#steem

Open letter to Justin Sun and the STEEM community

Following today's meeting of @justinsunsteemit with the Korean community (summarized here https://steemit.com/steemhostiletakeover/@ausbitbank/meeting-between-justin-sun-korean-stakeholders-steem-witnesses-and-steem-foundation-12-03-2020), and the previous ones with the witnesses, I have a few words to say.

The TRON factor

Basically, according to @justinsunsteemit, what's good for TRON is good for STEEM. Well, I totally disagree with that. TRON IS NOT STEEM. STEEM has its own community and mechanics put in place and tweaked through the years to balance usability, reduce abuse and reward milking, without compromising security. I will not support anything that destroys those mechanics to please 1 guy and 3 exchanges. Besides, Bittrex and several other exchanges declared on Twitter they would respect our governance and never interfere in it, so why is @justinsunsteemit still "representing the exchanges" and deciding what's good for them???

The Exchanges factor

Justin Sun: 13 weeks is too long for exchanges to stake

First of all, Justin Sun has no authority to represent the exchanges and doesn't get to dictate what's good for them. Exchanges have no business staking STEEM. In a DPOS system, they would possess incredible power over governance and allow hostile takeovers like @justinsunsteemit did. May I remind you, Justin did the same exact thing on his own chain by using his huge stake to push out SR's and get his way done.

Know this @justinsunsteemit, every major decision that took place on the STEEM blockchain took weeks, if not months of discussions to evaluate the impact, pros and cons. Some ideas came through, and countless ideas didn't. You come into our ecosystem and expect your TRONism to be implemented here, in a rush, under the pretext of "exchanges". If exchanges REALLY wanted things done on STEEM, let them send their own representative to talk to us. The only thing I see here, you only care about TRON and Poloniex (the so called "exchanges"), while you dragged Binance and Huobi into this mess by lying and deceiving them. Not just that, even after they woke up to smell the coffee, you kept doubling down with the lies on Twitter, taking snippets of code, that was never implemented, out of context. Luckily, Binance and Huobi quickly removed their votes after the PR nightmare started for them, and at least Binance finally admitted their mistake, apologized and started their power down. Huobi too is powering down. I don't think Binance and Huobi will play your games ever again, not after the backlash they got from the community, not after you jeopardized their reputation to satisfy your opportunism; why should they listen to you ever again?

All warfare is based on deception - Sun Tzu

The Poloniex factor

So, two of your "exchanges" bailed out on you, and you're only left with Poloniex which is still voting and hasn't initiated a power down. By the way, I'm sure everybody knows that you acquired a stake in Poloniex (https://www.cryptopolitan.com/justin-sun-buys-poloniex-share/). Such a great conflict of interest, isn't it? So my friends, when you hear Justin Sun still talking about "exchanges", he really means Poloniex. STEEM has suffered countless frustrations with Poloniex in past: weeks and months of lengthy disabled wallets, no customer support, lower prices (market outlier). The shittiest exchange on this planet, all of a sudden announcing relisting STEEM and swaps with TRON! That doesn't inspire trust for me, in fact, if it smells like shit and looks like shit, what is it?

The Korean factor

Since Justin stepped into our doorstep, from a shady sale with @ned, all we saw from him was a happy face, with actions that speak louder than words: hostile takeover of a blockchain, labeling the duly elected witnesses by the community as hackers, misleading exchanges into locking up their customers funds and constantly pushing for changes that go against security and abuse prevention. Furthermore, now he's in bed with the Korean community (@proxy.token) is being friendly to them to hold the blockchain hostage to their demands. Not only does STEEM has an external force controlling it right now, but an internal one. The sock puppet witnesses are mainly supported by the following actors: @justinsunsteemit (the ninja-mined stake), @ned (yes, Ned came out of the abyss to shill for TRON, on Discord and Twitter), @poloniex and @proxy.token. Despite the effort by me and several other witness to reason with the Koreans (replying to their posts and participating in their Discord channel), they don't seem to budge and don't seem to understand, but gladly and mutually dance with Justin Sun, he's their savior from those evil downvotes, right?

The Stalemate factor

At this point in time, we're at a stalemate, with roughly 50/50 legit vs sock puppet witnesses, nobody is truly controlling the chain and nobody can hardfork the other. DPOS is still under attack, it definitely needs trustless reform to avoid such an incident from ever happening again. It will take time and careful considerations before any change is implemented. I've said this many time and I repeat it: hardforks with significant changes take lots of time discuss, decide on, develop the code, test, coordinate, update/replay the servers, execute and fix unintended bugs. It's not a simple thing to do, it's not like making toast. We're talking about months of work.

The Invade and Preach model

Justin and TRON kind of reminds me of a certain superpower... it invades other countries to spread "democracy", only resulting in civil wars, division, pillaging, chaos and death. I think we're experiencing the same thing with STEEM. We were a peaceful family, sure with disagreements and internal fights, but we love our STEEM and in the face of invasion, we showed the world that we can put our differences aside, come together and fight to protect our turf. Justin Sun rattled the wrong cage.

The Blue Pill factor

Since his acquisition of Steemit Inc, Justin hasn't been straight forward. Doubtful and conflicting statements mixed with back pedaling and PR manipulations. In essence, he's been trying to force feed us a blue pill. What the hell is going on? STEEM will move to TRON and swap tokens. Oh no no, he wants fast power down so the exchanges get their token back. Oh no no, he's an investor, he's here to make money. Oh no no, he wants to move the ninja-mined stake to the exchanges so he can feel SAFU and develop STEEM so we're all a happy family. How does moving a HUGE stake onto an exchange give any transparency or support for development? At least when @ned was around, the ninja-mined stake was on-chain and we could monitor what was being done with it. Even a little 5-year old can see that the second that stake is moved to exchanges, it's going to get dumped. Why not, some said: "let him dump, we could buy cheap STEEM". Oh yeh? If that happens, price gets trashed, expect more whales (bad or otherwise) to gain more power. And assuming the worst, price doesn't recover and STEEM is destroyed; who would bother buying a coin turned into shitcoin? It's difficult to predict the future and its outcomes, I can only speculate, but always be prepared for the worse and try to prevent it.

My stance on the matter

I previously voiced my position and I'm standing by it. Justin doesn't inspire confidence for me, and until I see some concrete action and commitments on his behalf, I won't believe anything he says. Blue pill ain't my style.

https://steemit.com/steem/@drakos/q6q1jq (response to Justin Sun)
https://steemit.com/hive-101145/@drakos/q6ohsq (response to the Korean community)

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Comments · 33

@hobo.media(64)· 2356d
Honestly, with what happened to the governance due to exchanges voting with traders' tokens, I say we increase the power down length and not decrease it.

It seems to me the best defense against exchanges is a long stake duration.
@robertandrew(70)· 2356d
It is indeed sad and unfortunate, Justin could have had his cake and eat it too if he was just upfront and honest with us
@broncnutz(79)· 2356d
Justin Sun is a a smart guy? Says Who??? Justin is so ignorant about how this blockchain actually works he makes himself look stupid. Justin has disgraced himself and can never recover from this unless he changes his though process.
@arcange(79)· 2356d
Congratulations @drakos! Your post was mentioned in the Steem Hit Parade in the following categories:
- Comments - Ranked 8 with 52 comments
- Pending payout - Ranked 3 with $ 76,07
@tonytrillions(68)· 2356d
!giphy so dangerous

Posted using Partiko Android
@viraldrome(67)· 2356d
"Why not, some said: "let him dump, we could buy cheap STEEM". Oh yeh? If that happens, price gets trashed, expect more whales (bad or otherwise) to gain more power."

So him having the stake is bad, but him dumping and allowing the community to buy it, cheap, is also bad. If he dumps on exchanges everyone has the same chance to buy it, whale or minnow. That seems like a strange justification for opposing a dump. I think the best thing that could happen for decentralization is a bunch of steem gets sold for dirt cheap. But that is just me.
@macchiata(80)· 2357d
Tbh this shit getting tense each day and there seems to be no win win situation. How are we going forward? that's something I would like to know since this deal turns sour.
@ironshield(76)· 2357d
I'll keep red pill, thank you very much, Mr Sun.

Posted using Partiko Android
@vikisecrets(80)· 2357d
Full support, we need to talk to the Korean community though and trying to explain why downvotes and decentralization are so important. Without downvotes there would be no balance in the system to fight misuse, spam, and plagiarism. The ninja-mined Genesis stake of Steemit Inc. is not a normal account and has certain strings attached like being used mainly for the development, infrastructure and marketing of the Steem ecosystem and should stay non-voting / neutral all the time.
@bashadow(70)· 2357d
I think it is time for people to try and understand the Korean Side of the down vote issue. I read the transcript of the discord chat, look at the answers again that were given to and responses about the down vote issue. The down vote system needs to be fixed, it is not a hard fix, when down voting using the steemit front end you get a pop-up that list the reason. The pop-up is there already, add check boxes next to the reason, and code in an auto non-editable comment of choice made. Then the community can decide if the down vote was justified.

As a society we do not require justifications for positive actions under taken by the individual, in fact a lot of people see such justification when given as false and self serving. We as a society do require justifications for negative action taken, justify why you shot that person justify why you beat that person, justify why you robbed that person, justify why you were speeding and endangering the lives of others, we don't just want as a society we demand as a society the justifications for negative actions. Then we as a society decide if the action even though negative was justified. From what I have seen and read from the Korean side of this issue is what they are looking for, not a blank check to scam, plagiarizer or abuse steem, but for a justification for the down votes.

Fix the down vote system, and the Koreans would, I am sure be glad to support the witness side of things.
@abitcoinskeptic(75)· 2357d
Thank you for your clear understanding and unwavering support.

I do not believe the Koreans supporting Justin Sun misunderstand anything. Yes, they haven't been getting their way. Yes they are trying to get their way (nonsurprise Justin suddenly supports random policy), they will bail with Justin Sun. The worst part is they will exploit the reward pool for as long aspossible why we will stick around to provide any value. Also, their long term business plans when that fail are suited fornthe Tron network.

I want them to leave. Its not worth cooperating because the Steem they want isn't Steem. Its their personal money printing factory at our expense.
@smooth(74)· 2357d
Pretty much how I see it except I don't agree with this part:

until I see some concrete action and commitments on his behalf, I won't believe anything he says

Even if he did that I wouldn't believe it. With the damage he has already done to his credibility, it would take years to believe anything he says (and likewise for Ned). Whatever sort of "concrete action" or "commitments" he might undertake in the short term I would view as being a manipulative trick or convenient-for-Justin position-of-the-day until proven otherwise.
@revo(62)· 2357d
So is there a way forward, @drakos? Or are we just hanging around until we fork off a new chain free of Sun and the ninja stake?

I ask this because I don't see the witnesses making any realistic negotiations. Sun ISN'T going to remove his sockpuppet witnesses while there's a chance his stake could be ring-fenced again. You guys must surely know this. Yet you keep "negotiating" like this is an option.

Instead of repeatedly asking him to remove his sockpuppets without offering anything in exchange for this, why not try and negotiate their removal? I've posted this before, so sorry to anyone who has to keep reading it, but we should try and get Sun to commit a portion (25%?) of the ninja stake for development (via the SPS or some other independent mechanism). In exchange we could offer him 4 week powerdown, as that's something that has received some support prior to all this. He could of course run and dump his remaining 75%, but with 25% locked up he has an incentive to stick around and get that 25% and more back through growing the chain.

As it stands, it looks like he'll eventually force a hardfork on us and then possibly dump 100% of his tokens. If we can give him a reason to stick around (to grow his investment), we can make a statement that no more of his stake will be ring-fenced (other than perhaps removing witness voting rights), and he can then get rid of his sockpuppet witnesses. This should at least be attempted if we want to save this version of the Steem blockchain.

Unless we are all just treading water waiting for a fork off to a new coin/chain...
@indigoocean(69)· 2357d
This is all truth and nothing but the truth.

Sun cannot be trusted, hence his constantly shifting demands/offers that reflect only one consistency, he wants complete freedom and control to rest solely with him. He thinks he owns a company here and does not understand the difference between that and buying a large stake in a decentralized network.
@argsolver(53)· 2357d
Steem DPOS protocol needs to evolve into Steem REDPOS
@sinistry(62)· 2357d
Fantastic write up of the temperature of this situation. You nailed the tone and everything. We need more of this!

Also, don’t forget to fuck Ned! #fuckyouned
@dr-frankenstein(66)· 2357d
Koreans are a part of the Steem community, you can't just ditch them out from the equation just because their interest doesn't aline with yours.

If we are going to start dividing communities according to their opinions this is not going to end well for us.

Their opinions showed us that the STEEM COMMUNITY as a whole is not really on the same page concerning the current events.

You are always trying to be the Avant-Guard person, to prove yourself and make noise. You really should stop fueling the hate between communities.
@d0zer(61)· 2357d
Everyone deserves a second chance. He got much more than that. But he blew every single one of them. It's over.
@stevescoins(70)· 2357d
if the witnesses have any senses whatsoever, they burn justin and his stake as soon as they gain the ability to do so
- justin's history of dishonesty (and the possibility of alignment with CCP and/or technocrat goals)
- as long as that stake is out there; steem is not decentralized, and cant be: steem was decentralized under ned ONLY AND AS LONG AS ned kept his promises to the steem community to use that stake in a way that was promised from the start...the second that stake was sold, that promise is null and void
@joythewanderer(81)· 2357d
If dude ever bothered to read some of those open letters, how can he still be clueless about what steem is? I personally see no other way out than a chain split at this point.
@valued-customer(75)· 2357d
Clearly Sun is being encouraged to ignore the many representations of Stinc principals that the stake he acquired has come with obligations to fund development, and so far has avoided any such commitment.

Similarly, the legacy consensus has long maintained a 30x weighting of substantial stake over governance, and dismissed community concerns with a vehemence that raises questions of collusion with stakeholders that have historically controlled governance heretofore. I have raised the issue of equalizing the influence of stake on governance to extreme prejudice, and I presently see that our community is between a rock and a hard place: Sun as a solitary overlord, and a cabal of oligarchs controlling consensus by 30x weighting of the largest stakes on the chain that has traditionally kept them in power, and the vast majority of new Steem created by inflation flowing to those whales.

"User A has 1m Steem, casts 30 votes for witness, and wields 30M Steem influence over governance. User B has 100 Steem, casts 30 votes for witness, and wields 3000 Steem influence over governance. The difference between their hodlings is 999,900 Steem. The difference in the weight of their influence on governance however is 29,997,000 Steem."

This is easily resolved by applying nothing more innovative than VP that affects all other voting to witness votes, and depleting witness votes 100%. This enables 1 Steem = 1 witness vote, and User A's 999,900 larger stake will produce 999,900 weight on governance, which reasonably enables DPoS to work.

Absent rectification of this weighting Sun's estimated ~100M Steem hodlings can theoretically bear 3B Steem weight on Steem governance, and not even @freedom and @pumpkin are competent to oppose it because of the 30x weighting Sun's larger stake avails.

Either we stop enabling centralization of Steem governance, or Steem will be centralized. It appears we are presently not being offered any choice of decentralizaton between the blue pills on offer from either side.

Thanks!
@jacobpeacock(74)· 2357d
@drakos It is good to finally hear someone drawing a clear line and standing firm to what they believe in. I hear you very well.

Thanks.
@chiren(67)· 2357d
Excellent article @drakos! Anyone who's confused about the current situation should be pointed to this post.
@mishegas(43)· 2357d
#blockchain #community #exchanges #palnet

My God! To return to this 'mishegas' !

As always you want to know what's going on just follow the money

At the end of the day the Steemit TRON Korea Sun story is no different to Scientology, EST etc. A total headfuck where most everybody gets what they deserve for their gullibility - shafted. And the luminaries make off like the bandits they are.
@resiliencia(75)· 2357d
I support your words. It is a pitty that the Korean community can't understand why the downvotes are so important. It will be difficult to change their mind. Keep pushing @drakos !
@c0ff33a(76)· 2357d
I really appreciate you took the time to write this @drakos, because I think this clearly states the current situation in a way that everyone can understand. I have tried desperately to remain impartial since the announcement of Steemit Inc sale, as a Witness I fully supported the Soft Fork 22.2 as a preventive measure to prevent a potential hostile take over of the Steem Blockchain. It truly saddened me to see how it divided our community, with arguments for and against. And it really surprises me that after what it was there to protect against actually happened - there are still arguments that it should not have happened. The soft fork did not force this situation, all that happened was nobody realised how much influence over exchanges Justin held.

But trust can not be bought, it has to be earned. I joined the Steem Blockchain in March 2017 (my three year anniversary soon) which was still a year after inception. And since then I have followed many people, enjoyed posts and company made friends and generally found a social platform that is unrivalled. I also am aware of the majority of our Witnesses, and while I do not know them personally I know I trust them with the future of the Steem Blockchain. Through the last years we have seen the Steem Blockchain evolve and grow - and every step of the way it has required hard work testing, adjusting and fixing code - by yourself and all the other Witnesses at the very top.

And this makes me wonder, why would anyone support someone with no history on the Steem Blockchain, a very sketchy past history if you take the time to look, and who's only priority seems to be getting Steem sent out to exchanges in the fastest time possible? Maybe it's time to remove the rose tinted glasses and look at the Sun with a Welder's Glass #14 - so instead of being blinded you finally see the truth.
@nonameslefttouse(77)· 2357d
Like a monkey fucking a football.
@steemitadventure(66)· 2357d
All I saw him say is ... I want witnesses to say they respect property rights oh and that he would get a “team”. He didn’t address any of steem/witnesses concerns.
@russia-btc(71)· 2357d
I support your words!
@bobinson(67)· 2357d
We have been saying these same points over and over again. I wonder whether @justinsunsteemit his team is really understanding the turmoil.
@kerrislravenhill(74)· 2357d
Right On!
@shoemanchu(75)· 2357d
Sitting here waiting for the Communist Justin Shun to be arrested and three exchanges being shut down. The integrity of Cryptocurrency deserves that for this illegal collision. This is why Cryptocurrency will be banned. Just give it some time.... Sell it off before Justin takes your investments to ZERO....Oh and for the Korean's, I thought that they would've learned their lesson from Kim Jung puke but obviously not...
@jasonrussell(70)· 2357d
Still just talking is circles?? Gheesh...