Teach the controversy: Softfork 0.22.2 // Stop and Correct // Potential futures
Man, from my eyes there's a lot of upset people in a lot of different directions on the chain right now. Some are mad at Ned, some are mad at Eli, some are mad at Justin, some are mad at Steemit, some are mad at the witnesses, some are just mad and don't even know who to blame. There's a fair amount of distrust and hostility all around the chain. I'd like to take a moment to walk us back to how and where this all started, how we got to where we are today, propose alternatives for how this resolves, and suggest a plan so that it resolves well. This is a decent sized read, but hopefully the ideas in here will provide a pretty decent understanding of how we got here and how we get out of here as one whole group.
These are just my personal thoughts. Despite being involved in many projects around here I'm not trying to speak for any of them. They'll have different needs and different consensus has to be built. It's just me sharing my personal self:
Overall Thesis
- Ned is a criminal who conned/defrauded the chain and Justin
- Witnesses needed to intervene to stop and help correct the situation via temporary Softfork
- Justin has to make his intentions known
- Witnesses need time to code a way to trustlessly move forward
Color Coding
Steem doesn't have the ability to color code the stake, but for the purpose of example let's try to do that with your imagination! I think it may help people understand where many witnesses and whales are coming from with regard to the Steemit Stake. By color coding the Stake I hope you'll see the challenge has to do with obligations steemit inc has incurred on this particular stake.
Steemit stake - Neon Green
Ninja Mined stake - Black
All other - White
A brief history of Steemit Stake - Neon Green
- Chain announced, mining enabled, little explanation given on how to mine leaving only certain entities and individuals capable (ninja mine). Steemit makes declarations via bitcointalk forums that Steemit Inc stake will be used to develop the chain, onboard users, and be non-voting
- Chain started, bug reported (misfire of steemit miners?), chain restarted from scratch after 1 day, reputation rekted
- Mining commenced for months. Steemit acquires 80-90% through heavy mining. Other ninja miners with dev abilities figure out a way to get a bunch of Steem. Minor amount starts spreading to content posters and witnesses. Steemit provides more commentary in posts, hardfork notes, interviews, and recordings that Steemit Inc Stake will be used to develop the chain, onboard users, and be non-voting.
- Steemit mining stopped. Other miners continue for a bit. Inflation set to maximum warp. Percentage of stake stays roughly the same, price plummets, inflation stopped. Steemit owns 80%+ and now it's ~200 million Steem (not positive on this number). Steemit continues to tell the community in things like the 2017 product roadmap that Steemit will use the stake to onboard users, develop the chain, and remain non-voting.
- Steemit sells off Steem over time periodically and in spurts. Some to pay for hosting steemit.com, some to pay for salaries, some is hoarded, some is put towards Ned's private project Destiny, and some is allegedly sold to give Ned a payday (alleged $30M USD).
- On November 14th 2020 the remaining stake is at ~75 million steem tokens on chain in Steemit accounts and potentially more sitting in exchanges (I've heard as high as 30 million alleged). The money from the sale of Steemit to Tron is pocketed by Ned (this is where I argue the most recent fraud occurred).
For this example please consider any Steem tokens which were promised over and over to be used for the development of Steem or onboarding new users to be Neon Green. That color can be washed out by doing something like selling steem to pay an employee salary or paying amazon for a server bill. It should remain Neon Green if used or taken by Ned privately or sitting in Steem accounts or exchange accounts owned and operated by Steemit INC.
What about the other miners? - black color coded
Steemit wasn't the only one mining. HOWEVER; Steemit was the only one promising over 4 years to help the chain with the stake. So, yes, the other miners ninja mined, but I'm going to color their stake black (like a ninja). It's different than the Steemit stake. Blocktrades, bernie, freedom, xeroc, and others mined their stake, but they didn't write and say over and over that they were lead developers on the project, name it after themselves, or promise to do anything with it to the community. Yes they had an advantage, but they weren't making contractual obligations the entire time they mined and stayed here.
All other stake - white
There's lots of ways one can get stake. Buying/Selling, writing, labor, selling goods and services, witnessing, etc. I'm whitelisting all of that stake and color coding it white.
How do the colors help us
I've heard a lot of different notions around the chain regarding why witnesses are doing the softfork, how they might do it to others, and a lot of what I consider nonsense. I won't speak for other witnesses but to me the Steemit stake is NOT free and clear of obligations. Steemit has steadily promised for four years to use the Neon Green Steemit stake to benefit the community. It was not Ned's stash to bro-down with or to use for private projects. Telling a community he will use money to grow the community and instead uses it for personal benefit is civil and criminal fraud. So, I see the softfork and ongoing tensions to be centered around two key factors-
- The Neon Green stake has obligations tied to it
- On Feb 14 (potentially multiple other times as well) Steemit/Ned acted dishonorably and and I think Ned acted criminally by selling tokens promised for community development for private gain.
Stop and correct
For everyone's sake the best thing to do is call a "timeout." With my switch to 22.2 I'm implying:
- Ned likely defrauded Justin and committed securities fraud in his sale of Steemit Inc,
- Ned defrauded the community and committed a separate criminal act by selling stake with public obligations for private personal gain.
- Justin is held by the same obligations of the Steemit stake and likely doesn't know it. Isolating this stake while information can be shared can protect him from liability and ensure he doesn't cause harm.
- Justin, Steemit, and the community need time to figure out what's next without powerdown countdowns, added pressure, escalations, hardforks that threaten exchange pairings, etc.
The point is not abusing investors
This isn't about just any whale buying any stake from exchanges. This (to me) isn't about Justin specifically. It's about this Neon Green stake that has to be treated differently than all the other types of stake because of the verbal and written commitments tied to it over 4 years of beating the same drum.
The witnesses aren't going to freeze your grandmas stake if they come here. This isn't anti-investor. To me, it's not a power grab to keep witnesses exactly the same (hint they change frequently now). It's a timeout so everyone has time to process Ned's (criminal) actions and figure out how to resolve the next steps without this thing escalating further.
To summarize: First we stop. Then we correct
How to unravel
Justin and Tron completed the sale on the 14th of February. They announced a meeting on March 6th. That's 21 days. That's enough time to figure out what happened, how it happened, and why there's cause for concern.
There's also enough time for Justin and team to have a pretty broad plan regarding what they're going to do.
I think the next step is Justin et al state their intention in writing prior to March 6th and then talk through them publicly on March 6th (but not on Dlive). Witnesses then need time to codify a trustless execution of plan(s) from there.
Tone
Ultimately my goal is to keep everyone together and progressing as one chain, but that may not be possible. Some of you will likely take the following section as threats to Justin of "Give me this!" Kind of like "Give us the money Tronowski or we'll cut off your whaleballs." But I'd encourage you to hear more like this "The condition of my residence on this chain requires your voluntary consent to be bound by the obligations that Steemit has incurred over 4 years. If you refuse to accept the liability of the stake you purchased, despite it being from a conman, I'll withdraw my consent to be here. I'll fork off to a different chain and carry on without this 75M Steem burden."
Let's start with the two extreme ends.
Justin tells us all to pound sand, forces a swap, and plans to vote in his own witnesses. I can't speak for everyone else, but I'd be migrating to a fork of Steem. I imagine that 95% of Steemians would leave effectively nuking this place. I imagine Tron holders look at that action unfavorably.
Justin recognizes that Steemit stake is different and carries obligations. He cancels the swap, pledges to run and support steemit, uses his influence to add exchange pair listings, and grows this thing through voluntary cross-pollination with his other projects. He gives money to the foundation to help govern (and sue Ned), gives some to the SPS, pledges to keep much for the progress of Steem, burns a portion, and doesn't ask for a single Steem for himself. I would imagine 100% of users stick around for that.
I consider neither of outcomes all that likely. I bet it's closer to 2, but not precisely 2.
Let's talk about fork scenarios
On the off chance Justin goes for option 1, telling us all to bugger off, here's the various forks I think will take place:
A. NeoSteem Forks
- Steemit stake set to 0. SPS gets a 75M steem boost.
- Steemit stake set to 0. It all went to Null.
B. PseudoSteem Forks
- User account names and keys are preserved but distributions of stake are modified beyond just Steemit accounts.
In the event of a fork I imagine there's multiple forks that simultaneously come out and the community fractures into portions that move in different directions. In the scenario where he tells us all to screw off essentially it'll be a battle of money, counter party, devs, apps, leaders, and influencers to figure out which chain becomes dominant (hint: in the case of forks I'll support A2- steemit stake goes to null).
Some version closer to Justin's option 2
Which scenario plays out I think is really up to Justin at this point and finding a balance of what he can consent to and what chain residents are willing to participate in.
If my understanding is correct of how events played out I'd like to offer this as a roadmap for resolution.
- Justin again states his intention to grow steem. He retracts marketing to the contrary. He removes all mention of a forced token swap. He works on getting Steem listings. He advocates for continued development of SMTs. He gets devs facilitating voluntary exchange between Steem and Tron. He bullet points 3-5 major objectives in a product roadmap. He clearly states his plan is to incorporate steem into the Tron network as opposed to cannibalizing Steem into a Tron token on the Tron blockchain. He makes the roadmap public prior to March 6th and disucusses with the public on the 6th.
- Justin voluntarily switches steemit stake to non-voting.
- I'm betting Justin's contract has something like a delayed payment option where Ned has certain obligations. Justin does not pay Ned the rest of the money because Ned is a criminal, conman, and fraud.
- Justin takes the unpaid amount that was saved by not paying Ned the Snake and puts some in the Foundation (which could be used to sue Ned on behalf of the community), puts some into the dao, and burns some.
- Regarding the remaining portion he keeps some on steemit for development and onboarding, he takes out 10% into a personal account to give him personal financial incentive to grow this place.
So, it would overall look something like:
Dao: 25%
Foundation: 10%
Steemit: 40%
Null: 15%
Justin: 10%
Why not more to the Dao?
Having money in the Dao is great. Having too much money in the dao will lead to abuse. This is a compromise.
Why put anything in the foundation?
It decentralizes this community from having to fully trust a centralized private entity to a non-profit community based organization. The current biggest problem with the foundation is that it lacks funding. This gives it a financial footing to start from.
Why should steemit have any funding?
This is probably the most contentious part from the rumblings I hear. The argument is that they have not been good enough stewards to keep anything and maybe witnesses should fork regardless of what Justin says or does and just walkaway from Steemit entirely.
I understand that perspective. I don't maintain it personally. The devs are exceptionally bright people and if given time and freedom to code we'll get good advancements out of them. Giving them some runway and some bandwidth on Steem is a good thing for onboarding and growth.
Why Null?
Burning helps all token holders. Would be good to see a reduction in supply even if it's just a token demonstration.
Why should Justin get to keep anything?
Justin is likely a victim in this too. The goal is not to exact punishment on a man who just got swindled by Ned. The goal is to give him a way to get his investment returned by helping grow the chain at least back to ~$1USD/Steem again. If he has 10% of what's there then there's a remedy for him to get his money back from Steem: Grow the value!!!
Anyway, that's all just a suggestion. Justin has choices to make.
What's next?
Justin has to make his intentions known and put his roadmap out publicly. By writing this I'm trying to help Justin and the Steemit team, which has talented coders, but is often tone deaf as an organization to help them see one potential path that touches on concerns.
Effectively seeing softfork 0.22.2 pop up out of nowhere is like a check engine light coming on that something is broken, but I'm betting they don't fully understand what it means or indicates. I'm trying through this writing to inform them and give one possible set of directions that I think would get this chain operating effectively going forward.
After Justin has stated his goals, put out a multi-point product roadmap, and met with the community on the 6th the witnesses have to evaluate the plan, see if we can come to terms, and then code whatever is necessary to ensure it's trustless. We could all fork. We could all stay. Some could fork, some could stay. But in order for this to resole we all need some time to code up plans.
Then what?
Well, once we've figured out where we've landed and time has been set aside for coding then things get enacted. Steem presumably gets a steemit-supported hard/soft fork and forks are either avoided entirely or given enough time to start. Then everyone can make their decision of where their primary online residence is and we can all Steem/neosteem/psuedosteem on.
Just me here
I'm not representing any app, other witness, foundation, or anything else. This is just my personal reflections based on what I know, some of what I've picked up, or what I've deduced so far. This post is meant to help confused users get additional reflections. It's meant to help the Tron guys successfully navigate a difficult transition. It's meant to help people comprehend the magnitude of Ned's actions. It's meant to help those that are angry, afraid, or outraged figure out at least one perspective on why the softfork was necessary and scope some of the challenges that are coming our way. I'm not a lawyer and my opinions of Ned's actions likely need legal review, but from a pretty simple vantage point his actions look criminal to me.
This post has been resteemed by @witnessnews.
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@tipu curate
Upvoted 👌 (Mana: 5/15 - need recharge?)
Very interesting write up and I'm eager to hear Justin's story. I doubt he will be openly accusing ned of crimes, but maybe he will mention something about this.
I know you mentioned A is unlikely, but in the even a hard fork break up happens, fully funding the sps seems to be risky.
Wouldn't a break down with sps foundation and null all getting some be safer?
Anyway thanks for having our backs as always.
Fork ourselves out of exchange listings; fork ourselves out of exposure to Justin's 2 million twitter followers, fork ourselves out of his development funding; ugh.
Ultimately the value follows the community, and the community would migrate/stay on SteemClassic, but it'd set us back a few years.
Find a way to avoid a contentious fork.
Agreed. Finding a way to progress together I think is the best course.
I agree with finding another way - and the exchange / liquity problem has the potential to become a problem.
I guess because we haven't yet seen a Crypto-Classic succeed as the chain it splintered away from.
Splinterlands is such an apt name now. :)
That's not how the real world works.
I'm open to being corrected, if you're open to being a little more specific :)
Fair enough.
The base layer of Steem blockchain is the social layer.
For a social layer to be used they need people.
Two things attract people: Money and Marketing.
A aggressive separation from Justin Sun/Tron means that all the blockchain will lose all the financial support (since Steemit inc. was the financial support) and therefore, drastically reduce the reach of Steem.
While we can all dream about a ideal place where things would be fine, that is not how the real world works.
Was Steemit INC a source of financial support, or a drain on the price?
Dumping 800,000 STEEM on the market each month to pay themselves didn't feel much like 'support' at the time.
If anything, the chain was supporting the business. Admittedly, the business was coding improvements; so you could make the argument that upgrades to the chain would grind to a halt in their absence (SMT code is ready to ship, afaik); but I have absolute confidence that the chain would be fine, maybe even better off, with that ninja-mined stake off the field.
Steemit Inc has only been a burden, still is and just fattening them pockets, the one main thing that has kept this platform going is Splinterlands and SE, Keychain etc. That is all facts....... If it wasn't for that progress I would've been gone for one.....
Same here. I lost interest in Steem almost immediately and checked in occasionally, but never did anything on it until Splinterlands came along so tbh I imagine I'll follow wherever it goes. I'd like to see Steem do great but my main stake is in Splinterlands assets now and I wouldn't be surprised if that's true for many others.
Agreed
Posted using Partiko Android
I will co-sign this @sinistry
Posted using Partiko iOS
Clean up the Steem chain by continuing to restrict the 75m tokens; tell Justin sun to sue ned to be made whole. Outright burning them may be bad unless sun agrees to it [likely following a suit with Scott].
Let justin sun have a steemit dapp on chain as his trophy of bad business decisions; we'll have palnet.
Some awesome time travelling there mate :)
A well considered post and I'm thankful you share your views so openly.
It will be interesting to sit back and see what happens. I've had time to think about all this, and the possibilities and directions this could all go in are plenty.
I'll go where the community goes. :)
I think a bit more in the DAO for creators (as opposed to developers) that make Steem exclusive content on the regular (sort of a social contract) would be another use of the DAO.
We could have a DAO for development, and a DAO for content. People nominate content that can be rewarded from that DAO for creators, then some sort of oracle that says 1 account = 1 vote allows the community decide on the most willing project.
There's a lot of prosperity and value in the platform itself, but content creators continue to get tiny rewards in contrast to the posts that are about the chain itself, written by witnesses. I know that its important to surface major updates and existential discussion to the top of the chain, but we need more content on steem that isn't about steem, and we need that content to be more heavilly rewarded.
I get that this is a troubling, exciting, and uncertain time at the present, but those that just want to create, share, and discuss things that aren't steem are not incentivised as heavilly as those that do.
That needs to change - I don't go to reddit to see posts about reddit. I go to reddit to see content and discussions on things I'm interested in.
This.
Aggroed, I am worried, delete this post... wait for the 6th... seek medical help.
The best post he has ever written.
Seek medical help for what? expressing a logical standpoint too logical for your sheltered mind?
Exciting times for Steem, the soft fork can be one of the best things happend to Steem, yes it's a risk too, but it's also a chance to fix the ninja-mined stake once and for all, get rid of Ned and make Steemit a great and sound crypto project again.
Very very TRUE :)
BANG BANG, SEE YOUR MIND RIGHT HERE, YOUR MIND, ITS JUST LIKE MINE AND THIS IS EXACTLY WHY MOST OF MY STEEM POWER AND STEEM HAS GONE INTO YOUR PROJECTS, MAINLY SPLINTERLANDS. I'M GONNA AGREE AND I ALSO THINK THAT THIS SHOULD LEAVE NED BROKE OR IN CUFFS, ONE OR THE OTHER. IN OUR CRYPTOCURRENCY SPACE, I DONT SEE ANYONE ELSE FIGHTING FOR OTHERS/COMMUNITIES INVESTMENT FROM A CRIMINAL ACT, EXCEPT FOR THOSE THAT CHOSE FOR THIS SOFT FORK. I CAN SEE HOW PRINCABALITY OF THE MATTER FOR YOU IS THIS COMMUNITY OVER PROJECTS BUT I ALSO SEE YOUR PROJECTS IS WHERE I ALIGN WITH. ANOTHER NOTE, SCREW OFF DLIVE IS EXACTLY MY THOUGHTS TOO, THEY ARE CRIMINAL IN MY EYES AS WELL. SO MUCH MORE TO SAY BUT I NEED TO STOP YELLING NOW. THANKS AGRROED FOR YOU, I'M WITH YOU WHEREVER WE GO FROM HERE, EVEN IF MY INVESTMENT IS LOST, ATLEAST I KNOW I WENT WITH THE PERSON/PERSONS THAT KEPT IT 💯
👟OUT.......
Posted using Partiko Android
there are foreign people on steem? i thought it is only on Voice.
What's foreign? In the case of steem?
i have no idea, but i hope i will not hit a wall. or end up in gulag or Goli otok.
I presume you are an attorney or a very successful businessman with your own business and are making your attack against @aggroed based on your deep and clear understanding of the law and commercial-marketing rules?
What I would like to know is, if you are so knowledgeable and experienced, where were you when Steemit obviously needed help? Did you just sit back and allow our SP to drop to toilet paper (value)?
I am not claiming everything aggroed said is right, but he made a damn good case and I would prefer to see a debate, taking his arguments point by point and analysing/agreeing or disproving them, rather than this 'feely' kind of answer that rages without saying anything useful.
In other words, it sounds like your accusation
...mostly applies to you.
We're dealing with 500 head Tron team here.
Our opinions, imagination, and dreams are more or less irrelevant.
But hey, what do I know?
I'm just an oldtimer stuck in the blockchain holding my empty bag. And someone even cut a hole to the bottom.
Lmao well at least out hands won't give out since our bags don't weigh much at the moment xD
If ever?
How many times have you ended your comments with that last line?
A couple of times, but it's always floating somewhere in the background of my brain.
That is an interesting point i haven't thought about. Altough i am sure that Justin know and understand Steem blockchain, how it works, and what is(was?) his plans, he probably wasn't aware of this 'social contract' established on the earlier days...
Don’t be mad.... Create create create.
Sun is not to be trusted, period!
So far the biggest mistake you folks made was accepting the March 6th offer. The first and only offer made, and you took it. That's far too much time. I would have pressed to get this shit done, now. No beating around the bush. No weeks of these fucking posts and divisive politics. Someone out there produced the greatest bit of actual content today, and yesterday, and tomorrow. Drowned out by all this noise. Fucking STEEM posts. The glaring majority of members have literally NOTHING to lose here. It don't matter where these decisions take us, to them. For those that do care, like myself, playing this waiting game and all the noise in between now and then is fucking useless. All talk, no action.
There actually has not been any official offer for a meeting with the witnesses. In fact, I don't believe there has been any direct contact, unless you think a post on Steemit or a Cointelegraph article is contact.
Also, what has been proposed on March 6th doesn't sound like a meeting between the new Steemit ownership and the witnesses at all.
So, in my opinion, as of right now, there is no meeting.
So let's just talk in circles and go nowhere until we get there! Hooray! Maybe chase a few more thousand members away in the mean time! Good plan! I mean, the "entire world" is watching since this made headlines, so why in the world would we show them the true potential of this place? Let's just show them all how fucked up we are instead... and let that shit rise to the top! Genius!
Hey...I'm not the idiot that wrote this post. :)
I know that. I don't even think Aggroed is an idiot. If anyone here is an idiot, it's me. I'll take the blame.
P.S. Don't take the loss of a witness vote personally. Everyone lost my vote. I just did it to prove to myself how fucking irrelevant I truly am. Most will get them back once the dust settles and I can start fresh. I refuse to take sides, for now.
I will take your unvote personally!
...
For now.
Don't worry, David. We'll move past this, together. It's not you, it's me. I'm just not ready for that kind of commitment yet. We can still be friends.
For now.
All awesome reply.
logistics to be announced
for now
The March 6th offer was a town hall meeting between Justin and the community. I would much rather see the witnesses hijack this meeting and have it in discord with Justin and let us know after what happens. Reading between the lines Justin may have loads of catching up to do or someone has filled him in already.
I laughed at how much Justin cared about his investment. Nah - I'll wait a few weeks to see what happens with the millions I invested. No biggie.
I care about the blockchain, but frankly I could care less about that stake.
He can use it or not in my opinion.
Here is a post of the conversation during and through the Mining...
https://steemit.com/steem/@joseph/the-history-of-steem-steemit-launch-in-the-words-of-dan-larimer-from-the-early-launch-days
While they do say they will use the tokens to build at one point, they also state they do not even promise to support the project at all. In fact... they say many things.
(self upvoted after the dvs)
Couldn't care less... Such a pet peeve.. It's not could care less...
You are correct. :)
This ignorant user is spreading dangerous lies in order to attempt to gain popularity and attention from the new commie overlord. Ignore the ignorant twat bag, you'll immediately feel better about your life.
I mean, I think it's possible she could care less. That's a statement regarding her relative amount of care. But if she wanted to express her maximum personal limitation of not caring then couldn't care less does seem more appropriate.
Dork, but much appreciated because I always F that up.
....the most important point in this comment section, imo.
"there are no worker proposals nor major changes to the protocol which should take much of the politics out of the coin." ...and OP wants to dump their stake into SPS, yikes.
It was long since recognized, including by Ned, that the dropping of worker proposals (aka SPS) in the original design was a mistake. It was Ned/Steemit who paid for the development of the SPS, one of the relatively few productive things they actually did with the funds they got from the ninja-mined stake.
I see you dropped your witness ? You were basically the only voice of reason running a server
I'm looking forward to an eventual accounting of what the SPS has paid out and what the community has received in return.
This ignorant user is spreading dangerous lies in order to attempt to gain popularity and attention from the new commie overlord. Ignore the ignorant twat bag, you'll immediately feel better about your life.
I think than Justin Sun will do swap token and move the steemit to tron... After all, he bought the steemit for that!
Whats happen if 20-30% of all steem go to him through swap?
The witnesses sat on their arses concerning this issue until their positions were threatened and then tried selling this BS narrative about saving the chain; which appears to have been generally swallowed.
Nothing has changed. A Billionaire could buy 21% of STEEM stake tomorrow from an exchange. No solution has been made. Only the trust of the blockchain has been broken by targeting specific accounts.
Shame on every top 20 witness involved with the procrastination of offering a universal solution against majority stake and participation in 22.2's installation.
I started replying to you but the comment became far too long. It's a post on my blog now that was reformatted into a q&a type. Read it if you want.
Had a browse through. Thanks for the link. Is @guiltyparties an individual or a group run witness account?
Started out as a group but now it's just me and a sr dev buddy in the background.
Expect more and more confusion over the next few days as people spin this out of control. No matter how hard you folks try to get your stories straight, someone will spin it. Spend less time explaining yourselves to every random Joe with something to say and more time getting down to brass tacks. Get this fucking Justin guy on the phone and settle this. Fuck waiting until the 6th so everyone can gather and sing songs or whatever.
You're absolutely right. Well said.
Don't make me go to the shed and get my poking stick.
I'm in that majority of people that have nothing to lose.. I'm just glad others are possibly seeing how unhinged Aggy and his cronies are.. 🍿
I didn't even know people called him Aggy and I didn't know Aggy had cronies. Personally, I don't give a fuck. There's bigger fish to fry.
Haha, well of course but the gas is off we are out of oil, the fish are spoiled, and the pans have been stolen.. Bigger fish to fry ? Thrilled to see how that will work...
@ats-david scoffs in your general direction.
I have a hard time believing that any of what you're talking about is "enforceable", or that the sale itself was criminal.
From what I understand of contract law, there are a few criteria that need to be made for any contracts to be valid/legal -- and I doubt that any of those promises related to the "intent" of the neon-green stake would fulfill all criteria.
In my (unprofessional) opinion, no contract was formed, primarily because it was one-sided and there was no consideration behind the "promise" of what the neon-green stake was ever supposed to be. Only one-sided, potentially coerced, promises were ever on the table. I know little of the man (Ned), but if he was in a position where he owned Steemit-Inc, and the neon-green stake belong to Steemit-Inc -- then he's free to sell said company, and the stake goes with it. Business people gonna business.
At the end of the day, it sounds like there was nothing more than empty promises attached to the stake, and not any real contractual obligation -- unfortunate as it is. If a company owns a shovel that they promised would only be used to dig gardens because people yelled at them to dig more gardens, but then a new financier purchases the company and decides to use the shovel to scratch their balls or something -- I don't think there's anything you're legally able to do about it.
But I'm not a lawyer, so I dunno. I would agree, though, that the entire thing is frustrating, and business-people are generally worth their weight in garbage.
Some valid points. I also don't believe that Sun would pay 10M without audits and lawyers.
Wonder if cease and desist notices can be legally sent in the memo fields of STEEM transfers? 😎
This is one thing I wish we all knew more about. No one seems to know anything about the sale and even the Steemit Inc staff members found out about it at the same time as everyone else. It would be good to know if there was an audit done and a confirmation of what Justin thinks it is he bought.
It would be good but it's not our business. It's Ned's company and Sun's money.
When it comes to the open source repositories, absolutely our business. Everything else, no.
Agreed.
Though, I heard that he did spend $4M+ to have lunch with Warren Buffet -- so who knows. Might just be an idiot.
Offer and Acceptance; we as a community will use this thing because you did promise that you will not abuse it, and by using it we will add value to your company.
It may be worth looking into the Steemit Terms of Service and seeing if there's anything noteworthy in there.
Investors bought stake, and creators created content, with the understanding in place.
Without this understanding in place exactly what was attempted, the ability to wreck the chain, would have precluded prudent money from buying in, IMO.
So, there was an offer and acceptance in place from very early on.
I saw a number of people leave when the two year power down was forked out.
Yeah, maybe.
I have a hard time believing that the "understanding" was a part of any kind of agreement, or pretense to people buying Steem -- especially considering how many people seemed to not really know much about it until many of the witnesses raised a ruckus.
The earliest large investors knew, there are very few of them, and that is who is defended here.
The people that took a chance with 100's of btc to get us here, 4 years later.
They couldn't be sure they would get a viable chain and worked to ensure steem could work at all.
Many of them have that money back in multiples.
Such is crapitalism, and investing.
What was saved here was the author's ability to decide to invest their time into steem.
If 4 years of our lives can be sold by Ned, what are we doing here?
I know many of us would not be here knowing that everything we did only profited stinc.
If Ned wanted it that way, he shouldn't have let us twist his arm into open sourcing the code.
He did have to be reminded.
This is the fruit of that arrangement.
Ned is trying to welch on his deals, and the investors didn't let him because code is law.
Can we know tron will fail?
No.
Do we know that we were promised a free open source platform that pays us to record our lives on it?
Yes.
Is that demonstrated by this fork?
Absolutely.
I'd say this is the best the chain has looked since I got here in '16.
Maybe we could flag some more price abusers, but it takes time to build that narrative.
That would be a good use of stinc stake, iyam.
Very robust analysis here.
That got me laughing really hard. Lol
You're giving me far too much credit.
Glad you got a laugh out of it.
You hit the nail on the head here. Kudos
Enough with the talks... I need some action.. a real action..
What specific statements were made by Ned or Steemit reps that are being characterized as a promise or contractual obligation to use the funds a particular way, and was an amount mentioned?
Answered where you asked the exact same question here
You have written a well thought out and clearly explanatory post; however, I see thing sa wee more cynically, and have addressed that here:
https://steemit.com/steem/@stevescoins/considering-aggroed-s-teach-the-controversy-post
@aggroed, This is very well written post.
It does explain the various frauds happening in crypto space where founders assign to themselves premine tokens or ninja-mine tokens. These founder tokens should be used for the development of the ecosystem as per promise and not for personal gain. The case here is not different.
So I agree that any stake obtained from the system against a promise is not same color that has no promise attached to it. And so has to be treated accordingly.
let's hope that Justin sees the issue and takes well thought stand not only for the sake of Steem and his stake here but from the entire crypto-ecosystem perspective.
Fingers crossed.
Awesome post man. Nobody on this chain I trust and have confidence in more than you. Thank you for all you have done so far and the leadership you unknowingly give. I’m going to what ever chain your going to and I suspect many others will follow. Let’s hope Justin does the smart thing for himself and all of us because it could be super exciting! Good Luck with the meeting in a few weeks, I know you will do a great job and have this blockchain to protect for all of us. Thank you Cuz....
💯
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I actually like you @aggroed, so please don't take the following as some kind of personal attack, however you need to be corrected on, and pointed to a couple of points.
First that Ned defrauded the chain and Justin.
What you describe is not fraud, he created a company which owns a blockchain and the IP of its crypto currency Steem. He legally incorporated it in the USA. Therefore, he is perfectly within his rights to sell the company that he incorporated, and all of its assets.
Secondly, if you were so worried that Ned was not using the estimated $200 million worth of Steem how he promised, why didn't you do something about it then?
Thirdly, if you participate in any actions to nullify the use of his purchased Steem, it is you who will be committing a criminal act.
What do you think would happen to you if you changed the name Steemit to Facebook and you tried changing code to stop Zuckerburg or the person he sold it to, on a certain asset within the company?
You'd be sued into oblivion, and jailed for a very long time.
Right at the end you say you're not a lawyer, if I were you, I'd seek legal advice on this one.
Cg
SF rocks
Using dlive is a slap in the face to every user that had their rewards reduced to accommodate Ned skimming more coins for his favorites, IMO.
Let's hope for a @vimm .tv feed.
Exactly
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We're game. Hey @justinsunsteemit! Consider reaching out to Steemians on the livestream platform they rely on.
https://www.vimm.tv
You wanna stream your thing on the 6th on our platform, we will make it happen! If we have enough advance notice, we could even make sure it gets recorded and shared to the Steem blockchain after the fact.
Justin may use money to influence top witnesses to favor his plan on Steemit,. He don't buy that stake without any plan. His stake maybe frozen now and can't be use but he still have money.. lots of money. After all witnesses are just human..
The script for the cool action - cool laid out everything on the shelves!
Justin + community vs Ned (already see tabloid headlines)
I suggest Justin either burn his tokens or burn Ned at the stake live on Dlive
I liked your post, but I think you biased the possible outcome by ignoring the political situation.
It is well known that China does not allow free speech and they have done their best to influence corps that do not belong to them; for instance, Google, Apple, Facebook and so on.
If Tron steps in, the decentralised system has to disappear, or else Justin will - just as happened to the owner of Alibabba (not certain of the spelling).
I, for one, will have no interest in staying in Steemit if we have to give in to Chinese censorship. Not because of what I want to say, but because of the principle of it. So, I much prefer the fork forking.
My hope is that he (Justin Sun) doesn't want that bad karma attached to the neon green stake. His solution then, is to give STEEM even more unprecedented value by burning the whole lot of it. He's not against doing drastic things for the public eye. He would be a frign cryptosuperhero.
Great posting
And you all think bankers are the bad guys.
Ned sued, what a dream! There is a date mismatch picturing november 2020, that is far away...
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Congratulations @aggroed!
Your post was mentioned in the Steem Hit Parade in the following categories:
Let's be honest. With the lack of work being done from Ned and steemit "business" over the last 3 years did we really expect anything else?
I've been complaining about the lack of work and misinformation from the company for the last two years as things never changed yet I got called out, flagged and treated like shit for it lol
Now that I've been proven right it makes me realize this place is a fuckin toxic pile of poop to put it nicely.
This is honestly why nothing will ever come of crypto. There is far to much scamming and no accountability.
This is the best thought out and written post I’ve read to date on this matter.
I enjoyed reading this, thank you for the non sensationalized and logical interpretation. I have seen enough fools debate consensus in crypto so i would rather just see Ned get sued and resolve this in the most profitable way for Steem users since there is clearly a circus in town.
Highly rEsteemed!
Its not the fact they might do "it" to others. Its the fact that it has already been done to someone (Justin Sun). Its also the fact it was done rather quietly without much community discussion.
Lets be honest here, the chances of this needing to be done to someone else is low. This is because it would be difficult to attain such a stake that Justin Sun has attained unless sold by him to another investor.
A bad precedent was set and the witnesses may have took Justin Sun voting power away but STEEM's success might be more relient on Justin Sun actions Now then ever before.
Why is that you ask, it's because the likely hood of STEEM ever getting any big investor that isn't Justin Sun (or brought here because of him) after this fiasco is next to @null.
That certainly would be awesome if @justinsunsteemit did but I don't think he is in any way obligated to do so. The man bought his stake and Steemit fair and square, he owes 0 explanation to anyone.
I don't see any defraud ....
I see the quotes from you and others that have said Steemit (Ned) promised to not use the ninja stake for voting and to the best of my knowledge Ned's Steemit stuck with that plan. But even if he didn't .... Unless there's a legal contract somewhere, breaking a promise doesn't equal fraud.
The moment Ned sold his stake and Steemit, Ned's Steemit and his promises and vision ended. His vision and promises doesn't transfer over to the new owner of the stake purchased unless there's some kinda legal contract saying otherwise or the new owner decides to keep the same vision. Justin Sun shouldn't be expected to keep Ned's promisses.
I do understand the worry and why the action of softfork was taken but I'm not sure if it did more good (as intended) then it did bad.
I'm here for the community and the cool game Splinterlands in which you and @yabapmatt have created. So my opinion is basically as an onlooker with not much stake or investment other then the few thousand I put into SPlinterlands.
I don't think Justin Sun is making money by screwing up Steem. Witnesses should listen to and act on his opinions about the community. Steam's trust was destroyed by the Witnesses.
It took four years for Ned to sell Steem's stake to Justin Sun. If you had done this with a smart contract before, most Steemians would have welcomed it. Then it would not have been such a problem now. I don't know who neglected development.
For the first time, I get to know the entire episode that unfolded since Feb 14th. I would rather be happy for a fork scenario if Justin does not agree to those obligations that Steemit incurred over 4 years and no matter how much amount of time it requires to fair the new online residence, I would still prefer that new place which won't have the burden of 75M STEEM. This is one of the best article I have read in recent times.
If ned were to be prosecuted by the SEC... how bad would that media attention be for STEEM....
So what now @aggroed? In light of hardfork. Where to discuss this? Not here i assume now Tron has control ...