Steemit Inc. Powerdown Due to Fears of Having Accounts/Stake Stolen in Future HardFork
A forked version of Steem on another github account has added code to change the ownership keys for various Steemit Inc. accounts.
Thanks @anthonyadavisii for linking to it in my previous post.
This was a change made on the steemdev github account, which is not the steemit account where all previous hard and soft forks have been done and approved by witnesses.
The Steemit Inc. accounts listed to have their keys changes are:
@steem
@steemit
@steemit2
@steemit3
@misterdelegation
With a TODO: add all known accounts.
A majority of the top 19 witnesses would need to approve these code changes for them to come into effect. Honestly, I don't think it would happen. These changes would confiscate the accounts owned by Steemit Inc. This is essentially stealing accounts, and the stake therein.
You can see that this forked github change was done 2 days ago, and that the recent powerdown and transfer to Bittrex was initiated 14 hours and 15 hours ago respectively.
In my opinion, Steemit Inc. saw these code changes in a "fork" as a potential threat that the witnesses could invoke against their ownership of these accounts and the stake therein. It seems the power down and transfer to Bittrex is a precaution in case the witnesses agree to adopt these changes in a future hardfork. Steemit Inc. has decided to invalidate such an attempt to steal their accounts and stake by removing their stake.
The github account steemdev is not an official Steemit Inc. developer account. It poses little threat. The code changes are only a threat if they are approved by the top 19 witnesses, which I highly doubt they would approve of. It would amount to a coup against Steemit Inc.
Accepting a hardfork that would change the ownership keys of any account is a big nono. The top 19 witnesses would never allow this. It goes against their interests in the integrity of the Steem blockchain. Otherwise, whose account is safe? The credibility of Steem would be trash after that if stealing accounts was permitted.
As such, this move by Steemit Inc., although precautionary, seems to be premature and has the consequence of causing FUD in the Steem and larger crypto community. But Steemit Inc. isn't taking any chances, and I can't really blame them for wanting to take these precautions. Can you?
Thank you for your time and attention. Peace.
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They need to grow up and work with the community and the witnesses.
There is simply no excuse for their behavior at this point.
Do you think serious investors or Dapp builders would like to build anything on a chain that actually has a communication platform and the largest stakeholder (likely controlling stake) can't decide what he is doing and why,
Each day you get to wake up to find out if the project you are building is still viable due to unpredictable behavior by a stakeholder with jittery fingers and no long term plan?
At this point, I have to stop respecting anyone who is willing to build a business here. It's unacceptable behavior.
Hear hear! @whatsup that's the spirit we need now IMHO. F em ALL
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I have been assuming from Ned's sudden silence in December that Steemit is in some sort of an agreed quiet period with an unknown party. 60 days from Ned's last post would be Feb 4. 90 days would be March 6. Of course I could be way off-base, but this wallet movement could be consistent with that guess. Guess we'll find out before April if that assumption is right.
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I hear ya. It's disheartening. They should communicate more. But their actions are theirs to make. They aren't accountable to anyone. The shares/stock/STEEM isn't based on Steemit Inc. We need to get over looking at them for everything. The problem with that is the code is controlled by them, unless the witnesses accept other code that gets developed outside of the Steem repository on github... Until then, Steemit inc will stay in control...
I totally agree their actions are theirs to make. But when they have a new plan each day, it is going to be hard for developers or investors. I am completely against the "fork".
I am also done pretending they are headed anywhere.
I have only one question. Why such an important thing as code still stored on a centralized site like GitHub, and there is no project like "git over blockchain".
This must not be allowed to happen! It would destroy the integrity of the blockchain. It would destroy trust. It would mean that anyone can be robbed for some arbitrary reason.
Yup, pure disaster, which is why it would never happen.
I think we would just get 2 chains. The result would be similar to the ETH DAO event.
Not really since ETH is proof or work and Steem isn't. The Steem blockchain can't split like that since the majority of the top 20 witnesses would have to go along for the fork to even happen. Then the remaining witnesses would not be able to carry on in their own chain since the code in the chain would not allow it without the majority of the witnesses.
Yeah. It cant happen. Good point.
Thanks for clarifying that.
Accepting that change would literally kill Steem for everyone, no one would trust it.
Agreed.
Thanks for your insight into this situation, it's hard to tell wtf is going on and Stinc's silence is really making matters worse by the day. We need clear communication at this time but we have none. If Stinc is in trouble they need to come clean so that the community can react properly and support where support is most needed. The total lack of communication over almost the last 2 months is unacceptable imo. It leaves Steem rutterless.
You're welcome :) Glad to offer some insight from what I can see. Lack of communication does suck indeed. It wouldn't be an issue so much if we had a non-Steemit team controlling the code :/
I commented on this talk of forking the other day. Seems like suicide to me to attempt to devalue the original Steem mined, as it would send a clear message to any current investors as well as future ones that their investment could be devalued as well.
I do wonder though whether they actually feared such a thing or if this was a convenient excuse to continue exiting the chain. Not for me to know at this time, but I can say that overall this is yet another straw on the continuing worries running rampant here. I have seen many posts, one of which recently was a screenshot of Dan saying that Steemit.inc was in control of Steem back when he left. Not sure of the validity of the shot, nor exactly which post I saw it on in the comments. There have been many posts of late crying doom and arguing over the future or lack of.
Maybe foolish here, but I am going to continue holding. If this is an exit and everything folds, it will hurt to lose the money, but have lost much more in my life to outright worthless endeavors. Will hurt more that the hope I have seen here didn't pan out. But...just maybe... this is a defining moment and those who are stampeding for the doors will envy those of us who stick around giving this a chance to go through these growing pains.
just to note, enough top witnesses did actually seriously discuss this proposal in various channels where enough eyes saw it, that it is not at all unreasonable that Steemit took action to start mitigating risk by moving Steem off platform. One would have hoped that all top witnesses were smart enough to categorically and immediately reject this, but the actual honest to goodness truth is that more than just one or two top witnesses literally did discuss doing this.
Good to know there is some discussion among the witnesses, even if just a few.
Thanks, I was unaware any of the top witnesses were willing to tear the chain apart. Hopefully they will not remain top witnesses for long.
I doubt they are pulling out, given what I concluded here. Steemit is in shambles given the work that was done since Dan left, which isn't much... I read his words too. I trust Dan more than other developers in crypto.
Maybe things will turn around ;)
I agree that something like this shouldn't even be considered. It would mean that no account would be safe and that anyone could be robbed blindly by a simple vote.
If Steemit Inc actually saw this as a real threat, they could simply vote for 10 of their own witnesses who would guarantee that they retain control. Hopefully they don't feel that their Steem would be safer on an exchange than in a wallet.
On the bright side, if they move their stake to the exchanges, the remaining accounts with staked Steem will get a higher percentage of the inflation. The bad news is that without the inflation to sell, Steemit Inc will have to be looking to other sources for income, including advertisements.
Yup, it would never happen.
@krnel, thank you for sharing with us your thoughts. I am not a tech geek, so I don't knyiw how reliable STEEM Blockchain is. But, in my view, Steemit Inc. is moving away his STEEM, because they're going to sell it. They simply need Fiat. And, of course, Steemit Inc. understands very well that crypto is in Bear Market and the price of STEEM may drop to $0,10 and less ... So, they just want to sell at higher price. That's my point of view.
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Been trying to wade through this information from your posts and a few others, to determine what's going on, @krnel, and I guess I'm at a loss in putting cause and effect together. True, there's steemdev, but as you said, it would take a super majority of the top 21 witnesses to effect change. So, unless I've got the top 21 read wrong, that's a no starter. The fact that the proposal even exists, though, is somewhat disconcerting, especially since there was talk not that long ago of doing something similar—somehow shutting out Steemit, or locking up, their SP.
I'm not sure if one action leads to another, but as you say, if it does, taking precautions is better than not.
If there's another reason, a titanic/iceberg scenario, that would seem to be just a good an answer as any. Steemit Inc is on its way down, and doesn't really want everyone else to know.
So, what assurance do we have? No communication from anyone at Steemit Inc other than company-speak from a memo in the power down wallet entry that most of us would have never seen anyway?
And yet, I've been relatively calm throughout all of this, and I don't know why. I feel like I've either become totally unhinged from reality, or somehow, everything is going to work out. It's when people start freaking and calling for the equivalent of nuclear counterstrikes is when I get nervous. FUD has a way of destroying projects/economies/lives faster than actual facts do.
Thank you for keeping what I believe to be a level head through this, and for reporting out this information. I for one do appreciate it.
Glad to help clear up the picture ;)
Didn’t the EOS protocol get a lot of challenges from behavior that was similar? The immutability of a blockchain is important to remain trustworthy for its users! Thanks for coming back and clarifying!
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You're welcome. New info made things more lear as to why a move was being done.
@ned is speaking right now on http://mspwaves.com/home/listen/
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I could not catch it. Can you kindly make a post if you have watched it live? Or, will there be archive copy?
The witnesses will always act in the interest of the blockchain, not of Steemit Inc or any other party. That's a given and should be said first and foremost. There's a lot of opportunists out there who can code. All of their attempts should be taken seriously but not panicked over.
This is just a fork. A fork is worthless unless accepted by the majority of witnesses by stake weight. No one will accept some random fork unless there's real reason behind it and all agree. Remember that the chain can be rolled back if absolutely needed. It would be a mess but its a possibility.
When Steem was created Steemit Inc ninjamined a huge amount of tokens. Dan rolled back the chain (as I mentioned above) to do that when users figured out how to follow Dan's nonsensical instructions for the mining ask. Restoration of any state prior to the current block state is possible but not advisable as a normal day-to-day activity. It's akin to having major surgery.
Yes it's not going to happen.