Look Out Fam: Justin Sun is at it AGAIN!
Tron Community in Uproar as Genesis Coins Used in Super Reps Vote
The Tron (TRX) community was beside itself on Wednesday, Feb. 19 after founder Justin Sun’s address was shown to have voted in two Tron Foundation apps as a Super Representative (SR). Both Tron-Ace and Tron-Bet were voted in as Super Representatives by the Zion address, the same account which received 99 billion TRX from the coin’s genesis block.
Super Representatives are responsible for overseeing block production on Tron’s blockchain. As such, they receive a sizable portion of the coin rewards from each block. In plain terms, this means that Tron’s community rules were bypassed, arguably to further enrich its own foundation.
That’s despite Tron CEO Justin Sun’s insistence that he and his foundation have nothing to do with community voting.
If you think this development is a coincidence coming at a time like this I really don't even know what to say to that. This is a clear and obvious precursor to voting in Tron super reps to the Steem blockchain as witnesses.
1:30 Witness voting ratio has never been more relevant.
I still remember when I came here years ago and was reading the white and blue papers for the first time. When I learned you could vote for 30 witnesses using the same stake I was simply blown away by how foolish it was.
I asked myself why.
Why would Dan Larimer build it this way on purpose?
The answer was simple: maintaining control.
Dan left Bitshares because he couldn't get the community to agree with the best path forward for the blockchain. He didn't want that to happen again, so he build a centralized attack vector into the blockchain on purpose that would give Steemit Inc the final say in all matters (when combined with the ninjamine). Funny how he lost control of Steemit Inc anyway and left regardless, leaving the centralized attack vector in place all this time.
The truth is, the Steem blockchain (not Steemit Inc) was designed to be sold to the highest bidder like this in the event of last resort. Here we are. We can pipe up all we want and say Steemit isn't Steem, but Justin Sun can vote in 20 Tron super reps as Steem witnesses at a moment's notice. If you think that Ned didn't market the sale like this then you are lying to yourself. Justin Sun knows what he bought.
Nah everything is fine!
Did you see the messages from the Steemit Inc dev team?
Seemed reassuring.
https://steemit.com/steem/@vandeberg/my-thoughts
https://steemit.com/steemit/@andrarchy/my-statement-on-tron-s-acquisition-of-steemit
https://steemit.com/steem/@gerbino/the-future-of-steem
It is reassuring, to an extent.
How do we know positive messages like that weren't coerced to ease this transition?
Too paranoid?
Disclaimer: The views represented here are my own and not representative of Steemit, Inc., other employees of Steemit, Tron Foundation, or any other individuals or organizations. Any financial actions (i.e. trades) you make based on my views are not my responsibility but your own.
When do you think the disclaimer that everyone is using was invented?
I mean it mentions Tron... so obviously right?
All I'm saying is that I don't blindly believe that everything is business at usual at Steemit Inc because some devs made a short post with an identical disclaimer at the end.
@vandeberg
@andrarchy
@gerbino
Show me the email that you received that disclaimer from.
What else does that email say?
That's enough conspiracy for one post.
What I'm really more interested in is the math. Does lowering votes down to a 1:1 ratio really help us as much as I think it does? I'm told @yabapmatt has 40+ million staked upvotes, and Justin Sun might have upward of 70+ million. But I guess the real question is how many staked upvotes do the witnesses have after all the redundancies are swept away? If a majority of votes are all being cast for the top 20 already, changing it to 1:1 doesn't help us much. Although it would be a huge help in the context of being able to vote in one or two witnesses against the wishes of 70 million stake.
What would the transition look like?
Under the current system, each account gets 30 100% witness votes. Under the system that I would put forth, users could vote for as many witnesses as they like but their vote gets diluted as they do so.
For example, you could vote 100% for one witness and give them all your vote, or upvote 2 witnesses and they each get half your stake. The equation for how much stake a witness gets would look something like:
(percent vote) / (total votes cast) * (total stake)
Example
I vote three witness for 100%, 50%, and 10% respectively.
I have 24k stake.
- witness #1 gets 15000 stake ( 1.0 / 1.6 * 24000)
- witness #2 gets 7500 stake ( 0.5 / 1.6 * 24000)
- witness #3 gets 1500 stake ( 0.1 / 1.6 * 24000)
In short I believe that changing our witness votes to this zero-sum game theory is imperative to the network at a time like this. By not pushing this change through we allow our network to be 51% attacked with 42 million stake (12% of Steem's total stake). This is not acceptable network security.
Unfortunately this is something that only the witnesses can do. They are the ones under threat right now, and there's even a distinct possibility that there are already measures in place today to prevent a hardfork like this from happening. All Sun has to do is vote a few witnesses in and veto the hardfork.
Justin Sun is literally voting in super reps to the Tron blockchain after gaining that exact power on the Steem blockchain. It's not a good sign, but here's to hoping for the best.
Disclaimer: The views represented here are my own and not representative of Steemit, Inc., other employees of Steemit, Tron Foundation, or any other individuals or organizations. Any financial actions (i.e. trades) you make based on my views are not my responsibility but your own.
We still have the option to fork out the share of justin sun and steemit.com but than who will further develop the Steem Blockchain? Somehow there is a close relationship between developers and overall blockchain governance.
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How long would it take our witnesses to create a fork where less witnesses could be voted for? How do we "get" our witnesses to do that?
They have to want to do it. How do you get politicians to do anything? Most people try voicing their concerns and promising a vote for the politicians that listen to their interests. It's not different here. DPOS is a republic.
https://twitter.com/justinsuntron/status/1230215220884201472
@redpillblue1 @Tronfoundation There are 3 SRs that haven't upgraded to the new version of TRON network. TRON foundation can't use the TRX we hold to vote so we use Zion account to vote to prevent these 3 SRs from harming our network. We will withdraw the vote once all SRs upg...
Damage control
Yes, quite impressive.
It's like a damn raptor in Jurassic Park testing the electric fences for weaknesses.
When people realize that Tron is nothing but centralized a scam, its valuation will be destroyed. Or will they?
Centralized projects do really well until they get corrupted.
Yep. And they always will.
Every project with a figurehead with the exception of perhaps Ethereum is a centralized shit project. Bitcoin is still the best project of all the major ones because it has no figurehead. Imagine if Satoshi's real name were known and he(?) was with us, basking in the glory of being the dear leader of the greatest "decentralized" project ever.
The joke is on us really. We the crypto investors are the ones who gave the monkey the assault rifle:
Much Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. 🔥🔥🔥
I haven't started a powerdown.
So i should start a powerdown?
Fudster! Is that you?
How did you evade Jupiter's Orbit?
Steeman! Your days are numbered now that I've got the Tron crystal.
And it's FufTRON to you now fool!
muahahahahahahahaha🔥🔥🔥🔥
Ah, Megatron. I should have known.
Wait. Did you have something do to with the Magnetosphere anomaly?!
... Shuri are you getting all this, I think I found what caused the magnetic pole shift?
I think you're missing one of the most important points here. "Steem" is just a name, and what that name means is controlled by the exchanges and to a lesser extent the apps on the platform, with steemit.com being the top one by far.
So this means that no matter what changes we might implement with a fork, be it changing witness voting or removing the steemit stake entirely, it won't do anything. Justin Sun and Tron own the name "Steem", not legally - no one owns it legally - but effectively.
Let's say we create a fork that removes their stake entirely. They just simply start up their own witness nodes using the original codebase (which is what the exchanges are running already anyway) and then their chain is "Steem" and we just have a new chain with a new token and new name that has no exchange listings and few apps.
"Steem" was owned by steemit inc, and is now owned by Justin Sun and Tron and there is nothing that we can do about that. If we want a chain that is not owned by anyone we can make a fork and effectively start over with a new token and new name.
My point was to push a hardfork through the system to increase network security and gauge how much of an obstructionist Justin Sun is going to be. You are 100% assuming that he's going to reject any hardfork put through by the witnesses. You sure? You sound sure.
There's still a reason to do it: to prove it to everyone.
Not everyone's as sure as you.
Obviously they aren't going to let us easily fork their stake away, but vetoing an obvious improvement to network security is much harder to explain again. You'd know that if you were a real politician, but the "#1 witness" of this blockchain hasn't made a top-level blog post in 2 months even after being sold to Tron.
Maybe the truly foolish thing we are doing with this DPOS governance thing is assuming that developers can also be effective politicians at the same time. Not easy doing 2 full time jobs at once.
Maybe the truly foolish thing we are doing with this DPOS governance thing is assuming that developers can also be effective politicians at the same time.
developers develop, politicians manipulate. The good politicians ones for good reasons , the bad (the majority), for more nefarious ones.
Expecting a developer to be a politician (good or bad) depends to a very large extent, on understanding humans and their motivations/behaviors.
Developers understand math and algorithms.
(A developer being a politician? - It's like asking a great white shark to understand the feelings of seals).
DPOS is an oligarchical system, there ain't no way around it.
Money does not equal intelligence, as in all oligarchies as they are created through nepotism and the 'might is right' premise.
Not meritocracy.
I'm definitely not a politician, and I consider that to be a good thing! I think one of the main issues with any type of leadership voting system is that it's really hard to tell who would actually be good at leading and make the best decisions for the long term.
In any case, I actually don't think they will do anything in response to a hardfork, and even though I tend to agree that a 1 SP = 1 vote system will be better than the 1 SP = 30 votes system we have now, I don't think we should push through any rushed hard fork just to "prove" anything to anyone. Hard forks are a huge deal and need to be very carefully planned and considered and not as a knee jerk response as I see happening here.
Regarding me not having posted in a long time, I agree that's not great. I've actually written three nearly complete posts since the acquisition news broke but haven't published them as things keep changing and I go back and forth on what I think the best message would be for me to send to the community.
If you don't think I'll be good at running the platform, don't vote for me. No hard feelings. I'll keep doing what I do regardless of my witness position. I just got back from promoting Steem all night at the pre-dinner for the NFT.NYC conference and will be doing that all day tomorrow. I may have even gotten STEEM to be listed on one of the top fiat to gateway services in the world tonight. We'll see, but hopefully in as little as a few weeks we'll have a button that anyone can put on their site to let people buy STEEM with a credit card or bank transfer.
I think you're doing just fine.
Chalk it up to this being a frustrating situation.
Well, events occur and as they change conditions, governance should adapt accordingly. That isn't just a 'knee jerk' reaction or proving anything to anyone. It's rational response to changing conditions, when you strip pejorative insinuations away. When you think about it, there's very good reasons our bodies have natural reactions to stimuli, like pulling away from being burned instantly. Events that require action require action be timely.
Extant witnesses have adapted to optimize their positions to extant conditions, and as the top consensus witness, no one has done so better than you have, which you must reasonably concede. This is not to criticize you for doing that, as it shows you to be more competent than anyone else here at adapting to conditions, which is a good ability to have.
However, the prospect of adapting to a new paradigm regarding witness votes is at least work, and it is to be expected that as the top witness and an active dev you have plenty on your plate, so that prospect cannot be desirable to you.
I reckon it is necessary though, and hope you agree that ending the 30x advantage stake weighting is accorded through the extant witness voting paradigm is obsolete, as the instant ability to control governance of Steem it allowed the founders no longer applies to Steem, as the founders of Steem have all left.
It's time for Steem to optimize it's governance mechanism as conditions that affect that governance have changed.
Thanks!
That sounds like a great achievement and I look forward to both reading it and one day doing it. Steem is a wonder out place filled with such extremes of good and bad, just like the world. I think that’s why we stay.
✍️
That's not gonna happen.
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I reckon you have greater understanding of this issue than most, due to several factors, but mostly because you have greater familiarity with the Tron team because of your work with them during the porting of SteemMonsters to Tron.
https://egamers.io/splinterlands-steem-monsters-going-tron-blockchain/
Could you address what you have learned from your work with Tron devs regarding their views on Steem, or such issues as may involve atomic swaps or token swaps please?
Thanks!
It's interesting to see someone say one thing and then do something else.
It will be interesting to see if/when he uses his stake to vote, who does he vote for?
What if he votes in an exchange like Kraken in exchange for Kraken listing Steem on the exchange? Is that worth for him to use his stake to vote on? If it's an overall net positive, I know that's surely debatable on what a net positive will mean, for him to use his stake to vote in a new top witness is that bad?
I really hope that we as a community can continue to get people engaged and accumulating to where our vote will be worth more than their vote and this will be an invalid point.
Until then I will continue to hedge my risk.
I don't see the point of him doing anything to damage his investment though. Why would he pay all the money just to make the Steem token worthless? I don't think most people would move to Tron as they have spent too much time and effort supporting Steem.
It is often said that the only constant is change. A seemingly contradictory statement , but despite that in my experience it is true. I think during times like this we should listen yo the statements but focus on actions. If someone says Steem is going to be alright, but starts powering down, it’s foolish to ignore that. The large stakeholders and witnesses who are powering down may be doing do for a variety of reasons, but in this state of non/transparency and inconsistent communication we should all be vigilant. I will continue to hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.
Thank you for helping us stay informed and providing information which we all must process in concert with other info and make decisions on protecting our stake.
Trust no one, especially those out purely for profit...
It's not necessary to change way witness votes work, we can work on getting more people to participate overall. There's no reason we cant get 11 witnesses to 70+ million, that's only 20% of all steem, we just need to get 21%+ of all remaining steem to vote on the right people
Problem with 1 account one vote is that we know some people have way too much accounts...
You're exactly correct, and that is the problem with all account based voting metrics and controls. I have talked to folks here that claim they have up to 10k or more accounts. Surely that's not a common situation, even for original ninjaminers, but most folks that have been here more than a minute have multiple accounts.
One thing we can count on is that no matter how many accounts a user has, that user controls a given quantity of Steem. They can concentrate it all in one account, or split it amongst many, but however it is divided, they control the entirety of it.
@edicted suggests, and I agree completely, that we should make witness voting 1 Steem 1 vote, not 1 account 1 vote. Presently it is 1 Steem 30 votes, which multiplies the advantage of large stakeholders by 30x. This multiplication effect is why @ned always had the ability to simply take control of Steem governance due to the @steemit stake, and the reason that rule was in the code.
Now that stake is under the control of @justinsunsteemit. While an autocrat or profiteer would never desire to give up such ability to completely control governance of an investment vehicle instantly, @justinsunsteemit has financial reasons to prefer Steem now develop true decentralized governance. He has other irons in the fire, and Steem isn't his only interest financially. In fact Tron is his main squeeze, and where his concerns are concentrated. While Steem is important to him, just as are BitTorrent and Opera, Tron is where his attention is focused, and Steem and his other investment purchases need to be governed well despite this for his investments to pan out.
This change does not fork him out, but does rectify that malignant holdover effect of the founders designing in an instant takeover mechanism so they can control their baby in the event it threatens to get away from them. It allows Steem to become actually decentralized, as much as DPoS allows anyway. It allows Steem to self-govern more rationally, and increases the ability of stakeholders besides ninjaminers to effect governance, which @justinsunsteemit should see is a beneficial affect on governance.
Just my two Steem.
That is a pretty disheartening response from the person in the number one spot pledged to defend the blockchain as independent.
I'm still in on the change to witness voting.
Including adding a dead man switch.
I am worried. I am a small token holder. I wonder how a swap plays out? Do we swap one for one? Does we lose out in an unequal swap? Do we swap for Tron Tokens? The power down is 13 weeks. What if there isn’t enough time to power down before swap deadline?
What if everyone starts heading to the exits?
I saw this post, which suggests large Steem holder BT and some other Steemians are powering down. Some of them are witnesses. I suppose their could be many non-Tron reasons, but... FUD FUD FUD
!giphy FUD+FUD
giphy is supported by witness untersatz!
Of course he is going to flex his muscles. And of course those working for Steemit are going to say all is well, no worries. They get paid by the boss, and will toe the company line. I subscribe to the idea if someone says they are my enemy or are going to act against my best interests, believe them. Mr. Sun has stated more than once this system is going to be pulled into his, which I assume means bye bye Steem. I have already begun my powerdown so at least some of it may be liquid for me to at least hopefully have a choice with some of my stake before he nukes are Steem. But maybe the Tron Steem will be worth more. Wait and see I guess.
This is a good thing for Steem governance. One problem with DPoS is that it weights governance by stake, and this demonstrably has caused issues with other entities IRL, as stock corporations are similarly governed, and innumerable examples of stock corporations going awry exist for us to learn from.
The extant mechanism of witness voting multiplies the governance advantage of large stakeholders by 30x, which exacerbates problems that stem from stake weighting 30 fold. The advantages of holding substantial stake are multiplied 30x, and this is why the founders made this rule, because their stake's ability to allow them arbitrary control of Steem governance was multiplied 30x, and this allowed them to instantly govern Steem by controlling the witnesses without exception in any event that challenged their control of Steem.
None of the founders now control that original stake, and I believe @justinsunsteemit, who does, has good reasons to want Steem to be governed well without his arbitrary exercise of control over it. He has other irons in the fire, and his main interest is Tron, where he needs to spend most of his attention. He wants Steem to succeed, but he wants it to succeed without his micromanagement, and optimizing DPoS through this rationalization of witness voting is one of the best ways to do that.
DPoS should be 1Steem=1vote, and that's simply the fact.
Thanks!
I think the topic of voting should be discussed. It’s an important part of DPOS to have weighted stake, but how much weight is something the community should decide. That’s what a community should be all about; evolving governance.