Thoughts on the Recent Witness Meeting With Tron(Roy)
Well I just got finished listening to this three hour conversation and it didn't even occur to me to speed up the video until around two and a half hours in. First off, THANK YOU so much @fredrikaa and @starkerz for being what I can only describe as the grown ups in this talk.
Look, I get it, people are pissed. The community is pissed. The witnesses are pissed, but is it really that hard to take emotion out of it and talk about solutions? Like if the only thing you have to add to the conversation is repeatedly saying "POWERDOWN NOW!!!" then wtf are you even doing there? We get it, we all want them to powerdown, but instead of needlessly antagonizing this messenger guy Roy, how about we focus on the shortest path to actually getting what we want?
I feel like so many people's attitude is basically, screw Tron, this is all pointless, Steemit is dead, let's just fork and be done with it etc, but I haven't seen anything to demonstrate that this is all pointless yet. Is it really that hard to understand what actually happened here? Who the real bad guy is? It's FUCKING NED! Ned screwed Justin and sold him on a bogus idea of what Steem was. Justin puts out this media blast probably legit thinking we'd be excited about being a Tron token. Then is surprised to learn there is an actual such thing as a REAL decentralized community and unlike his previous acquisitions, STEEM is not a company to be bought. Then he looks up and realizes all his assets that he just acquired have been taken hostage.
PAUSE
So for everyone that wants to pretend that this action was nothing and non-aggressive, STOP, that's bullshit. Why are we all so flabbergasted by what Binance and Huobi did? They locked up custodial funds without the users consent. What did we do? We locked up a users funds without their consent. Forget the whole history on those funds or how much it was(irrelevant) because I think it's likely and highly probable that Ned may have skimped on the details a bit on that. What do you all think?
RESUME
So then in an unprecedented move to out do our unprecedented move, Justin makes a call and gets FREAKING BIG BROTHER BINANCE and Huobi, and Poloniex to jump in and have his back voting in 20 sock puppet witnesses to regain control of his stake in the most gangsta move crypto has seen thus far. Keep in mind this was LITERALLY the ONLY way he could have done this. Anything else would be asking him to come and negotiate with a bunch of people that he doesn't know or trust with zero leverage about something he just legally purchased, with the worst case scenario being that they could nullify his stake and leave him ass out. A scenario that many in the community were calling for mind you.
Then if that wasn't enough unprecedented moves the Steem community rallies like no one thought was possible and shames the exchanges into unvoting and voting for witnesses at a level Steem has never seen, to the point that we took well more than enough witness seats to stop any hardforks from going through and now we're at a stalemate.
When I look at this situation, honestly I don't see any demons or villans. I see a shitty situation. I can understand why the witnesses did what they did AND I can understand why Tron did what it did. So the question is, how do we get out of this situation and that's where this chat comes in. Some things that are clear to me after listening.
- Roy is not a technical person and the majority of his(Trons//Exchanges) issues, are not real issues. ie They're worried about a potential HF during the powerdown where their funds could be frozen. The witnesses explained to him over and over that this was impossible but since he's not a technical guy, he was resistant to just take their word for it because he doesn't actually know how it works.
- We've already won. This is a PR nightmare for them and they just want it to end. We don't need to be vindictive or "teach them a lesson", they are going to suffer the consequences of these actions no matter what.
- They're just trying to save face at this point. They messed up. BIG. They're currently just looking for a way out of the PR nightmare. They want to LOOK to the exchanges like they're doing everything they can to get them back liquid as possible. Witnesses made it clear, it makes no sense to HF Steem just for that purpose and that it would defeat the purpose because the amount of time that it would take to complete a HF would be longer than the powerdown time. Look, if that's the case, then just play along, say we'll look into it, wait a day, then say after careful deliberation and investigation we've found that it would be best not to fork and for you to powerdown at the normal rate.
"That's not our responsibility!" "They deserve it! Screw THEM!" "Well they shouldn't have powered up users funds in the first place!"
All that is true. The question is, how do we get what we want in the most efficient, and bulletproof method as possible. - They seriously don't get decentralization. This is both bad and good. It's bad for obvious reasons, because this is a decentralized chain, but it's good in regard to the idea that I think that there's a possibility that this is a long string of horrible misunderstandings and mistakes that have more to do with a whole lot of emotions, but most importantly, not malice.
Justin for sure has a pretty loose relationship with truth. Calling the witnesses malicious hackers etc. A mistake. So we can keep going forward making marks on the wall counting up each others mistakes and justifying why we did what we did or we can try to find a path forward. I vote for the latter.
I unfortunately feel like I'm in the minority with these opinions but I'd love to hear what you all think. Let me know in the comments.
Honestly, you're very point on in my opinion, except
Nope. Witnesses should've NEVER broken the trustchain. This caused LOTS of damages for the unforeseeable future in my opinion.
I think this is a very reasonable position and in hindsight it was probably a bad call, but their worst case scenario at that point because of a lack of communication from Tron was the total destruction of Steem.
TRON's amateur hour wasn't something really surprising, for anyone following them... And probably a great learning experience for them now, seeing that in the real world they face serious backlash for their practices.
But after all this is over, what's left? Why would someone with risk and investment appetite ever invest in Steem?
Lost trust is something you can not fix unfortunately.
It's been made pretty clear that no other funds have not will they ever face the risk of being temporarily frozen. It was just the case with Steemits stake that was in many instances promised to be used one way but in a surprise sale to an outsider who many times promoted the idea of the destruction of our chain was put in place for the security until we had more communication with the buyer, which we now have but didn't get for over a week of attempts after the purchase.
a blockchain does not operate on promises
Of course but there's enough evidence of them existing, investors buying and staying because of them and code existing for the sole purpose of Steemit accounts declining voting rights but never being enforced cause we were too gullible that Ned might still be in it for Steem's success and not just his own bank account.
I think all the witnesses should just be a bit more understanding that from their perspective, they have NO idea WHAT you all will do. All they know is you just did something they would have thought nobody in blockchain would ever do.
WE all get why they did it, but for these billion dollar exchanges that don't know us and may have legitimately thought they were helping to thwart an attack, they're freaking out. Can you imagine the liability nightmare if we DID freeze those exchange accounts?
The only other time stake was frozen and rolled back was when Ned and Dan got their keys hacked in a very early hardfork.
Understading the reason why something happened doesn't mean he agree with it.
Its amazing to see how rich boys buy things.
Obviously he had no clue what he was buying. Maybe for him personally its OK, but what about the team around him?
Also he has proven to be immature and childish with his post with fucks all over it.
I approve the temporary freeze, as to remind our self's there was a ton of press saying that token swap will be made, Steem will be moved to tron etc. There was no intention to talk to the community, underestimate it in every way possible.
Shots were fired and now we seat equally at the negotiation table. That is great. Lets now negotiate as adults.
Yea, while he wants to save face and say he did due diligence, it's REALLY OBVIOUS he didn't do due diligence. I think the post with all the fucks was actually him reposting or translating the demands of proxy.token actually, and yes, I agree, with where we're at now lets just be mature and move forward.
The proxy.token, koreans are quite nice people with manners :)
He took their post, spin it and added all those fucks.
Geez, yea if that's what happened, add that to the big pile of mistakes.
A token swap does not necessarily mean the destruction of STEEM. There are plenty of ways the ecosystems could work together especially considering SMTs.
Nope. I agree with you 100%
We're winning the pr battle which is what really matters to big companies so it's time to deal with the upper hand. Make something we can all move forward with and lock it in. Get back to building the future of steem.
I think you're sounding like the voice of reason.
Thanks for affirming what I thought would be the case, that listening to that meeting would be quite tense as it probably wasn't that productive.
Has the idea of a 4 week powerdown been mooted as a compromise, given that half the community agreed to that before this shit storm anyway?
No, but the issue was that it would take longer to program and test that HF than it would for them to just do a regular powerdown. At least that's what the witnesses were selling.
My own take after listening to the meeting...(it's a little more protracted than your own)
https://steemit.com/blog/@lucylin/my-thake-on-the-2-hour-conversation-with-tron-and-the-witnesses
I don't think you are alone.
I'm 100% with you, but I'm not sure about one thing...
We have not won, yet... Exchanges CAN vote again... I know that will be PR nightmare, etc... But, they can do it... And JS has enough money to bribe them... PR nightmare last few days, maximum a few weeks... and people forget... Justin has made a bunch of bad moves (and dirty) in the past, and people just ignore that after some time...
But, as I said, I agree with you... We need solutions and negotiations... We didn't lost this chain, and we should think about keeping it decentralized...
Exchanging all top witnesses overnight was only possible due to 30 for 1 voting rule. I have asked a few 'community' witnesses to comment on the rule and security risk it poses to the blockchain, none did. Very interesting.
A good review. There will be a way forward. Tagging @apshamilton to see this.
My thoughts are here: https://steempeak.com/tron/@brianoflondon/my-live-tweets-on-the-steem-witness-meeting-with-roy-from-tron-5th-march-2020
Great perspective. We need more perspectives like this.
I will be writing a more detailed article about thie meeting but here is some opinions:
This is the main point to resolve the crisis. There is a need to stop pointing fingers around, and revolve back to who did what.
There is a situation in place, and both sides fucked (some more than others), and now it's time to find a exit that cause the less damage.
We won a battle, not the war.
Altough it was a great progress towards the community side, there is still a big threat (clearly stated by Tron) that they still have the power to take the control back and do as they want (even if it causes more damage)
True and true. This where Tron fuck up come at place. He brought the exchanges to the problem, but wasn't able to hold his part of whatever deal they made. And that is a great leverage for the community
I also see a lot of evergy directed to how to avoid this again in the future.
While this is good, and it must be done, i think the focus should still be on finding a way to get out of the situation with less damage.
It's not about who will win the fight, but how to preserve and improve governance.
Agreed on all points.
If they were only looking for a way out to save face, then why, after yesterday's meeting did they send more steem to the exchanges holding investors' steem hostage?
They are still being aggressive against the steem community, IMO, and we have to keep standing up to them as long as they continue that plan. Remember, they have refused to go along with ANY suggestion the steem witnesses have made.
Definitely not saying we should let our guard down. Just to see the situation for what it is. They are desperate and panicking, not an evil empire looking to destroy.
I believe Justin will fight to regain full control of the blockchain and retain it, and if he fails to do so he will divest at a rate that recoups or makes him as much money as possible.
I’d seen articles about Tron using genesis tokens to control their block producers and basically deleting dApps built on Tron that competed with their own projects, but recent article made me aware of some further aspects of censorship and control.
I don’t think Justin has any intention of participating in a decentralized, censorship resistant blockchain. I believe he may face legal, professional, and personal challenges if he’s seen as an owner or majority stakeholder in a platform that distributes “objectionable” content.
My gut feeling is the intent was always there for full control, and failing that it’ll be nothing. I don’t see a “partnership” with Steem being in Tron’s DNA.
I believe Justin will fight to regain full control of the blockchain and retain it, and if he fails to do so he will divest at a rate that recoups or makes him as much money as possible.
I’d seen articles about Tron using genesis tokens to control their block producers and basically deleting dApps built on Tron that competed with their own projects, but recent article made me aware of some further aspects of censorship and control.
I don’t think Justin has any intention of participating in a decentralized, censorship resistant blockchain. I believe he may face legal, professional, and personal challenges if he’s seen as an owner or majority stakeholder in a platform that distributes “objectionable” content.
My gut feeling is the intent was always there for full control, and failing that it’ll be nothing. I don’t see a “partnership” with Steem being in Tron’s DNA.
I'm glad to be informed of this particular danger and will be among the first to criticize any limitation on free speech and support forking the chain under those conditions, but as it stands I cannot trust a group of people who will preemptively carve out an account wallet solely because of fear.
STEEM blockchain is working exactly as intended, the biggest stakeholders have the power. The exchanges have stepped in to ensure customer funds are safe. The fact they aren't powering down should inspire some critical thinking and reflection on the part of the community as to why this happened and why they aren't leaving immediately. Some witnesses are failing to read the room and acknowledge that their actions caused this mess and that acting belligerent towards exchange funds is self-destructive for the STEEM community as a whole. My advice is don't follow this bunch of Pied Piper witnesses off a cliff.
Agree with this take. But I don't think we should alter the code to spare them the consequences of their decision. The witnesses should all revert back to the version of the blockchain before any of this happened, which will allow Sun and the exchanges to powerdown then transfer/sell their coins. They can't vote witnesses if powered down and can't transfer/sell if powered up. It puts the choice between those 2 things in their hands.
In writing though the witnesses should agree that once they have the ability to hardfork again, the only code change will be turning on the feature already programmed to not allow the Steemit Inc. stake to be used for voting. That way no one has to worry about any of this happening again, at least not among these same parties.