Justin Sun Wants Out?
Last night, there was a conference call between Justin Sun, what is left of Steemit Inc, and Steem Witnesses regarding the situation over the last couple weeks. I am sure most heard it by now so it is known what was said. If you haven't, there are a number of posts which most likely have the link in them.
The call went exactly how it was expected with things being so volatile right now. Neither side was willing to give, thus little was accomplished. That said, there were a few things that were found out.
Sun Knew Nothing Of Ned's (Steemit's) Promises
This comes under the category of "Could have guessed this one".
According to Sun, he had no idea of the stated obligations that Ned made regarding the Steemit Inc stake. There was nothing in the contracts that told Sun that the ninja-mined state was to be used for the development and promotion of the blockchain. It was from this batch of funds that the employees of Steemit Inc and other operating expenses were paid from.
We all know cashflow was a problem at Steemit Inc. It is also no secret that roughly 800K STEEM per month was sold as a means of covering costs. This was the extent of Ned's business plan.
Justin Sun comes in and buys Steemit Inc. Hence he assumes all the obligations the company has. Of course, that tends to be what is in writing and where a contract exists. This is where we enter a cloudy area legally. It is obvious Ned made verbal commitments yet nothing was in writing nor was it coded in.
Thus we have a situation where Sun had no idea about the stake and what the intention was for it. On this count, I can believe him. Does anyone really think that Ned would divulge this information during negotiations? In fact, it would not be surprising if he didn't even think about it. He simply viewed it as his
Sun Really Did Not Know What He Was Getting
Another thing that came out of the call was that Justin Sun really did not understand what he was getting into. His grasp of Steem is non-existent. This is normal since he was not involved yet there are many layers to what is taking place.
In his past purchases, he bought a company and everything came along with it. The "community" was nothing. Those entities were not decentralized with much in the way of token distribution. The DLive/Lino is an example. From what I could garner, DLive was all there was on there that did anything at all. Hence, you take DLive, the whole show is yours.
We also know that most blockchains, including Tron, have very little human activity. Tron likes to tout the 700 DApps but how many have people using them? The biggest applications are gambling which are likely automated to a great degree. We see how applications try to fight off bots written to automate their games; it is a never ending battle.
With Steem, he got a different can of worms. The community is actually independent with interests of their own. I still believe Sun's initial tweet explain how he thought things would unfold. Like DLive, he figured buying Steemit meant reprogramming that to post on Tron, bring all the DApps over, and STEEM would be swapped for a Tron based token. Simple. Easy. Clean.
That, as we know, is not how things unfolded.
Sun Wants Out
This was a statement he made during the call. There is some confusion, on my end, what he meant exactly.
Given the headaches he has received, I can see him just wanting to part ways altogether. He got himself into something that is not working out has he planned. Perhaps he sees a way to grow this yet the basis for a collaborative experience is missing at the moment.
If he wanted to exit stage left, could anyone blame him?
There is another possibility since much of the call centered around the Steemit Inc stake and him "wanting to get his money back". It is obvious that this is his primary concern which, quite frankly, is logical. Therefore, the "wanting out" could mean he just wants to get his money out of the deal.
When asked what type of time frame commitment he was willing to make to Steem, he wavered and basically indicated that after the roadmap was implemented, he was going to move on. According to Sun, he claimed this was an investment to him. He is posturing that his intention all along was simply to buy Steemit Inc and leave things along. The initial Tweet throws a lot of water on that view in my opinion.
Where Do We Go From Here?
That is the billion dollar question.
Over the past few days, most who were tied to Steemit Inc have resigned. We do not know the reasons for it and we will likely never know. However, the developers who knew the chain the best are no longer there. With Sun putting his Witnesses in, we have the blockchain running on one node for the most part. Their lack of understanding is shown in the fact the price feeds are not even being updated.
Therefore, even if Sun was looking to invest money in Steemit Inc, is he willing to? He made it clear that he is looking at the ROI (again, not a surprise nor faulting him for it). On the call, it sounded like he wants the 1 day power down time so he can execute a pump and dump. That is my take and I could be way off base on that.
For now, the battle for Witnesses rages on. The community is staging a get out the vote campaign in an effort to negate the "sock puppets" that Sun inserted as Witnesses. This is likely to wage on for a while.
At the same time, I am sure code is being written that will provide at least one fork. I would not be surprised to see a few different chains result from this. Overall, I think this would be healthy since more chains decentralizes things to a greater degree. Unfortunately, with so few actual people, this might only serve to dilute the activity.
In the end, nothing substantial was accomplished. We learned a few things, most of which fail to provide any direction. For now, both Sun and the community want what was promised to them. Unfortunately, what each wants are in direct opposition.
Welcome to Day 3 of the tug-o-war over the Witness spots.
If you found this article informative, please give an upvote and resteem.
Posted via Steemleo
Great article and summary.
I Believe he did not do enough due diligence and thought it was "another pretending decentralized blockchain". Unfortunately for him it was not, STEEM is really decentralized and involves thousands of REAL users.
We need to continue the GET OUT AND VOTE Campaign as you said !
I am with you on this and have been rallying a lot on Twitter and STEEM
i.e my last article: https://steempeak.com/steem/@vlemon/steemians-the-fight-is-not-over-we-need-you-to-get-our-witnesses-back-to-the-top
Stay strong Steemians !
It says a lot about Justin and what type of man (and businessman...) he really is. It's hard for me to believe a person so incompetent would be that successful, therefore it's hard for me to take any of his words as true.
This is crypto. Gen X and gen Z types with bags full of other kids' funny internet money. Completely novel stuff done by novices. Unregulated, shady as fuck at times.
It's really strange how familiar this is with regards to some Chinese business people/management etc. One doesn't want to make generalisations, but I, along with many others, have been on the short end of the stick working for/with people who jump onto something if there's just the slightest mention of money. In my three years of working in China, there's been this common trend of excessively focussing on short term profits without any prior knowledge of the market or the resources required for effective management, implementation and co-operation. I don't know a lot about Justin Sun, other than he worked for Ripple and called his own cryptocurrency a sh*t coin. But I just don't feel surprised by his actions.
What drama!
If it not for the wanting out part, the silver lining I see is a whole bunch of people on both sides snapping up all the liquid steem available and locking it in via power up. There is life and passion we have not seen in a while and a global buzz about our blockchain.
How it will end up at this point is very much up in the air and I am not blindly optimistic about opposing factions uniting.
Crazy groundbreaking week!
Posted using Partiko iOS
It is a groundbreaking week on many levels.
A lot of eyes are watching what happens and how it unfolds.
Posted via Steemleo
It's good for the price of steem as it will create scarcity and price will start rising, at least Justin kept one of his promises to give us publicity ☺
THANKS for a fair written article.
Good article and was an enjoyable read. I would assume when the emotions of all this start to subside, cooler heads will prevail. Everyone has a lot to gain from one another and the past few days proved that.
Justin will now be looking to save face, this will be super important to him and understandably. The easiest way to do that is to lay blame on Ned and deflect in that direction.
Then in regards to the Steem community, to continue working on what he proposed most recently. If this is done properly, transparently and in coordination with the community... he will have a huge gold mine and we ALL come out winners.
He is now clearly part of a real community/social blockchain that we call Steem. These are lessons learned for everyone, including Justin and Tron, that should be nurtured and built upon going forward. If he is smart, with a long term vision, he will want to participate with the community.
We via the witnesses should come up with a clear road map, that includes compromises and move forward together.
Sun knew wxactly what he bought. He did the required due diligence.
He saw an opportunity. Ned knew exactly what he sold. He did the required disclosures.
Justin is a much more capable thief than Ned. He is much more capable in most business aspects.
I saw people helping Justin fortify his position on both sides at that meeting. The ones who are in it to same themselves shouldn't be present at the next meeting. Most have lost their top 20 spot anyway.
It was a major blow to us. We haven't all lost, but Justin isn't the only one not to be trusted right now.
Tend to agree with you, both sat down to discuss the sale, both should be held accountable.
Coming in after the fact, saying you do not understand or did not know, shows extremely bad business ethics. Delinquent Directors/Owners should never be allowed back at the helm.
What has caught both off-guard IMHO is neither could foresee the commitment a community could rally together and fight for a decentralized system.
Justin could very easily ask for assistance to right the wrongs. Apologize to Witnesses who were not involved in the sale.
One may venture so far as to say he could offer to buy (with an apology as well, the original Steemit.Inc developers to continue work, it's called swallowing pride, then make money.
There is little trust anywhere when money is the only bottom line.
It's a bad situation. The actual selling of Steemit INC happened behind closed doors and with little understanding of their huge stake.
I think a lot of people regret freezing that stake now. But if we weren't here and it worked as planned, would they still have the same regrets?
Hindsight is always 50/50, what was done was with the interests of the larger community at the time.
All are adults, it is time to sit and discuss how to move forward, no pandering on likes or dislikes, business moves forward or collapses.
Please call names of the helpers!
Ok. I'm on it.
@taskmaster4450 i do not know why i find it difficult to believe him,but if what he is saying is true then that means he(justin sun) is a careless businessman...
Posted via Steemleo
I want to say that too, but I bought into steemit not knowing what steem was. I learn more about the blockchain every single day. I have been here more than two years.
Posted via Steemleo
Very true @brao on both counts. I think there is the hard to believe factor based upon his track record but he also has the shoot from the hip style that leads to mistakes.
Ironically, both could be true in this instance. At the same time, as I mentioned in another comment, Ned is not known for his sincerity and openness either.
Posted via Steemleo
Here's a recording of the call (not made by me) in case anyone is interested:
Thanks for posting this.
Posted via Steemleo
What is the timestamp when Justin says "I want out"?
Posted via neoxian.city | The City of Neoxian
Coming from a man who copied another's whitepaper in order to launch his own platform on Blockchain, I'm not surprised he was clueless and completely lost in the negotiation process. How can you as a businessman not understand completely the business you acquired? He can pretend to have read and internalized the contract agreement but his current situation betrays him. Steemit had something cool going, Justin Sun just like the sun would burn down the platform to the ground.
That accusation is out there and probably has a lot of validity to it @bukkybites.
The call did make it evident that his knowledge of this is less than you would think from someone in his position.
But then again, there are no degree requirements to be involved. Plenty of money often goes without proper guidance.
Posted via Steemleo
Justin Sun can afford to make mistakes because he is relatively young, inexperience and loaded. Acquiring a decentralized blockchain is SO different and unfeasible compared to acquiring a public listed company. Smartest people I know pump their crypto gains back into traditional businesses. The crypto gains they make is already enough to last them several lifetimes. Retiring young and doing life changing charity work is so cool. The current Tron business model of focusing on gambling is too destructive for humanity. However, life is a series of choices. Actually, I think Justin Sun could have turned the table around if he was willing to improve on Steemit's wallet to allow direct swap from Steem/SDB to Tron without having to go through exchanges.
Which would be easy using steem-engine ☺