#steem

Feedback Wanted: 4 Week Power Down

Feedback Wanted 4 Week PD.jpg

Hello Steemians, in today’s post we want to talk about the proposal for a 4 week power down and how we plan to approach this issue. We are very excited about the fact that such ideas are being proposed by the community and we think that use of the Steem.DAO to gauge support is an excellent use case for this innovative tool.

Community Support

There is now sufficient community support that we must seriously consider the change. We have begun internal discussions, and we will soon release additional communications intended to provide the community with more information about the nature of this change, the potential risks/rewards, and alternate implementations.

Primary Concerns

Our primary concerns with such changes is that they represent the will of the community without posing a risk to the chain. The Steem.DAO proposal does a great job of quantifying support amongst large stakeholders, but participation in the Steem.DAO is still quite low and users can’t downvote proposals, which limits our ability to extrapolate broad support from these results.

Get Out the Vote!

Ultimately, we will base our decisions on the information we have available to us, and if that is the Steem.DAO proposal, then that is what we will use. If you agree with the proposal, it still helps to head over to the [Steem.DAO and give it a vote](steemitwallet.com/proposals). The more users who do vote on it, the more it becomes clear that support is truly broad. If you do not agree with the proposal then please comment on this article and publish posts clearly stating and outlining your position.

Technical Difficulty

The technical difficulty of this change is quite low because the power down rate is set when the user begins powering down. Currently, when the user begins powering down, the amount they select is divided by 13, and then every week 1/13th of that amount is distributed to the user. To implement this change, all that would be needed is to change that number from 13 to 4. Therefore, this change could be implemented without significantly delaying the SMT hardfork.

Existing power downs would continue on their existing 13 week track, but all new power downs would be for 4 weeks. If you want your existing power down to complete in 4 weeks, it is as simple as cancelling the existing power down and starting a new one! In December of 2016 we reduced the power down time from 104 weeks to 13 weeks. We would follow that pattern and have a high degree of confidence in the simplicity of this change.

Inherent Risk

When it comes to hardfork suggestions, one of our primary concerns is whether the suggested change poses a risk to the security of the chain, or the users of it. We would quantify the risk of this change as “very low.” It is a simple change, that we have done before, and would have limited second order or “knock on” effects. It is, however, a change and any change can have unforeseen consequences.

Economic Risk

The largest potential risk factors are likely in the economic sphere. Will this encourage investment or discourage it? We are not able to assess whether the potential economic upside is worth the potential economic downside, combined with the risk of unforeseeable consequences.

Security Risk

An implicit feature of Steem Power is that it time locks funds. If your account were to be compromised, it takes a week for some of your Steem Power to even be available to the attacker and 13 weeks for them to access it all. By reducing the power down time, an attacker could have access to a larger portion of your funds after just 7 days.

For these reasons, it is imperative that you make your voice heard whether it’s by voting on the proposal, or encouraging others to vote on the proposal and/or post on Steem about their opinion. We’ll continue to release communications about this change so that you can make an informed decision.

Vote!

You can vote on proposals from the Steemit Wallet https://steemitwallet.com/proposals.

We want to give a special thanks to @thecryptodrive for proposing this change and using the Steem.DAO to quantify support.

The Steemit Team

Comments · 143

@arponkabir(6)· 2387d
thanks for help us
@cryptonewz(51)· 2397d
Why make thing complicated for powerdown? Why not making a new choice to powerdown like 1 week, 2 weeks, 3 weeks, 4 weeks and so on by owner will to powerdown if you dont want the hackers get their money.that was their money their responsible to take care good their account. Steemit should be not act like a bank and hold peoples money to long as time is money for some peoples.
@davidsking(35)· 2402d
If you own a PC or mobile phone and have an internet connection you can be making $700+ monthly.

https://steemit.com/money/@davidsking/alid
@julianhorack(76)· 2402d
I'm blown away by the fact that there was once initially a 100 odd week power down! You poor sods. Who in their right mind wants to take two years to unstake and get their own hard-earned money? No wonder it got ditched as a bad idea, fit to benefit perhaps the whales, I don't know.

Now a 13 week power down is already a long time - 3 months. WTF do we do when the price is peaking and we want to sell. Obviously we can't, we have to wait and get what whatever comes to us as the price fluctuates. We are at the total mercy of the price and the system. It sucks. But it has security benefits, lest a hacker access our wallet, so it's tolerable.

Now a 4 week power down sounds much better. DO IT!

It is precisely because of this 13 week block in my flow that no longer power up all my STEEM, only the 50% I'm obliged to. I will stay liquid as much as possible so that I AM IN CONTROL of MY FUNDS. 4 week is better.

I am not as experienced, so this is not an educated answer, just my personal opinion. I'm here for profit - why else would I be here? Isn't that why we are all here, writing and curating - for the MONEY, not for some sentimental attachment to some old blockchain project that we have married. Sure I love to write and blog and communicate like all compulsive communicators (humans) but I wouldn't bother being here if it weren't for the MONEY. So give me more control of my wallet, but keep some security, like the 4 week power down.

And obviously no 5% burn or any % burn for immediate powerdown as that would be the loophole for hackers.
@greenman(65)· 2402d
I would vote to take the risk. Might as well shake things up. What is happening now is nothing for value of steem, so doing nothing is a path disaster for value.
@droida(62)· 2403d
How to vote against this SPS?
@shortsegments(78)· 2403d
I have read with great interest this post and some very well written and impassioned arguments on both sides of this issue, as both those calling for protection and those calling for freedom wrote eloquently and well reasoned comments. I thought the collective knowledge expressed in the thread of comments was impressive and the list of concerns including wallet security and impact on governance were well discussed and showed differing opinions and a spectrum of choices. I must admit that at times I chuckled as I saw concerns for freedom, concerns for protection, concerns for freedom from protection and also calls for protection from freedom. All passionate and well reasoned but the spectrum was a bit humorous.

But as I finished reading for what seemed like an hour, I was struck by this thought. Steemit, the Steem blockchain and the spirit of cryptocurrency isn’t about choosing either one choice or another, it’s about having a choice, and perhaps that’s what we should do, give people a choice.

I have been here two years and I am still learning about the platform and it’s various characteristics. The platform has a learning curve and depending on ones previous cryptocurrency knowledge and level of activity here it takes a variable amount of time to learn how to operate in a secure manner.

I think we should consider two things : first offering a choice to people how much protection they want from the Power Down feature in terms of how many weeks they want to choose to power down their account. Second I think we should discus the impact this could have on governance of the blockchain, witness votes, etc. Currently the long power down period means you need to be committed to tying up your funds for at least 13 weeks, which some feel protects the blockchain from bad actors.

One example cited was whales or exchanges from powering up, influencing governance rule changes which result in them obtaining a large cut of the reward pool and then powering down dumping those gains on the market driving down the price with the dual effect of both taking the majority of the rewards and driving down the value of the remaining rewards.

I don’t know how plausible that occurrence is, and I certainly don’t want this to scare us into inaction, but I desire the opposite.

Most importantly, I think it’s a valuable discussion to utilize all the collective brainpower here to propose changes to improve freedom, choice, attract more people to our platform and our blockchain, as well as review the effects on governance. Let us move forward as a group in the spirit of choice and options, not simply either this choice or that choice, so we can chose certain things based on our knowledge and comfort level, protect the new members of our community, liberate the older members, encourage participation by others outside our current membership, but protect our project.

We are an evolving entity, we will make desirable and undesirable changes whose effects will often only be discovered retrospectively. So a bit of caution and deliberation may be wise.
@electronicsworld(58)· 2404d
@blocktrades options could be as follow:
- make it REP based, which means higher rep accounts gets lower PD time and lower rep will still have higher PD time. This will stimulate lower rep account to be more active and increase their rep. The best thing about it is that lower rep users are there since less time than high rep users and are more vulnerable for hacks and phishing atempts thus maintaining a higher PD would protect them more compared to high rep accounts who have been there since a while and are less vulnerable.
- Create a notifying messaging system, through email or through a notification on the different apps, to let users confirm through the click of a link in their inbox the PD or even let user confirm the PD through a onetime key passcode through a mobile message making it very very much harder for hackers to access sms on a device.
@abitcoinskeptic(75)· 2404d
Personally I think just changing it to 4 weeks from 13 is too simple of a solution.
@querdenker(61)· 2404d
I'm against a reduction. Everything should stay the way it is. I think it's a big account initiative to get Steem out faster. Yours Querdenker
@adikuala(50)· 2405d
Nice good and good post
@d00k13(76)· 2405d
When speaking to anyone about potential investment in the platform having to lock your power up for 13 weeks is a big negative, hinders ability to respond to the market and steers them away from our platform as an investment.

Currently I’d say that those who are invested are the believers in our future and we should allow those people to do as they choose with their hard earned stake supporting their efforts and agendas.
@coininstant(69)· 2405d
I like having myS TEEM locked up longer because it feels safer. If I get hacked I may not even notice in 4 weeks, but I surely would in13 weeks!! Also, since I have multiple accounts, that would mean I'd have to check on them all every 4 weeks???,I don't think so!!!

The other issue will include the increased supply hitting the exchanges. I'm sure there would be much more selling!! This would probably cut the price of steem by 1/3rd, back down to 10 cents for a while until the markets digested the new supply rates!!
@jekhy(7)· 2405d
Thanks for the post.
@gimp(52)· 2405d
YES, FOR FUCKS SAKE THAT WAS WHAT WE WANTED BACK IN 2016 BEFORE EVERYONE LEFT! - 48 HOUR POWER DOWN AND NO FLAGGING - BUT NO... YOU CLOWNS HAD TO SCREW THE PLATFORM OVER INSTEAD. ENJOY YOUR $94.84.

I HAD EIGHT STEEMIT ACCOUNTS AND $80k IN SP ONCE - LOL - GLAD I SOLD IT BEFORE THE CRASH BUT THAT BLOODY 13 WEEK POWER DOWN COST ME A FUCKING FORTUNE - NO WAY I'D INVEST IN A CRYPTO THAT I CAN'T BAIL OUT OF AGAIN...
@michelangelo3(65)· 2405d
In my view, there is no hurry to reduce PD to 4 weeks, it would be better to combine it with 2FA in a future HF.

I think there are much more important things right now. For example, take a look at the accounts mainly benefit from the Rewardpool and counteract abuse. Improve the conditions for small accounts with a reward curve that reduces high rewards - the opposite of the HF22 curve.
@mysearchisover(70)· 2405d
How about an 8 week compromise? lol
@jaydih(72)· 2405d
- Dynamic(Selective) Length of Power Up and Down / 다이나믹(선택적) 파워 업과 다운 기간
@mima2606(72)· 2405d
Please leave it as it is. I don't think it will do the steem any good to cut down on time. If someone wants to trade, they don't have to convert their steem into steem power.
@oliverschmid(70)· 2406d
I wouldn't change that.
@atego(62)· 2406d
I find @jaki01 proposal interesting if you really wanted to change something about the Power Down at least allows users to decide for themselves whether the Power Down should last 4 or 13 weeks VgA
@cryptospa(78)· 2406d
@steemitblog, this is a great proposal! Definitely, a shortening of the powerdown process is a step into the right direction.

I've been an economist for over 20 years and I think that shortening of the powerdown process will impact positively the STEEM ecosystem. Why? ... The explanation is very simple: freedom, flexibility, etc. We have to be able to operate with our funds as freely as possible. I am not interested in buying Steem and powering up if I have to wait 13 weeks for a powerdown. It simply makes my investment locked-in and hence vulnerable to price risk.

So, the answer is very simple: the easier the process to have control over my money, the more attractive Steem ecosystem is. So, simply initiate the reduction of the time of the powerdown process from 13 weeks to 4 weeks. This is my point of view.
@muscara(70)· 2406d
Shorter Power Down Period? You want to keep your cake and eat it too.

Totally against it. Not only for security reasons, but I think it's bad for the stability of the blockchain.
@afrog(69)· 2406d
AGAINST!!! It is a very bad idea. Stop this weakening of our stakes!
@double-u(73)· 2406d
Hi, three days ago I already left this comment:

"Hi, I am strongly against the reduction to 4 weeks! The security would be severely compromised. I only see disadvantages. If you want your STEEMs available, store them as tradable tokens. Thank you!"

Having seen today that the proposal to vote against the reduction ends after 35 days, I would like to tell you that I find it completely inadmissible that the proposal to vote for the reduction has 3 months more time.

The result will be doubted on this basis.

Please also allow 3 months from now on for the proposal to vote against the reduction.

Thank you!
@jekhy(7)· 2407d
Thanks for the post.
@allcapsonezero(64)· 2407d
The halving in 2020. The 4 week power down conversation now. Coincidence? Nope.
@dana-edwards(75)· 2407d
Why an arbitrary 4 weeks? Why not 1 week? Why not 24 hours? This inane to me.
@clayop(74)· 2407d
I am totally for reducing powerdown period. It is also obvious that reducing the period would increase security issue when an account is compromised. But it is also important that investors have lower barriers. Moreover, I believe that powerdown period is not a core issue for community development, as well said by @project7.
@acta(51)· 2407d
Sounds very much like catering to the will of a few. Who will want to be able to power down when the SMT's are released live.

Those funds will be needed to suport the structure of the SMT's

Very clever to make two proposals. That way be it a yes or no, the votes are gained.

On these type of post the reward should be void
@mexbit(61)· 2407d
This will do to the price of Steem the same thing like the EIP. half it.... If you would ask if the usera would prefr a 1 week powerdown people would vote for that as well.

you are reducing the standing of people committed to this chain after removing the investors passive incone possibilities...

The 500 people who voted for that have a high probability to do just that. Dump...
@crescendoofpeace(64)· 2407d
I'm not convinced that it's needed, nor am I convinced that it is a good idea.

Great arguments have been made on both sides, so I won't reiterate them here, except to say that there should remain a choice between the 13-week and 4-week power downs, that any burn-for-immediate-powerdown be opt-in ONLY, and that personally, I consider burning steem for any purpose to be in contravention to the original idea behind steem, not that Steemit Inc. has adhered to those early ideals in any real way.

What I've seen, in my 2+ years on the platform, is that whales get what they want, and screw the rest of us, pretty much every time.

I'm hoping that this time is different, but I'm not holding my breath.

Your track record precedes you.
@wedacoalition(64)· 2408d
I love this idea
@logiczombie(67)· 2408d
I believe this is a bad idea.

The whole point of powering-up-your-steem is to take it out of circulation and stabilize the economy.

The longer you keep it powered-up, the more effectively it serves its purpose.

It also serves as a type of LOYALTY OATH.

A better "update" would be to give people the option to PERMANENTLY power-up-their-steem!!!

That way we could all stop hearing about the BURNPOSTS.
@crypto.piotr(65)· 2408d
Dear @steemitblog

If you agree with the proposal, it still helps to head over to the Steem.DAO and give it a vote. The more users who do vote on it, the more it becomes clear that support is truly broad

What about possibility of voting AGAINST?

Support surely is very broad because @cryptodrive has enormous network of connections. And I value his work myself a lot.

However there is also many users who disagree with that proposal. And I'm also one of them.

I've been on STEEM for almost 2 years, which isn't very impressive but I had enough time to learn and understand economy behind this token.

When I think about proposed 4 powering down period - I simply do not see much benefits for that change.

In theory it does make sense. But personally I don't see any way that shortening power down period would actually encourage or discourage investors to get involved in steem. I just don't see it happening.

So I wouldn't expect growing demand - however I would expect possibility of rapid price drop whenever some FUD regarding STEEM would hit the news. People are easily panicking, powering down and selling whatever they can and 13 weeks power down period was one thing that protected us from such a scenario.

Definetly changing into 4 weeks power down period will cause short term extreme selling pressure. All those that are powering down right now (because they want to get rid of steem and are done with this blockchain) - all those users will power down almost instantly. And dump all that liquid steem on the market.

I see so many negatives and positives are quite limited.

Yours, Piotr
@jeff-kubitz(67)· 2408d
Any plans should account for the discovery of downvote bots with zero steem or steempower that able downvote a post 10 percent of its reward value
@blocktrades(80)· 2408d
Please note, there are now two proposals issued to obtain proper community sentiment IN FAVOUR or AGAINST the 4 Week Power Down change. PROPOSAL IN FAVOUR: https://steemit.com/steemdao/@thecryptodrive/hf-proposal-vote-to-reduce-power-down-period-to-4-weeks PROPOSAL AGAINST: https://steemit.com/steemdao/@thecryptodrive/hf-proposal-vote-against-reducing-power-down-period-to-4-weeks

Note that it is my understanding that this is voting for this change in isolation, without considering other changes that might mitigate the effects of this change.

I'm temporarily upvoting this comment for visibility...
@andyblack(63)· 2408d
Do not do this, the steem price will fall dramatically after the 4 weeks power down...
@ivan-perez-anies(67)· 2408d
Una de las características mas importantes de la inversión en Steem es la seguridad que te da el tenerlo en Power Up y que cueste mucho salir del "plazo fijo". Los especuladores tienen otras criptos con las que jugar. Yo no veo bien que el Power Down sea de 4 semanas, estoy cómodo con las 13 actuales.
@thecryptodrive(70)· 2408d
Please note, there are now two proposals issued to obtain proper community sentiment IN FAVOUR or AGAINST the 4 Week Power Down change.

PROPOSAL IN FAVOUR:

https://steemit.com/steemdao/@thecryptodrive/hf-proposal-vote-to-reduce-power-down-period-to-4-weeks

PROPOSAL AGAINST:

https://steemit.com/steemdao/@thecryptodrive/hf-proposal-vote-against-reducing-power-down-period-to-4-weeks
@lorenzopistolesi(72)· 2408d
Are you seelling your soul to the market?

Hi to all Steemians. As artist, Steemit believer and economist, I'll vote again the 4 weeks reduction Power Down.

Why?

Because Steemit it is not Steem. Because on Steemit we need long term investors more the pump and dump scalpers. 13 weeks allow to better trust our Steemit Boat, the more you trust the more you stake, that's the power. We should rather go to 20 weeks or even 30 weeks. This help also to stabilize Steem price. We need a more stable price of Steem. Investors can trade Steem directly on the market, but if they want to encourage Steemit users they need to stay for at least 13 weeks or more

It involves to better set up curation system, adoption and cross-chain with other content related blockchains. This must be a strategic important action : cross-chain.
@onthewayout(62)· 2408d
Given the fact that there are several voices expressing their disaproval I would suggest not to include this change in the current HF. This is too contentious to include it in the SMT HF (even if the change in the code is trivial).
@cardanoguru(51)· 2408d
no.
@pnc(65)· 2408d
I don't support this changes. It's not bringing anything positive to the community. The 13 weeks powerdown was a features designed not only to protect users, but to encourage long term engagement.
@thethreehugs(62)· 2409d
Resteemed by @thethreehugs
@alucian(73)· 2409d
4 Week Power Down is a little bit to short in my thinking. 7 Weeks sounds better. Salve Alucian
@double-u(73)· 2409d
Hi, I am strongly against the reduction to 4 weeks! The security would be severely compromised. I only see disadvantages. If you want your STEEMs available, store them as tradable tokens. Thank you!
@arcange(79)· 2409d
Congratulations @steemitblog! Your post was mentioned in the Steem Hit Parade in the following categories:
- Comments - Ranked 1 with 217 comments
- Pending payout - Ranked 1 with $ 81,32
@enforcer48(75)· 2409d
This proposal is lame.

I am more interested in a combination of @therealwolf's dynamic schedule and @joshman's different strata of power up idea.
@fedismaoui(45)· 2409d
hello steemit and i hope that you dont spam me , i need some support from you . i m using this website since two years and i couldnt increase my account at all . peace to you all from north africa .
@fedismaoui(45)· 2409d
hello steemit and i hope that you dont spam me , i need some support from you . i m using this website since two years and i couldnt increase my account at all . peace to you all from north africa .
@denis-skripnik(50)· 2409d
OK, but I would change it for 10 weeks:1. It's safer than 4 weeks; 2. 10 is easier to divide.
@bozz(83)· 2409d
Personally, I think it would be cool if you still offered both options. If you take the longer option (current 90 days?) you get the full payout. If you take the shorter option (4 weeks) you have to pay a 10% fee that gets burned to null. That seems like it would be a good trade off between increasing the value of the token and people pumping an dumping.
@ae1000(25)· 2409d
Thanks
@coingecko(71)· 2409d
We at @coingecko would advise against commiting to such changes to the core underlying blockchain. The initial proposal for 13 weeks power down was made with a security feature in mind. The aim is to safeguard token holders which as we've seen are clearly not as security-savvy as the typical users of bitcoin or ether, which has the ecosystem to support 3rd party solutions such as custodial wallets or 2nd layer solutions such as brain keys.

It is a dangerous slope to arbitrarily change such time frames, why not 3 weeks? 2? why not follow EOS's 3 days? These will potentially be the questions the community will raise again once this precedence has been set.

From the original post, we understood that the aim of reducing the power down period is to make it more attractive to investors by reducing their risk exposure.

Even so, we would advise the whole community to reevaluate Steem's USP and take into account if reducing lock-in period actually pushes the needle to convince investors to commit their funds.

To make it truly attractive for investors to lock in their funds for X amount of time for a promise of Y returns, we recommend a comparison against the many Masternodes cryptocurrency already in existence.

Here's a nifty filtered list we've prepapred: https://www.coingecko.com/en?category_id=41&view=market
@tarekadam(67)· 2409d
I support the 4 week power down proposal and voted for it as well. To me this is a no brainer given the price and marketcap development of Steem in the last 24 month. No serious investor wants to lock their investment for 3 month! One month is already long but much better than what we currently have.

I am very surprised of the comments made by a few of the top witnesses here and wonder if they have any sense of economics?
- A shorter lockdown period means potentially more large investors are willing to power up rather than dump Steem on exchanges.
- More locked up Steem will reduce supply and therefore increases the price per Steem.
- A higher Steem price attracts new users and investors to join Steem and Steemit.
@suonghuynh(50)· 2409d
Stolen account recovery change to 4 weeks same as powering down time that could be a solution!
@sepracore(64)· 2409d
I am sure this is somewhere in the comments. Why doesn’t someone make a counter proposal so people against 4 week power downs can vote on that. Only makes sense. Then everyone can vote.
@mdalaminhossin(4)· 2409d
Hi ,,,,,. How about an,,,,,,,,,,,, internal exchange,,,,,,,,,,,,,,so to steem,,,,,,, thanks you so much,,,,,,,,,,, Great nice 👌,,,,,,,💫💫💫
@oselinkz(43)· 2409d
Although I'm new here and barely understand my way around, I'm so happy with the flurry of replies I'm seeing and I know with time we will make this community better for us all.
@denmarkguy(79)· 2409d
I'm leaning against this; not because I think we need to hold on to people's stakes but because we have an inherent "structural" problem relating to how Steem is presented — and presents itself — to the world:

Everything here is always presented/marketed in terms of participating here in order to gain current income, rather than gaining from long term price appreciation. Well, if that's what we're telling people... then we're missing the mark on making long-term holding an attractive idea.

From reading all these comments, the closest to anything that makes sense is what @therealwolf offered... instead of penalizing people, or "locking up" their stakes, make it more attractive to commit to a long-term hold. Let's say (only an example) you hold for a year, you get the full inflation gain. Hold for 6 months, you get 75%. Hold for three months... you only get 50%. A month? 25%. And so forth... it's like any pension plan, medical savings plan, even investment plan... IT TAKES TIME TO VEST YOUR STAKE.

Psychology is important here... we may be talking about negligible amounts in terms of real money but people are very funny about "giving up" a higher guaranteed return... it's like losing something, and people hate to lose.
@hilarski(76)· 2409d
Nope from me, it seems to be an unnecessary change. It gives people 13 weeks to figure out if their account has been hacked for one and it also incentivizes hodling. There were times when I benefited greatly as the price was rising in 2017. If I received the powerdown quicker I would have lost a ton of money and yes I realize this can go the other way to.
@evolved08gsr(58)· 2409d
Stop it. No way we're going to change Steem(it) to a 4 week power down. You might as well just say we're going to make it 3 days.

If you're looking for a way to get the SBD peg back to $1 so you can cash-in on your profits, sure, great idea. If you're thinking about the long-term value of Steem, this is a Terrible idea.
@dmilliz(73)· 2409d
I personally think 4 weeks is too short. It makes SP seem less valuable. 7 weeks would be better I believe with the option to burn 5% to unstake in 7 days. ( as @theycallmedan mentioned ). The sink makes sense, charge those who want out out quickly.
@lextenebris(64)· 2409d
I really hate to get in on this, given the people that I'm going to be agreeing with – but let's be frank, the whole idea of locking up your funds for an extended amount of time with the core system (as opposed to another user/agent) is part of why there really isn't that much interest in investing in the Steem blockchain. And we all know that's true.

Security is no part of the issue. None. That is a red herring being dragged across the path in order to deceive you. How many bits of security theater are there attached to wallet interactions on the Steem blockchain as it is? We have three significant passwords, at least two add on blockchain security manager plug-ins, and everyone is informed upfront that their wallet is literally that – their wallet which is full of money and if they lose it, it's just like dropping your wallet in the street. No one can say they were not appraised of the situation. No one can say that they were not informed that there passwords were important.

A 13 versus four-week power down time makes absolutely no difference, because if you haven't noticed by 15 minutes after the first powerdown request went through, you're not going to notice. You aren't looking. You aren't being notified. You aren't paying attention. You have dropped your wallet in the street and don't go through a sensible patdown ritual every time you leave the house. You are not engaged in due diligence.

And that's not my problem.

So let's stop trying to pretend that "the security issue" is real.

What is real is that requiring funds to be locked up in order to receive part of the reward pool is a tacit admission by the designers and developers that holding STEEM is not, has not, and is not expected to be financially viable. If they believed that to be the case, if they believed it to be a useful token, then merely possessing it in your account would be sufficient for rewards to be allocated to you. For exactly the same reason that I earn interest on my checking account when I carry money inside of it but the bank has no expectation that I will necessarily carry a significant balance at any given time and allows me free access to the entirety. They know that the money will be in there. They give me a benefit because while money is in there, they are able to make money by loaning it to other people and thus generate value.

The Steem blockchain is not predicated on the assumption that it will have any value. As such, the only way that they can artificially create that value is to introduce artificial scarcity, "locking up" those tokens in exchange for the theoretical possibility that someone will make more of those tokens by being active on the blockchain.

A bank can guarantee increased value extracted for themselves from static money in accounts because they push activity through it. They loan it to others and collect it. STEEM is not being held by a central active agent who is making use of banked STEEM. In theory, that is why delegation in exchange for payout has any traction at all, but just as importantly it's why there is a bot ecology; static SP earns no value and a machine can keep SP moving and active far more efficiently than a human being.

That's both the technical and the philosophical problems of the situation as it stands. It's based on a lie right alongside an invalid premise. It is significantly responsible for many of the problems that we have on this blockchain.

There is one more argument which is almost recursive, and to make it I will simply direct your attention to the other comments in this thread. How many of them boiled down to, "if people could immediately pull their money out, no one would keep their money in the Steem blockchain"? 75% of them.

Is that not sufficiently damning?

If some of the biggest holders of the token honestly and earnestly repeatedly tell you that unless people are forced to keep their money in the bank they might have the unabashed goal to take it out and spend it, then you should immediately be concerned. That should waive one of the biggest red flags that you've ever seen about cryptocurrency in general and the Steem blockchain and specific. They are stating, without hesitation, that they believe that same, rational, sensible people wouldn't keep their money here, that the benefits of holding SP are insufficient to keep people invested without forcing them to be invested.

That is an essential level of distrust. It's being espoused by some of the most active and respected people on the blockchain. They are telling you what they truly believe – and it would be both impolite and unwise not to take them at their word.

All of those are reasons that you should be in favor of a four-week power down. Even if you have no intention of pulling your money out. Even if you have every intention of putting more money in. Especially if you believe there is truly value to be found in the Steem blockchain.

There are strong arguments for suggesting there should be no powerdown delay. We aren't dealing with those. We are specifically talking about a four-week powerdown.

If the Steem blockchain is so volatile and so sensitive that it can't deal with me investing my money this month with the expectation of making a certain amount of additional money and then taking out my initial investment next month – we aren't talking about something with real value. We aren't talking about something that qualifies as a currency at all. We aren't talking about something that was ever intended to be a currency. We aren't talking about something that has inherent value because it can be used.

It's that last point which is perhaps the most disturbing. There has long been a social expectation among cryptocurrency enthusiasts in general and STEEM folk in specific that it is somehow unclean to actually expect to be able to use your money. That the highest calling is merely to HODL and nothing else. That trading your token for other things you might want dirties both you and the token.

I want to tell you right now: that is bullshit.

But that's what you're being told. That is what people are trying to convince you of.

Why do people invest in currencies? Not so they can own it – but so they can sell it. So they can exchange it for something else of perceived higher value. So that it can be used. People don't buy US dollars because they're required to sit on it for three months; they buy US dollars because they know they can sell them tomorrow, in six weeks, in a year, in 10 years, or in 15 minutes, in exchange for value. People don't buy gold so they can sit on it (without developing a scaly disposition); they buy gold because they know gold will always be valuable, because it can be sold in 15 minutes, tomorrow, in six months, in a year, in 10 years.

Mechanically forcing investors and worse, small account holders, to sit on their money says very publicly that the people making decisions don't believe that the token has value. Or, more accurately, that its actual value is significantly less than what one can earn with it, and thus people must be forced to hold it for a period of time because they would not otherwise choose to.

That is a problem. That is a huge signal. It's a big red flag and the Steem blockchain has been waving it for a while.

Will changing the power down time to four weeks fix that? At this point, probably not. But it's a damn sight better than what we have now.
@azircon(79)· 2409d
I am an investor. Not a fan of 4 week powerdown. Not sure what purpose it would serve other than an elevated security risk. People who want a quick flip are in the wrong chain. Didn’t vote the proposal. My main concern is the challenge of governance otherwise we can put some serious money in relatively easily.

Also many people are talking about serious “investors”. I think I am missing something, but if I compare Steem with VC (venture Capital) there is significant lock up period. Most IPOs have 3-6 months lock period. Employees stock options have 1 year or more lock up period. These are all conventional financial interments. Clearly shows a lack of understanding on what people call investor in this tiny 60 million dollar market cap coin!
@novacadian(65)· 2409d
My proposal:

https://beta.steemit.com/steemdao/@novacadian/q4jfxb
@orcish(71)· 2409d
To be honest, Steem is the only cryptocurrency where I have my own privet keys and truly feel like my funds are protected and safe from hackers and or being lost. I feel that changing the powerdown time is a huge security risk and I would oppose it 100%
@techcoderx(67)· 2409d
Reducing the powerdown period to 4 weeks is not a good idea imo, and will not attract new people as 4 weeks powerdown is still a time delay that still deters people from powering up. All it does is allow hackers to have access to larger portion of the funds in 7 days.

I would say keep the powerdown period at 13 weeks and allow users to opt-in an ability to do an instant powerdown with a 5% burn with their owner key, which will only take effect after the 30-day account recovery window. They will be warned by the interface that "by proceeding with this operation, your funds stored in vesting will no longer be secured with the time delay". Of course, users can do the reverse and disable the instant powerdown, which takes effect immediately (no 30-day waiting period) and can safely be done with an active key.

The instant powerdown feature may be initially set to be enabled/disabled at account creation.
@travelnepal(66)· 2409d
Will this effect on vote Value?
@steemitboard(66)· 2409d
Congratulations @steemitblog! You have completed the following achievement on the Steem blockchain and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :

Your post was the most commented on one day

_{You can view your badges on your Steem Board and compare to others on the Steem Ranking} _{If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word STOP}

To support your work, I also upvoted your post!

Vote for @Steemitboard as a witness to get one more award and increased upvotes!
@ronel(61)· 2409d
Whose idea is this "4 week power down"? Who suggest it? I guess we must know so that we will know how reputable or how expert or how experience this person is. And we will know the history of this person and could weigh things further for a good rebuttal on the idea he presented.
@chesatochi(73)· 2409d
We can clearly see this change will be approved but a lot of folks seem to be against it!
@theabsolute(65)· 2409d
I don't know what the process should be, but it would be nice to have some higher Steem prices. Also, we should either get SBD to $1 or get rid of it. It is the least stable "stablecoin" out there. Sure, it was great when it went over $10 but if it isn't maintaining at least $1 something needs to change. Others have pointed out that it is possible to have SP delegated anyway, which brings up a good point.
@danmaruschak(76)· 2409d
This seems like a bad idea to me. It seems like it is a feature that might be desirable for speculators and others who like high volatility. Thirteen weeks seems like a short time to me relative to traditional investments, not a long time. My understanding is that an aspiration for the Steem blockchain is mainstream adoption, and I think features which favor volatility and speculation work against that. Additionally, people who don't want their value tied up behind the powerdown window already have a solution: liquid steem. Why do they need a second one, at the expense of all the risk this change poses to the economy?
@socky(73)· 2409d
Don't even go there. How much money has been invested so far, and you want to change the rules? What else do you want to change? The rate at which STEEM is created? The ability to make major economic changes to the blockchain does not make for a stable platform for the currency. My advice is to delete this post so you don't lose credibility.

Answer: Hell NO!
@joshman(74)· 2409d
Leave steem power up as is at 13 weeks. Make the savings bucket a quasi power up that gets stripped of delegation, witness and sps voting rights, but lets you vote content, and gives you resources. Leave the withdrawal at 3 days or make it instant, build clear warnings into the UI. That way, only the people who vest for 13 weeks get a say in how the show is run, get improved security. The pop tart traders can pop tart to their hearts content.

Not many use savings anyhow...
@mostaza(28)· 2409d
Gracias por comunicarnos esta información, yo no sabia eso, pero la verdad prefiero que no cambie tanto la red, apenas la estoy entendiendo como es ahora, jajajaj.
@ropaga(57)· 2409d
Steem.DAO function is for funding projects, not creating proposals. Furthermore, I don´t like the name of Steem proposals. It is a business incubator, a crowdfunding system... I do not know what exactly name use to describe it, but it´s not (and should never be) a voting system in my opinion.

I would only consider the comments of the proposal post (and this one too), not the number of votes or their stake value at @steem.DAO

I would like to see the debate at @steemalliance too

I am against any change in the power down system, but I appreciate the debate.
@gandhibaba(75)· 2409d
I completely stand with @blocktrades and @aggroed on this. There is no need to reduce the powerdown to 4 weeks because of the severe economic consequences of such actions. Those who can't stand the 13 weeks powerdown period should rather not power up their Steem. What I honestly see with those pushing for 4 weeks is that they want to have their cakes and eat it. I say NO to the proposal.
@eastmael(69)· 2409d
I'm against the proposal as well. Just expressing my vote.

Posted using Partiko Android
@mattclarke(71)· 2409d
Firm 'No' from me. We could bypass the issue entirely by having an option to make SP transferable; but only when the account is started. Choose your account name and select whether/not SP should be transferable. (default 'Off' for security reasons) with no option to change it. Existing users would need to start a new account; power down and send STEEM to the new account; but then they could buy and sell SP like they do with STEEM. If I plan to power it up anyway, I'd rather buy SP at a discount from a guy who wants to move out quickly. Let the market decide the size of the haircut.
@lunaticpandora(70)· 2409d
I don't like this change at all, specially due to the security concerns, I feel safe knowing that if my account gets compromised, I'll have enough time to react and not lose out on much most likely... although I am someone willing to compromise and I feel like it would be better to settle it @ 10 weeks, that way you power down 10% of your account each week, nice and comfy math, doesn't make me nervous as 4 weeks and its still a good chunk for those that want to sell on high pumps.
@metafizix(31)· 2409d
good stuff! and now for a cigarette.
@joeypark(72)· 2409d
I agree with 4 weeks power down, but as far as I know, someone told me in order to recover your key, it requires at least 1 week.

So, my conclusion is If the period of key recovery is maximum 3 days, I definitely agree with this!
@josepimpo(73)· 2409d
!giphy moon
@gduran(68)· 2409d
Four weeks or thirteen weeks? Look as a user sometimes I do need money urgently and powering down instantly could be a great option (Ok right now price is so low powering down is really not a good idea, not with the SP I have). But instant has its drawbacks the main one security, are we willing to forfeit security for the chance to withdraw our funds as soon as we want them? But if we do need it urgently and its not instant I don't see the difference between thirteen weeks or four weeks, I still wouldn't get the money on time. So weighing these in I think personally I would vote to remain with the thirteen week system, it is less risky.
@bluerobo(70)· 2409d
Do it!

Users who like SP will have it powered up. No matter what.

It always looks sleazy when you are presented with extreme lock-ups.

Posted using Partiko Android
@clixmoney(78)· 2409d
I'm all for 4 weeks power down. We need more powerful investors to try steem. They won't lock their money for 13 weeks just to try it. But, for a month they more likely do so, to try it how it works. If they like it, they will stay, if not leave. We can't forse anyone to stay even if it's more than 13 weeks. It will be also easier for steemians to invite people and to teach them about steem. I hope this change will be implemented soon. 19 million steem power voted on it !
@actifit-peter(72)· 2409d
The economic risc is too high in my opinion! A I notice since many months, too many people are powering down and after that change there probably would be much more, resulting in more and more people leaving the platform. A decisive NO, please keep the 13 weeks powerdown time.
@freebornangel(72)· 2409d
If changing this is as easy as making a 13 a 4, why the fug are we paying a proposal to do it? Does coding time really cost this much? I'm smelling a rat.

I'm a no, on 4 weeks, but 10 might be ok. Get ten percent out a week.

What i haven't seen optioned is changing the weekly payout to a daily payout. Shortening the initial wait to 5 days, from the current 7, would help, too.

Start your powerdown, 5 days later you begin daily payouts totaling 10% a week.

I'm sure this option will take too much time away from the walkabout, so instead, it is my opinion we should change the 13 to 52, and see how folks like that.
@drutter(73)· 2409d
If the insiders make this change, it's not because it will benefit the community or the platform, it's because it will benefit them. That's how we got HF20 and HF21 with the NewSteem cult. Every "fix" ends up actually being another problem, another reason for the Steem price to crash, another thing keeping people from signing up here, another thing forcing content-creators away. This will get rid of the whale abuse! This will get rid of bots! This will get rid of spam! This will get rid of reward pool rape! All promises so that changes are accepted. It's the Hegelian dialectic - problem, reaction, solution. They have a solution in mind, so they create or bring up a problem, and the community reacts (or just acquiesces), and the solution is implemented.

"Feedback wanted" is a lie. Whenever you see "feedback wanted about _____" on Steemit, it means _____ has already been decided by the insiders, and is about to happen.

Here comes 4 week power downs, everybody!
@project7(67)· 2409d
I believe that the most fun time using Steem/Steemit was during 2nd half of 2017 to 1st half of 2018. Especially in the Korean community, there were loads of famous people/bloggers moved to Steemit during this time. One of my Steemit posts was selected as top 3rd number of views, and it was pretty exciting seeing my Steemit article shared via a variety of platforms outside, attracting other bloggers joining Steemit.

The reason why this time was the most fun is NOT all about the price peak. It was all about the people. Don't get me wrong. I'm not talking about the royal people. It was the time when ALL KIND OF PEOPLE were gathering in Steemit such as royal Steemiana, bloggers, investors, gamblers, abusers, ... It was the most time when there were a huge amount of conflicts, fighting, argument, and so much more things were happening.

I strongly believe that attracting a large number of people who comes from all different backgrounds/needs should be the most important core rather than letting only royal people stay in this place. Why? It's so simple. It gives a fun, more value, more reason to be royal for some people, and more attractive reason to invest on my valuable money and time.

For this reason, I completely agree with the 4-weeks power down period.

p.s.: I invested over $40K my personal money on Steem, powering up, and never power down till now, and the money becomes less than $3K. People who need power down will do anyway regardless of the power down period limitation, and this SHOULDN'T be our core to maintain.
@improv(73)· 2409d
No. Why? Who wants this?

Posted using Partiko Android
@mcoinz79(73)· 2409d
I like the idea where it requires a token burn
@fsm-liquid(48)· 2409d
I am for reducing it to 4 weeks only because all SMTs will follow it until custom power down for SMTs is implemented otherwise I believe it won't bring any real benefit for the risks already mentioned by others. Ideally I want users to stake as long as they want but there must be incentive to stake for long aside from extra security. Here's my proposed implementation from my discussion with @therealwolf from some time before.

Instead of higher APR from staking for longer period, what do you think about witness and SPS voting power multiplier? For example we can stake for 1 week, 2 weeks, 3 weeks, and so on with upper limit. STEEM staked for 1 week has x1 voting power multiplier for witnesses and SPS STEEM staked for 2 weeks has x2 voting power multiplier for witnesses and SPS STEEM staked for 3 weeks has x3 voting power multiplier for witnesses and SPS up to the upper limit This will be very simple to implement (at least compared to separate inflation pools or multitiered privileges you propose above and I proposed before on thecryptodrive's post) and comes with completely custom stake periods. Power down will need a rework like example below: An account has 100 STEEM staked for 2 weeks and 20 STEEM staked for 3 weeks, they start a power down. After 1 week passes since power down is initiated the account will have 100 STEEM staked for 1 week and 20 STEEM staked for 2 weeks. After 2 weeks passes since power down is initiated the account will have 100 liquid STEEM and 20 STEEM staked for 1 week. After 3 weeks passes since power down is initiated the account will have 120 liquid STEEM

This implementation allows minnows to have a say on governance if they are willing to stake for a long time while whales that only seek to milk the system won't dare to stake for long. The maximum duration exists to prohibit people to stake for like 100 years to gain ridiculous vote multiplier, just set the maximum to 104 weeks (or just 100) like the old powerdown timer. When thinking about combining it with burn instant powerdown @theycallmedan proposed, the burn fee can scale with the stake duration (ex: 1 week stake have 1% fee for instant powerdown, 2 week stake have 2% fee, and so on) This implementation is definitely way more complex than just changing a variable but I believe it's win-win for absolutely everyone except abusers.
@nicanor-mosquera(68)· 2410d
Personally it seems like a bad idea to change the powerdown system, if something works well do not change it.
@tonytrillions(68)· 2410d
I am strongly supporting this Power Down Notion. In my personal view:
1. It will attract more consumers to the platform since the liquidation period will be reduced hence quicker and on point cash out.
2. It will help more increase the Power Up stats since people will know it's quite quick to cash out.
3. A penalty for early Power Down aint necessary cause you don't know my reason for powering Up a milli steem coins. Prolly its my safe haven and I got grudges with my local banking services. Steemit being decentralised should not penalize early power downs. That shows that the system is centralised and to add on that point, Powering up my steem is not in anyway comparable to staking my fixed savings account and breaking it before the prime time. Steemit is a different case.
4. 4 weeks power down will help increase the rate at which prominent steemers post using this platform since....you know...its a quick cash out as usual 😎
5. This will attract more developers using other currencies such as ethereum which is a tad competition for steem.
6. It will increase the transaction rates in the blockchain system and that might help change the price on a regular basis. I need to wake up to $10 per steem. Powering Down my first week doesn't mean am quitting the platform. I am my own captain and I sink with the ship
7. 13 weeks compared to 4 weeks is relatively exhibits a grand transit in that I will be calculating my SP Power Down In terms of quarterly basis instead of 13 weeks. 4 weeks = 1 month 13 weeks =3-3.5 months. Such a long time.
I gave 7 solid reasons for 7 week days.

I accept steem tips and engine tokens on the regular. Help boost your friendly minnow pal.
@mcfarhat(71)· 2410d
It is clear there are users rooting for both sides of the fence, to proceed with the 4 week powerdown, or not.

Although we are generally supportive of giving more flexibility to the Steem users, and we had voted the relevant SPS, yet we did have a discussion several months back about this same topic on slack, and were more inclined to support a more restrictive approach, whereby the condition to move ahead with a fast power down, requires burning of a portion of the funds being powered down. This would be more valuable and create a win win situation.

Additional supporting points against the move include the security concerns, which many have already pointed out in the comments. Those are very valid IMHO, and need to be taken into consideration as security and loss of funds is of top priority.

Based on the reasons above, we believe the move ahead with the change requires extensive study and formulation, the basis of which can be a wealth of great comments and feedback within this current post, and hence we believe this change should not be part of the upcoming HF, as it already includes SMTs as a major functionality.
@demotruk(75)· 2410d
Strongly opposed.
@bashadow(70)· 2410d
It is a simple fix. So if this is a desire then it should be a one item stand alone HF, and not part of some other HF. Governments are great at putting in undesirable items in major bills to slow the process of legislation down, do the people in the world of Crypto in Steem Block Chain, want to be viewed as a Standard Governmental Operating Block Chain where they hide the undesirable with the desirable.

If it truly is a system that is decentralized and not Governmentized, then let the proposal stand on it's own merits in it's own HF, and then we will see if the People really wanted it.
@shharafat(67)· 2410d
You should give importance everyones logic.Decision is yours.
@georgeboya(67)· 2410d
I support the change to 4 weeks and i believe it will bring more people and also small investors. Not everyone starts using steemit with commitment in mind, all start using it as an experiment and through involvement commitment may come. I think 13 weeks sounds a little suspicious for an outsider and discouraging for a small investor to play around with steem and leave, if he likes. in a short amount of time.

What i see is that we have the committed users in one hand, that produce quality material and engage with the community and on the other, a mass of low quality posts users upload for various reasons. What we do not have is sth in between, people that want to invest, lets say 500$, play the game and leave 1000$ in short time. Use Steem as a side project and pop up from time to time. But they will need flexibility and freedom and the 4 weeks powerdown will play a big part in this.
@gtg(76)· 2410d
I'm not a fan of this idea, but also I'm not that strongly against it to say "never, ever". Simple change 13 -> 4 is a bad idea. IMHO, we, as a platform are not ready for that.

Security concerns (stolen account recovery)

Please note that stolen account recovery period is now 30 days, which means, that after user was hacked and their key was changed, they have 30 days to:
1. figure out that it actually happened
2. start Stolen Account Recovery if account was created by Steemit or figure out how to do that in case of other account creator / recovery partner.
3. wait for recovery partner to approve recovery request
4. set the new password, start minimizing damage
There's a pretty good chance that user will miss (1) even if is reasonably active user. Why? Because lack of notifications and UI/UX features. Most likely, by the time user realize that something is happening 25% of SP will be gone.

It will take some time before user figure out how to perform (2) properly. We are trying to guide users via various communication channels, including Steem.Chat's #help (kudos for @timcliff & others) but such cases are not always easy (Do you remember e-mail you've used while signing up for Steem account through Steemit 3 years ago? What if you no longer have access to it? How about account created with Reddit method?)

I'm not sure how long (3) can take nowadays, but even if a recovery partner is quick, I don't think that there's 24/7 support provided for such free service. Assuming business hours, there's a 64 hour gap on weekends (out of 168 hours). Every bit of complexity requires interaction between user and recovery partner, every interaction introduce additional delays (time zone differences doesn't help).

Abuse

Relatively long power down makes SP holders responsible for their deeds, because the bigger impact they have, the more they have to lose.

Pump, abuse, dump.

Short power down period makes it easy to do that.

When it comes to reward pool abuse, SP holders can of course react and downvote, add to blacklists, automate. Identifying abuse, countering it and tracking takes time and resources. Abuser can simply milk rewards until caught, then quickly move to a different identity and repeat.

Low SP engagement for policing

Amount of SP voting for approved Steem.DAO proposals is very low, much lower than amount of SP that is needed for consensus witnesses. And that is true even though amount needed for consensus witnesses is also very low. Not only that. SP used for countering (downvoting) reward abuse isn't spectacular either.

TL;DR

We move too slow to allow fast moves of SP. It takes considerably long time for community to react, and very low engagement to counter abuse (which makes it cheap & easy).

Steem security assumes that the majority of active SP holders are not malicious, and potential malicious actions comes with a risk of freezing funds for a significant amount of time.
@themarkymark(81)· 2410d
Personally I'm on the fence about this. I see value in changing it to 4 weeks, as I have personally heard from people with a lot of liquid steem they don't power up specifically because of the long power down cycle makes them nervous. I have been in this position myself where I had a lot of Steem I earned liquid through development and posting and I held off powering it up because I would need to wait 13 weeks to get it out. 13 weeks in crypto is a lifetime.

That being said, there are many reasons not to change it. Hacking is of course one of them, but as long as the power down and longer than account recovery the risk is minimized. Currently 4 weeks (28 days) is shorter than 30 days it takes to change the recovery account for a user.

Another thing to consider is Exchanges powering up Steem and using it to influence witnesses and rewards. Right now the 13 weeks discourages this, would 4 weeks? Exchanges could even go so far to reward users that allow them to power up their funds in exchange for profiting with it. They can also potentially do this without their permission and only use a portion of the funds keeping enough liquid to handle any immediate needs.

I also worry abusers will be able to move their stake quicker and easier with a shortened powerdown when their accounts get burned. I see this happen a lot even with 13 week powerdown.

I am not concerned with technical issues as this change has been done before and is a simple change. As mentioned in the post, this is all about the economic issues. Without a crystal ball it is really hard to know for sure if we would have more people powering up as a result of this change. We do know a lot of people are powering down now and always will be regardless of this change. We need more reasons to encourage being powered up in my opinion.

As I said, I am conflicted, I see both sides of this argument. I do believe the hacking issue can be minimized by changing the proposal to 5 weeks instead of 4. One thing I thought of when this was first brought up as requirement seniority before being able to elect a shorter powerdown. For example, an account needs to be 6 months or even 12 months old before you can elect for a shorter powerdown, this would help alleviate the concerns of new users falling victim to hacking and also not having time to learn the system before leaving.

While I don't believe anything that holds someone hostage to force them to do something has ever been successful, there are benefits for being powered up and they should not be earned without sacrifice, the sacrifice with Steem is liquidity.

I do believe if we are making a change we believe will help our economics, we should try to do them now and not some time in the future. I just can't say with 100% certainty this is a good or bad change as it is extremely speculative. The 13 week powerdown is just an arbitrary time period chosen as something better than the original two years, there is no math or science behind it.
@cryptogee(76)· 2410d
LET THE DUMPENING BEGIN!!!

Cg
@borislavzlatanov(65)· 2410d
I'm against such a change. I very much agree with the concerns expressed by @aggroed and @blocktrades. Also see my exchange with @thecryptodrive here.
@davedickeyyall(79)· 2410d
I personally like the 4 wk powerdown idea.. instant for a 10% fee minimum
@drakos(70)· 2410d
We discussed this topic and I'm for the 4 week powerdown. However, considering the security risks mentioned in case of a phish/hack, the stolen chunks would be greater than the current 13 week setting. To remedy that, I proposed a few extra options for a variable power down:
- Ability to set the power down period, if people are concerned about security or wish a long term commitment, set to a long period, for investors and techy people tight on security who don't want to be stuck holding a bag of cryptos, set to short.
- Value can't be modified before 30 days, to avoid account compromise.
- Can't modify before 30 days if owner key/password are changed.
- Leave the default at 13 weeks.
Those proposed changes will require additional coding.

Concerning the fee burn to accelerate the power down, I disagree with it and I don't think it solves anything, because a hacker can still burn the fee and steal the funds quickly anyways. Also, burning a fee is like a tax, the purpose of the crypto space is to escape such a burden. Besides, investors and new comers already pay fees to buy bitcoin then buy STEEM from an exchange. So we want to ask them to pay more fees to get their money back quickly? I don't think so.

One important aspect of a currency is the ability to trade it. It's ok to see pumps and dumps, it happens all the time for all cryptos. So I don't think reducing the power down period would affect STEEM's price (we already have common spikes anyways). But, giving more control and flexibility to the users would definately increase the value of the token, not diminish it. This way, if new users would like to buy, power up and participate in the platform, they can do so without much strings attached, instead of being forced into a non-negotiable 13 weeks commitment.
@likwid(66)· 2410d
Setting @likwid as beneficiary let you to skip the power down entirely for a 1% fee.

Since very few people use it, it could give us a rough idea of how much demand there is for faster power down.
@quochuy(78)· 2410d
I believe in freedom. One should be free to join and free to leave when one wants to. The platform, the community, the projects should be enticing enough to keep users powered for long term.

Safety wise, does the blockchain needs to hold the users’ hands? With cryptography, we already have very secure credentials. Is it the role of the blockchain to protect the users or is it the role of the dApps to highlight potential scams/phishing attempts and educate their users? Education will have long term impact on and outside the chain. A topic to further discuss.

That being said, I was initially for the idea but now I don’t think reducing to 4 weeks is the solution. I don’t think instant power down is the solution either, at least not on its own.

Instant power down is better but still not ideal. @therealwolf’s idea of an incentive for powering up for longer term is interesting.

As for now, I’m against implementing a reduction of the power down period in the next HF until further discussion and agreeing on a better solution that offers freedom and speed but also safety via customisation and maybe an opt-in locking mechanism.

Posted using Partiko iOS
@transisto(75)· 2410d
Every change comes with a lot of indirect cost, this change isn't bringing clear and direct benefit. It's a zero sum change, it's not smart enough.

It was suggested that new reward from inflation should stay staked for longer, like 6 months, while purchased one get to power down as usual or faster. The main reason for previous 2 year or 13 weeks delay was so new users get to participate in curation and get to adapt to the ecosystem and the culture.

This is changing for sake of changing and expecting better outcome at random.

IMO it's a ridiculous distraction given the current state of Steem.
@benicents(48)· 2410d
I upvoted this for visibility, not because I agree, but because I disagree wholeheartedly.

The math here is really simple.

Price is a function of supply and demand. If supplies increase faster than demand then the price goes down. Powering up is a simple method of taking supplies off the table without burning them. Essentially it pushes that supply to some point in the future. Powering down says "let this supply become liquid".

I would argue that having the power down at 13 weeks is already too short. 13 weeks is already ~90 days though and for any serious business building on top of steem, 90 days or 1 business quarter is enough time to plan. It would be far better to set this to 52 weeks or 1 calendar year if you're going to change it at all.

Steem is fundamentally different from other currencies. While speculators are useful in most currencies because they provide liquidity. Speculators are not good for this currency, because the power of this currency is the community behind it, literally. Our thoughts, our ideas, our hopes, dreams, goals. When someone buys steem with the intention of powering it up, it's because they see value in you, me, all of us.

This is because Steem is a participatory economy. And the way you participate is by powering up your steem and using the prestige to bring attention to the people, purposes and messages that you feel are worthy to share in the increase. If you change the power down from 13 weeks to 4 weeks there will be several knock on effects that damage the currency.

#1 The increase in liquidity will lower the purchasing power of each steem already in circulation because it is a direct supply increase. The differential multiplier is 0.325 or put another way. Assuming the current price of steem is $0.20 the price would necessarily drop to $0.06. You can bet that speculators would immediately price this in before the drop by removing buy orders and putting a new floor in at $0.06

#2 The increase in supplies and subsequent drop in purchasing power would lower the value of the already beleaguered SBD. Some people would flock to it in order to offset the pending drop, but all this does is increase the supply of SBD circulating. SBD is currently trading at $0.80 and thus could reasonably expected to drop to almost immediately $0.26. This means that speculators would remove pricing supports in order to price in the increased supply and begin repricing all the way down to the bottom.

But wait it gets worse!

Anything that effects supplies will trigger a bullwhip effect in the supplychain in the direction that supplies headed. This is because people need to earn a profit or they won't play.

Consider for a minute BTC. Every 4 years the amount of new supplies entering circulation is cut in half. 18 months later the price goes up over 10x it's previous all time high. This is despite the fact that in the 6 to 9 months leading up to the halvening, the price has consistently doubled which intuitively speaking would be where the speculators were already pricing in the halvening.

BTC is cutting new supplies in half and seeing 10x increases over all time highs. We are talking about increasing supplies 3 fold! This means that we could expect prices to dip as low as 3% of all time lows, in otherwords it is reasonable to expect that if you do this, prices for steem would drop to less than a penny.

Now of course all this math is extremely simplistic, but it is the math that any speculator will be doing.

So if you really want to invite the speculators in to drive up prices, double the interest rate on SP and double the power down time to at least 6 months. This will mop up excess supplies which will drive the price through the roof and higher prices help everyone.
@blocktrades(80)· 2410d
One side note on @thecryptodrive proposal: it is certainly helpful as some rough gauge of sentiment, but it's not exactly a great one, because the SPS was built to distribute funds among competing projects, not to get political consensus on hard forks. Originally, I was thinking it could be useful for that as well, but it clearly doesn't work that way. For example, I can't vote "against" this proposal except by voting for the "refund proposal", which would cutoff real funds being paid to active workers, which I would prefer to avoid.

If we do want to get a better polling of stake-based opinion using the SPS, the solution is to create two proposals: one "for" and one "against" during the same time period, then let voters vote on the two competing proposals. With such a method, it would also be good to set a "determination" date at which the two vote counts would be compared, to measure prevailing opinion. Both proposals should also be created at the same time, to give each opinion equal time to accumulate votes.
@coinchaos(63)· 2410d
I see Risk, Risk, Risk. What is the reward? I think 13 is perfect.
@ocupation(71)· 2410d
The more i think of it the less i know. There are both pros and cons to it which are almost equaly important. More discusion should be done in order to laverage pros in regards to possible negative aftermath. But if i had to i would vote for yes
@chekohler(76)· 2410d
I don’t mind the current power down but I’m not closed to the idea of a 4 week power down but I think it should have a % burn let’s say 5% burn of the tokens to get the faster power down that way the person must really be committed to do a quick power down
@badseedalchemist(65)· 2410d
Actually, I realize that when I was less informed, I was voting FOR this. After reading a post by @theycallmedan, I have gained a little more understanding of the financial aspects of this block-chain. I am no expert, but I personally agree with him on leaving it as a 13 week POWER DOWN, but offering an instant POWER DOWN, that requires a burn of a percentage of the POWER DOWN holdings. His initial suggestion was 5%, another said 20%. I think that 5% would be cutting things a little too close, when feeding the other elements of the block-chain, and that 20% is a little too high a price, especially for larger holdings.

In Conclusion: I suggest a continuation of the 13 week POWER DOWN with the option to POWER DOWN instantly. The instant POWER DOWN would require a burn of between 12-15% of the POWER DOWN, holdings.
@mahdiyari(73)· 2410d
Why do people forget the main purposes of Steem Power?

Locking half of the rewards is one of those purposes. We ruined the STEEM price by shortening the powering down period. We promise users a profit from nowhere.

Users can simply buy STEEM, power up, upvote posts and earn rewards, then say goodbye. Does blockchain owe users something? NO. No free money! You should give something in return for the MILKING reward pool. Giving something means locking down your investment which gives VALUE to the STEEM that we milk.

Ok. Make power downs shorter and let's milk STEEM together. Aim for $0
@phortun(79)· 2410d
Just like most people here in the comments, I am not a fan of this change. Let´s keep it at 13 weeks and introduce some % burn fee for those who want to get their SP faster. But interesting proposals here, thanks everyone for contributing :)
@ethereumalist(52)· 2410d
I believe this would be a very bad change for Steem. We might soon be entering a bull market, but if we have a reduced powerdown rate we are likely to see much more dumping than powering up, which could result in depressing the price.

Plus it was pointed out that it further reduces the security of wallets. I see very little to no benefit to the system or the community from this change.
@midlet(74)· 2410d
I'm for this change. Looking through the comments a lot of people are just scared of being dumped on.

It's not my responsibility to protect your investment. My money is mine, and yours is yours. We should be pushing for more freedom and flexibility.

For the security concern, one month is long enough and the security of your funds is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY. I don't want a nanny system "protecting" my money when it's obviously more a mechanism to control volatility and "lock you in". I think that some lock up time is warranted since powering up gives you additional perks, but 3 months is way too long in my opinion.

As some have stated, the way to get investors and keep them is to create value, period. I think the current powerdown schedule would be more of a deterrent than a boon for investors.
@tarazkp(86)· 2410d
Not a big fan of this and do not think it will make much difference on much at all. At least with the burn option, some steem would be burnt and there'd be some cost to PD and benefit to the community.

I also think there are other things to focus on.
@therealwolf(77)· 2410d
Based on what I've seen so far, the opinions around this topic are pretty diverse and dare I say: conflicting.

I understand the reason for a shorter power-down period, but I also see the value in having a longer period. And I don't think it's a good time right now, to push changes, which too many people have problems with, including big stakeholders.

Now, personally, the proposed change lacks vision IMO. I'd rather have a system which rewards people for staking Steem longer dynamically, instead of forcing everyone to be okay with 13 weeks. For example, Alice might rather want to have a power-down of 4 weeks, while Bob would like to stake it for 6 months and Peter only wants 1 week. Alice would earn less inflation than Bob because she could be out way faster. On top of that, Peter could only participate in the rewards-pool voting, but not in voting for witnesses/proposals, as this requires a minimum of 4 weeks staking.

Projects that are incentivised a longer staking period, include Crypto.com and Binance.

https://crypto.com/en/earn.html

Example for Steem: (example numbers)

Action Minimum Staking Duration

Rewards Pool Voting 1 week

Proposal Voting 2 weeks

Blockchain Governance Voting 1 month

Rewards Staking Duration

2% p.a 1 week

4% p.a 1 month

8% p.a 3 months

14% p.a 6 months

20% p.a 1 year

Besides this, I would also like to see the savings feature be improved. There is absolutely no reason, why we're forced to lock it up for 3 days. This could be dynamic and even reward people with inflation.

With this said I haven't come to a conclusion yet! My instinct goes against any quick changes, but I'll keep monitoring this thread, to get a better insight on what my fellow stakeholders think.

I want to see a unified group of stakeholders on Steem. This doesn't mean that everyone has to be happy, but the majority. And at this time, the last thing we need is even more alienation.
@jrcornel(82)· 2410d
I'm against this for the simple fact that I don't think it will encourage any more investment than we have currently. I would much rather keep the 13 week power down and have a "fee to powerdown faster" option, very similar to what @theycallmedan has proposed. I think that is more beneficial to the ecosystem as a whole.
@revisesociology(82)· 2410d
I'm against this proposal and haven't supported it.

The main reason is I think is it encourages a longer term mind set around powering up and actually using Steem Power.

People can still get their SP out and 13 weeks is not that long a time!

And they can still choose not to power up if they want to speculate in the shorter term of course!

Is this our Brexit issue?

Posted using Partiko Android
@amit1995(58)· 2410d
I think it’s an bad idea to implement this change without any charge the only free method is to power down with 13 week otherwise there should be charge for powering down that should be decided. Like I am also big fan of instant power down with 5% charge like @theycallmedan always says If that pattern is followed than for 4 week there should be 1-1.5% charge of total amount should be implemented.
@ew-and-patterns(71)· 2410d
This is such a great idea! It will increase liquidity on exchanges and the price volatility will increase as well (probably by a lot). To the upside and to the downside! This is great for specualtors like myself who are only looking for the next best price to dump their coins for a profit............IRONY OFF..............

It is as Aggroed already said: a big reason why we are a strong community is because of the fact that you cannot just pack and leave within a month...

Don't be stupid please, this idea is ridiculous. It will not promote growth, it will only PROVOKE speculation. Investors would feel safer but the cost for this is too damn high.

People who do not believe that STEEM has a bright future, should not invest in it in the first place... those people should stay away... don't invite them to the party... or they are going to trash your home (and jobs by the way)

The risk of this going bad is way higher than you are anticipating.

WHAT THE FUCK? Seriously, I hate this idea very very much.

STEEM is not some fucking pump and dump coin. Everyone and their grandmother will buy at 20 cents sell at 40 cents, buy at 20 cents sell at 40 cents.

We will never go anywhere because as soon as the price picks up upside momentum after a week everyone and their grandmother will temporarily dump 1/4 of their coins for a profit.

SERIOUSLY, WHAT THE FUCK???
@vikisecrets(80)· 2410d
I am supporting the proposal and think 4 weeks is still a long time and a good compromise. Powering up is still a commitment and a little less frightening if its 4 weeks instead of 13.
@reazuliqbal(68)· 2410d
I am in-favor of this change. I understand the risk of losing more funds, but also think 7 days is enough time for taking preventative action(s) in most cases.

Changing power down to 4 weeks should increase liquidity and buy/sell actions in the markets, so that might improve price performance.

I think we should not lock people up for 13 weeks because they chose to powered up their STEEM. If they wanna leave they should, if they wanna come back, they are welcome.
@neoxian(72)· 2410d
I am against this idea as well. The 13 week period did not prevent Steem reaching 6$+ price during the last boom. Locking up your steem is the price you pay for having a strong vote in the forum.

If you want to trade and speculate in Steem then just don't power up, it's that simple. No trader is required to power up their steem.

I agree with @aggroed and @blocktrades comments as well.

I'd also be in favor of burning some steem to power down faster.

Full disclosure: I believe this change would hurt my bank. It would decrease the demand for my loans, and inhibit the usefulness of taking accounts as collateral. (I'd have to employ more strict terms which would make my loans less attractive.)

I would be willing to take a hit on my bank to improve the Steem ecosystem, but I don't believe this change would be an improvement.
@mehadihasansagor(59)· 2410d
Good
@kingscrown(82)· 2410d
the shorter time then better imho
@blocktrades(80)· 2410d
I'm against this. The thing I dislike about it most is that it enables more funds to be lost from a one week powerdown by a hacker. It would be one thing if this was just a theoretical concern, but we know this happens quite often due to the many phishing attacks combined with all the new, inexperienced users joining Steem for the first time.

I agree with aggroed as far as the investment issue goes: if someone just wants to speculate in the coin, they can just avoid powering up (and indeed many such investors probably just keep their Steem on an exchange anyways, so that they can sell it at a moment's notice).

I don't think the current powerdown time is a big commitment for someone who wants to actively participate in the voting system and the mechanism creates some "solidity" to voter identity (someone can't just move around some poweredup funds quickly and vote "anonymously").

If it was 13 weeks before any funds could be obtained, I would probably feel differently on this issue. But with access to 1/13 after one week, I think the current system is sufficient.

In summary, I don't see any likely value-add from this change, and I think Steem holders who get hacked will lose more money as a result of this change.
@steevc(80)· 2410d
I am inclined to be against this change. The original 2 year power-down was probably way too long, but 13 weeks is not so bad really and it encourages people to stay involved. We need lots of Steem powered up to get a better reward distribution. Reducing it will see a lot of people take the money and run. Speculation leads to volatility, but long-term thinking means you have to ride out the minor crises.
@z8teyb289qav9z(70)· 2410d
NO REAL INVESTOR WANTS TO TIE UP THEIR INVESTMENT FOR WEEKS AT A TIME SO THEY CAN REWARD OTHERS.

If you're scared of people powering down and selling, maybe you should consider giving them a REAL reason not to do so...

What a concept!
@brianphobos(72)· 2410d
I'm all for taking the power down to 7 days with the ability to get notified via e-mail if a power down is started for security. Having long power downs didn't protect the price at all.
@chrisrice(68)· 2410d
I am AGAINST this proposal!

It would make sense to improve the savings feature BEFORE decreasing the Power Down time.
@javirid(56)· 2410d
Some crypto-investors could become active steemians instead of holders because they would be able to deinvest much faster.
@aggroed(80)· 2410d
I'm not a fan. As a witness I wouldn't vote against the SMT proposal because this is included, but I think it's bad for the network to change it. Part of what makes Steem a community is that people can't just up and leave. If you have steem powered up you're going to be a part of this place for 13 weeks. I think it's part of why steem has a culture of "we all go to the same moon," as opposed to "sorry suckers that token is going up slightly faster so I'm leaving." It happens anyway, but there's a bunch of people that'll post here up until the blockchain flatlines.

I do think it's a real concern to speculators that people can't get their money out quickly. That answer is simple. Buy Steem, nut don't power up. The question I see is does it hurt investment? My guess is that there's more problems seeing the utility of Steem and getting in and out is a tiny side show. So, rather than rush a "simple fix" that I believe will hurt the community let's move it until after the hardfork and make it a burn case.

In a different version of this, Steem still has a 13 week powerdown, but you can burn some of the steem you would otherwise get if you wanted it to happen faster. Adds a burn case for steem, doens't hurt the community, and is a step closer to investor/trader friendliness.

In the larger scope of things I don't think a minor tweak of this property will drastically change things for the better. What will change things for the better is adding apps, usecases, businesses, and communities of people that are able to use Steem to make money, make a point, grow an audience, play a game, or some way that this place adds more value to their life than having dollars in a bank account does.
@okean123(66)· 2410d
I like the idea (not mine read it somewhere) of instant power downs with the cost of a percentage of the power down value being burned.

I'm totally unsure about the risks for Steem though, but I would love to see this idea being discussed.
@whatageek(75)· 2410d
I think we should implement it with a fee. If you want to take it out early you need to burn 1-2% or wait the 13 weeks. Any new feature should focus or add burning of steem as that is what will get the price up.
@drakoscliff(56)· 2410d
@steemitblog Hey such a nice and informative post!!!! Love to go through such posts. Really interesting!!!! Keep up the good work!!!! Wish you luck =) Keep going✌ Good luck for your future articles!!! Keep steeming and one last thing that I would really appreciate and feel good if you go through my content and give your review!!! Thanks 😊@steemitblog

Posted using Partiko Android

Action	Minimum Staking Duration
Rewards Pool Voting	1 week
Proposal Voting	2 weeks
Blockchain Governance Voting	1 month

Rewards	Staking Duration
2% p.a	1 week
4% p.a	1 month
8% p.a	3 months
14% p.a	6 months
20% p.a	1 year

Community Support

Primary Concerns

Get Out the Vote!

Technical Difficulty

Inherent Risk

Economic Risk

Security Risk

Vote!

Comments · 143

YES, FOR FUCKS SAKE THAT WAS WHAT WE WANTED BACK IN 2016 BEFORE EVERYONE LEFT! - 48 HOUR POWER DOWN AND NO FLAGGING - BUT NO... YOU CLOWNS HAD TO SCREW THE PLATFORM OVER INSTEAD. ENJOY YOUR $94.84.

I HAD EIGHT STEEMIT ACCOUNTS AND $80k IN SP ONCE - LOL - GLAD I SOLD IT BEFORE THE CRASH BUT THAT BLOODY 13 WEEK POWER DOWN COST ME A FUCKING FORTUNE - NO WAY I'D INVEST IN A CRYPTO THAT I CAN'T BAIL OUT OF AGAIN...

Please note, there are now two proposals issued to obtain proper community sentiment IN FAVOUR or AGAINST the 4 Week Power Down change.

PROPOSAL IN FAVOUR:

PROPOSAL AGAINST:

Are you seelling your soul to the market?

Why?

Vote for @Steemitboard as a witness to get one more award and increased upvotes!

Security concerns (stolen account recovery)

Abuse

Pump, abuse, dump.

Low SP engagement for policing

TL;DR

It is as Aggroed already said: a big reason why we are a strong community is because of the fact that you cannot just pack and leave within a month...

Don't be stupid please, this idea is ridiculous. It will not promote growth, it will only PROVOKE speculation. Investors would feel safer but the cost for this is too damn high.

People who do not believe that STEEM has a bright future, should not invest in it in the first place... those people should stay away... don't invite them to the party... or they are going to trash your home (and jobs by the way)

The risk of this going bad is way higher than you are anticipating.

WHAT THE FUCK? Seriously, I hate this idea very very much.

STEEM is not some fucking pump and dump coin. Everyone and their grandmother will buy at 20 cents sell at 40 cents, buy at 20 cents sell at 40 cents.

We will never go anywhere because as soon as the price picks up upside momentum after a week everyone and their grandmother will temporarily dump 1/4 of their coins for a profit.

SERIOUSLY, WHAT THE FUCK???

NO REAL INVESTOR WANTS TO TIE UP THEIR INVESTMENT FOR WEEKS AT A TIME SO THEY CAN REWARD OTHERS.

If you're scared of people powering down and selling, maybe you should consider giving them a REAL reason not to do so...

What a concept!

More from @steemitblog