreed upon limitation placed upon the stake by the previous owner, and that owner sold the stake to someone else, unless that someone else agreed to the restriction then the restriction no longer stands. Therefore, it should be Ned that everyone is pissed off at and not Justin Sun. If I was Justin Sun, and I just bought a metric $hit ton of Steem, and I own Steemit, I could care less about some verbal agreement that Ned made with the community years ago.
This is not my understanding of relevant law. The emotion assigned to different actors is irrelevant. What is relevant is the obligations undertaken by corporations and representations to investors corporations make. The fact is that if a corporation manufactures a car that goes 50mph, a purchaser of the corporation cannot claim the car goes 60mph, because it has purchased the car manufacturing ability the corporation has, not what it prefers to have.
There are no mentions of verbal agreements in my comments. All the assertions and obligations I discuss have been in writing, and public. Do consult counsel rather than rely on emotions to trigger your ideas. Substantive case law exists regarding corporate liability and representations to investors to base understanding of the extant situation on.
Again, as I stated, I may not have a full understanding of the entire situation, however, unless it is written in a legally binding document and transferable to any owner then it does not stand to hold up in court. Your comparison is invalid since car companies are bound by may "written" legal agreements by many governmental authorities.
Currently, Steem, a crypto-currency, still cannot be agreed upon in any country. There are no set rules governing the ownership and use in most of the world yet. This is a very gray area right now. If there are written agreements, and I am not doubting that what you say isn't factual or partially factual, do those agreements in deed extend to all future owners, over a specified time frame, etc? If there is such an agreement, then even the sale of said stake would be in direct violation of the agreement, if it is in fact legally binding. I tend to think that people of the stature and wealth do not go in to multi-million dollar agreements without first exploring their options and minimizing their risk.
Having said that, if there is no legal requirement biding JS from doing as he wishes with the shares, then it is the witnesses who have committed the criminal act. Personally, I am not for or against JS, I am for "ME", but I have the ability to look at this situation objectively and from a business stand point.
I note we aren't lawyers, and this isn't a court, so we're just expressing our personal opinions here, to little effect. Do note that verbal agreements based on nothing more than handshakes have been enforced by courts. The written assurances made by Stinc and it's principals exist, and do assure investors the founder's stake is earmarked for specific purposes and exempt from exercising governance, representations on which investors relied.
It is a truism that America is a litigious society, and this reveals the above facts are eminently potential of driving litigation.
Regardless, the facts of our present circumstances are that Tron presently exercises ownership of Steem, and allows the illusion the community possesses nominal stake to elect consensus witnesses by it's choice. Either Tron and the exchanges execute code which prevents them from exercising governance, or Steem remains Tron's possession.
The ball's in Tron's court. Either Sun executes that code and relinquishes ownership of Steem, or we will eventually either remain on his personal platform, or fork off.
I don't think he will, and I'm awaiting the fork.
I understand all of your points, but still I have not been convinced that, like him or not, Justin Sun is the enemy here. He bought something, people basically nullified what he bought, then they threatened to make it worthless. Unless I see official documentation that Sun agreed to continue what Ned had, as far as I know, verbally stated, then JS is just as much a victim of Ned's scamming the community than the community is. In this case I think that it should be Ned that everyone is pissed at and it should be him with his feet to the fire.
What if it wasn't JS that they were talking about forking out of what he bought but it was ours. Not so many people would be so eager to allow such a fork.
If assuming control of Steem governance isn't enough evidence to grasp whether or not Sun is the enemy of decentralized governance, then nothing will be.
Corporations transfer controlling interest all the time, and the corporate liabilities have necessarily been transferred along with the equity. That's how it works, and how it has always worked. Stinc continually and consistently represented to investors that it's stake would not be used for governance, which it was not, and would be used for development, which it was.
Both their representations and their actions demonstrated to investors that this was the case. Tron's purchase of that corporation and stake does not change this corporate liability in the least, and it doesn't matter what @ned said or did. Tron may have legal grounds to pursue remedies from @ned - but we can't know, and have no business asking, since Tron has revealed those transactions are covered by NDAs, which preclude our being informed of such details.
That means there's no point in speculating about what @ned did or didn't do or say in regards to this transaction, and even less benefit in concluding without any evidence whatsoever other than the statements of the new owner of Stinc that has undertaken sole governance of our blockchain without being authorized by anything other than it's present stake to do so, that it's all @ned's fault.
Frankly, it doesn't matter, and I don't care. What matters is the law regarding corporate liability, and that has been established for centuries in ways that are relevant to our present exigency.
Tron is bound by those representations, because are now the company that made them, and that's the law. They bought those representations when they bought the stake they referred to.
It’s easy to join the fuck Justin parade. Easy to point fingers. Easy to get over emotional. Easy to make demands and fold you’re arms like a stubborn Trump. Easy to misconstrue, misconceive and latch on to the thing that feed your fears. Easy to troll and get off on instigating. Look at my Meme! Look at my Meme! I’m so funny!
It’s harder to step out of self, to see the opposing view. To care about your enemy and not make them a ‘thing’ or a ‘they’.
This community always has pitchforks at the ready. So many swinging cocks around, massaging there pointless man baby hard ons while clicking at a computer screen.
This whole fucking thing is a giant nothing burger that can be summed up quickly.
1.Man invests.
2.Small group of ‘leaders’ flex too quickly in the name of protection.
3.Investor reacts to secure investment.
4.Media shit storm with fake news on all sides.
Get out the popcorn... cause if some level headed voices dont step forward in these negotiations then the pooch is about to get screwed deep doggie style!
A minority voice of reason and logic.. I didn't think anyone was left that understands the big boy world of merger acquisition finance.
Regardless of your pejorative assertions, @justinsunsteemit purchased a specific asset which has specific capabilities and limitations. He cannot now simply pretend it is something else.
It is what it is, and as it's owner he is obligated to honor what it is.
In the run up to the launch of the public website during the mining process, Stinc, specifically @dantheman, said:
This was an obligation Stinc undertook to limit it's use of that stake, which as far as I know they met fully. Just as that obligation applied to the stake @justinsunsteemit purchased, other obligations also applied, and some of those obligations remain outstanding and currently unmet in full.
Those obligations Stinc remains liable to fulfill, and as the owner of Stinc, @justinsunsteemit and Tron are liable to fulfill them. If Tron did not do as I did and research the public statements made by Stinc and it's devs prior to their purchase that obligated Stinc to specific liabilities, that's on Sun and Tron. As I have repeatedly pointed out, all that would have required to do is an intern and a couple pots of coffee to undertake.
You'd think a billionaire could afford such a trifling cost to understand an asset he was considering purchasing. Regardless of whether Sun did due diligence or not, Stinc is what it is, and what it is remains obligated to investors that purchased Steem from it in reliance on it's representations. Sun owns Stinc, and is now obligated to fulfill those obligations.
That's simply corporate law.
@valued-customer
Id say it is still up for debate if there is legality toward these promises made by Ned or steemit inc
But don’t get me wrong, I’m not judging the witness choice of soft fork. I recognize why it happened, if anything perhaps I find it hasty...but I get the why.
In the same way I get the why of Justin reaction.
For me this is a call out for reasonable voices at the negotiation table.
I just framed it in my own butt way🍑
I don't think that quoted statement says anything besides that STINC vested their stake, and therefore the stake is subject to power down rules, which at the time took 104 weeks to complete. The protocol change to 13 weeks power down later changed that timeframe.
We are looking for statements that commit to specific uses or lack thereof of the STINC STEEM & vests.
I agree the statement quoted isn't the droids we're looking for. I just used it as an example of obligations applicable to stake, and pointed out that obligation had been completely fulfilled.
That's what should happen to obligations, such as those that were undertaken to fund development with the founder's stake, which I have provided examples of elsewhere.
Stinc undertook those obligations with that stake in order to enable investors to be comfortable with Stinc holding that stake. Sun bought Stinc complete with those obligations, and if he doesn't honor them the investors that plunked down their money for Steem based on those representations that Sun is now liable to meet, they suffer financial injury, which is actionable at law.
I provided that example of obligations being met to illustrate the principle that such obligations are undertaken to enable investment. This shows that investors depend on fulfillment of obligations. This creates a contractual relationship between obligors and obligees. Sun needs to fulfill the obligations Stinc undertook, because Sun is now Stinc.
I think the key limiting step can be seen as regulatory, because the regulatory environment and people in general, did not contemplate the idea of developing a proper framework for the crypto world. Hence, they will trait it (law) in most cases as a conventional business case.
Even if we assume that there was a contract. The lack of information makes it difficult to define the nature of that contract.
... There are a lot of things to consider, a lot of things that we don't have just because a real contract can sometimes contain thousands of pages just to clarify everything. Saying “I will support” for example isn't a legally binding (can be contested at so many levels) contract and the reasons are obvious.
There is also a question of "with whom exactly the contract was made?"
…
Contracts can also be altered:
...
These are just a few ideas, things are even more complex since the company is based in the US. If the case goes to the court, I can tell that people are going to lose against Sun, on top of losing a lot of money + the potential reparations for Steemit Inc for the damages.
People should not take this lightly.
Investors in Steem are potentially injured parties if Stinc reneges on it's representations of how it would use it's stake. They depended on those representations when they purchased their Steem, and for years Stinc fulfilled those obligations.
We shouldn't take this lightly, and many of the points you raise are valid. The witnesses and investors injured by Sun's actions need counsel, yesterday, IMHO.
Edit: this may turn out to be a watershed moment in legal history. Lawyers for all time hereafter may regard this as the moment when they gained the power to take over the world.
Two questions that I don't know the answer to:
1- Yes, SF 22.2 prevented several accounts to vote for witnesses.
2- Correct. If we also consider that the same code also allows one entity to take over the governance and revert the whole thing regardless of the morality of the followed procedures. The code doesn't have emotions nor prejudice against anyone; he will execute things as he was designed to.
I must add that I am against allowing the code to do such things (preventing accounts to vote, withdrawal, power down …). As the chain grows, more conflicts will arise between communities, cultures, investors … One community could basically genocide a whole other community just because the first one is powerful and the second one is weak and doesn’t have resources …
3- No, their main job is to secure the chain and produce blocks, on top of playing a key role in developing and promoting the Chain. The interests of stakeholders will usually and eventually collide with each other. Giving witnesses the responsibility of protecting the assets (investments) of stakeholders will force them at a given time to choose sides, which is something we need to avoid.
As you can see here, I am making a clear difference here between protecting the assets of people by securing the chain and its functioning and protecting the assets of stockholders by taking sides and pushing HF or SF that will serve specific stakeholders or the people who are in power. Considering that those same stakeholders don't already have accounts at the top 20 like Blocktrades.
To conclude, the system of governance is clearly flawed, everyone knows that and I don't think anyone would degree with me on this, there are great suggest changes on GitHub that can make the governance more fair and distributed; suggestions that date to Mar 20, 2017, but were never developed because it allowed some witnesses to stay entrenched at the top instead of doing the right thing. I have no sympathy for some witnesses, but hey who cares if some low SP guy says something about governance, right?
Part of the problem of the Steem community is the unconditional and blind support to witnesses because the whole situation is so interconnected that you find yourself put aside if you don’t show your support to them. What we need is accountability, but no one cares about this, people like a good story about the boogeyman than dealing with the real problems.
But Sun did not do anything with the Stake !
The witnesses made a hostile move without warning and without provocation, a sneak attack.
That is simply a fact.
Sun took over all consensus witness positions - which Stinc has long stated it's stake would not be used to do. All the witnesses intended (although IMHO they did more than they intended by preventing stake from being sold) was to prevent that exact thing.
Not a sneak attack. Simply holding Stinc to it's obligations it has long made to investors, because Stinc has a new owner they heard saying different things than the former owners did.
Edit: also, I posted after the 'sneak attack' and counseled against it. I said when the music starts, you dance with the partner you have. I also changed all my witness votes then too.
I'm not an advocate of pre-emptive attacks, but I wasn't consulted.
You are doing exactly what you are saying people should avoid doing.
Maybe? Butt my name is Buttcoins... I’m not claiming to be reasonable.... I’m claiming to want calm and reasonable people at the negotiating table.
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Fair
Agreed!
Legally speaking, you can argue that Tron Overlord Justin Sun can do certain things. But at the same time, that does not necessarily mean he should. Also, we should also consider how things can affect Steem itself as a blockchain, as a whole, as opposed to just the Steemit Inc company.