Steem Consensus Witness Statement: Code Updated
This statement has been co-authored by the Steem community, which includes witnesses, developers & stakeholders.
Consensus witnesses are bound by our task to maintain the integrity of the Steem Blockchain.
Fellow Steemians,
With the recent purchase of Steemit Inc by the TRON Foundation, the Steem blockchain obtained a new major stakeholder. As another major player in the decentralized space, the TRON Foundation's interest in the Steem ecosystem has the potential to bring marketing power, resources and other potential benefits to both companies. It is thrilling to think of what will be discovered and shared with this introduction between our two vibrant blockchain communities.
While these opportunities are exciting, in these early stages the most important task for witnesses is to ensure the security of the Steem blockchain. To this end, we have updated to a temporary protective protocol to maintain the status quo currently established in regards to Steemit Inc's stake and it's intended usage. This update is reversible, and is simply to be used to ensure that the security and decentralization of the Steem blockchain remains intact.
Communication on the company acquisition is scattered and conflicting at this time, and we believe it is important to be proactive, rather than risk a possible security threat to the Steem blockchain. Since there are many new developments in the ecosystem, this is an ideal time to take a look at one of our long term impediments to decentralization with the involvement of the entire community, old and new. With this announcement, we're providing a detailed look at this soft fork update, why it was implemented, and how you can get involved as the voices of the Steem community.
What A Soft Fork Is, and What Soft Fork 0.22.2 Does:
A soft fork is a fully reversible code update, which is an excellent way for Steem consensus witnesses to deploy changes for the community to review and give feedback on, which may include changing their witness votes if they do not agree. What is especially important when considering a soft fork is to remember: it does not require any exchange to update their node, and all 0.22 versions running now will continue to operate. A soft fork does not mean that anyone running a backup witness will suddenly disable or necessarily miss blocks!
In general, Soft Fork 0.22.2 and transactions on the Steem blockchain will continue smoothly across the board for everyone with absolutely no change to a majority of the current Steem code. With the soft fork running, if any of the below clearly defined set of transactions happen (it is unlikely that they will), they will not be processed by the consensus witnesses. As there is more community feedback, and the Tron Foundation and Steemit Inc have a better chance to detail their roadmap and their plans for the future, this temporary soft fork can be adjusted to fit whichever direction the future holds for everyone.
Here are the Technical Details of Soft Fork 0.22.2 :
Relevant Accounts
- misterdelegation
- steem
- steemit
- steemit2
- steemitadmin
Excluded Operations
- account_witness_proxy_operation
- account_witness_vote_operation
- update_proposal_votes_operation
- vote_operation
- withdraw_vesting_operation
- set_withdraw_vesting_route_operation
- transfer_operation
- limit_order_create_operation
- limit_order_create2_operation
- transfer_to_vesting_operation
- transfer_to_savings_operation
- escrow_transfer_operation
The GitHub repos for comparison and consideration:
Files Changed:
- libraries/chain/database.cpp
- libraries/protocol/hardfork.d/0_22.hf
- compare steemit/steem:0.22.x -> SteemDevs/steem:0.22.2# Softfork 0.22.2 has been written by community members, tested on a testnet in one of the most robust environments to date, and has been vetted by those who know the Steem blockchain best. Though it is a temporary update, the deployment of this soft fork has been carefully thought through in terms of impact to the overall ecosystem.
Why Was This Soft Fork Deployed?
With the recent developments for Steemit Inc with the TRON Foundation acquisition, there have been a lot of uncertainties around the company and its continued use of the assets it controls, as well as plans for the future. This makes it an excellent time to return to a long standing situation that has had lasting repercussions for the Steem blockchain: Steemit Inc ninja-mined stake. In an ecosystem where we are moving towards true adoption for decentralized technologies, this large amount of stake, mined at the beginning of the blockchain with an "unfair" advantage, has always been problematic in terms of creating a potential for heavy centralization.
The Steemit Inc ninja-mined stake is a special case, as up to this point it has been clearly declared on many occasions as earmarked solely for the development of the Steem ecosystem, and to be non-voting in governance issues.
There has always been a good-faith trust by the community that this would remain the case into the future. This social contract was defined by Ned in the 2017 roadmap, and has been an important background factor for the Steem ecosystem for many years. With the changes in the company ownership, this is an excellent time to transition the good-faith agreement into a truly trustless one, utilizing blockchain code, and taking further steps to help Steemit Inc support even better decentralization and the development, onboarding, and expansion of the Steem blockchain.
For now, because there has not been a clear declaration from Steemit Inc on the use of this ninja-mined stake, Soft Fork 0.22.2 has been deployed to allow for the entire community to discuss how best to achieve the original goals that this ninja-mined stake exists to support.
This reversible soft fork will not process certain transactions related only to Steemit Inc ninja-mined stake as listed above, and is simply the due diligence required by consensus witnesses in regards to centralization that could have an impact on the integrity of the Steem blockchain. It is very likely that the soft fork code will not impact any transactions at all, and that there will be further announcements from witnesses, community members, Steemit Inc, and the TRON foundation in the near future.
Let's talk about the future of Steem!
We have a vibrant platform (with many front ends) which gives us all the ability to voice our concerns and excitement while discussing topics like this one in a public manner. We encourage you all to do so! No matter if you are a witness, a content creator, a business owner, or new community member — if you feel these actions are not representative of your vision for Steem, be sure to express that and vote for witnesses accordingly. As consensus witnesses were elected to represent you and to uphold the security and integrity of the Steem blockchain, we are here to support everyone in our ecosystem. Please get involved by voicing your thoughts, and using your votes.
All rewards from this post will be sent to @null.
Steem on!
The Steem Consensus Witnesses
We support this conditioned on it being a temporary limitation made until it has been made clear by the new ownership of Steemit Inc how the stake will be used, and where sufficient guarantees has been made to ensure that it will be used as promised.
Well said.
this
And what if those guarantees are not made? We take this guy's stake away from him?
The damage done to steem from doing this will likely never be undone.
It would indeed make sense!
My position on the soft fork:
I do support the overall mission that the top witnesses and community/stakeholders are trying to achieve: Finding a way for Steem to progress in a way where the security of our governance and blockchain is not under the constant threat of a single stakeholder.
I however am not running the changes on my witness node. My post along with my explanation can be found here.
The precedent set by this will never be able to be overcome. Why would anyone invest in something that can be taken away from them by the Top 20 Witnesses?
Why would anyone invest in something that can be taken away from them by the witnesses Justin Sun could elect unilateraly?
but has steemit not been ruled by one small group for a long time?
I was seeing a possible future where we get rid of kowtowing witnesses and create a Steem that would change the world forever. You know.......... start distributing Steem and create some growth, get rid of flags and find another option for plagiarism sensible basic honest things - NO MORE FLAGS
I don’t foresee that in the future, although once/if SMTs launch you may be able to launch a new SMT token that doesn’t allow downvoting.
I support and run this update on my witness @roelandp. It has been an intense 10 days but great worker with a big group of long term Steem stakeholders, consisting of investors, community members, witnesses.
I will issue my own views shortly on my account - but the gist is:
Its not a good thing
It's not temporary if he doesn't meet these strong armed demands though, correct?
Please show me on this rat doll where the witnesses touched you.
Thank you for protecting Steem @roelandp Voted for you as witness.
PLEASE investiate the Matrix-8 Multi-Level Governance Platform to be, as a potential system of governance for Steem. You can begin to find out about it here: https://steempeak.com/naturalmedicine/@atma.love/why
Namaste
Atma
Witness @riverhead supports this update.
I support this! Edit: more details
We are looking forward to seeing the Steem blockchain become an even more decentralized place to develop our interface. We believe these moves can produce a step in the right direction ... the early mined stake of Steemit INC has not been used for 4 years to impact the governance of the chain and it was kept that way as trust based agreement with the community that luckily worked until now, we were always at risk but the risk never came to fruition.
NOW... We feel much more secure with it being a trustless system in the future.
https://steempeak.com
It's one thing to prevent the stake from witness voting it's another one to prevent transfers and selling. Even if they did do that, powering down takes 13 weeks which would have given the community 6 or 7 weeks to prepare a countermeasure should they power down, transfer and power back up.
besides the giving reasoning: a started powerdown could only be stopped either by the keyholder, or a hardfork. A hardfork would be a way more drastic implementation which also requires exchanges to update the software.
Even ONE week would have a massive effect. Not necessarily unilateral control but still enormous influence, by itself probably in the top 5 stakeholders on the entire platform. It isn't practical or meaningful to talk about non-voting without preventing power down in my opinion.
I stepped down as a witness due to concerns over the ongoing time commitment as well as anticipated increase in witness demands connected to this fork and the recent sale of Steemit more broadly.
However, as a stakeholder, I support the actions taken, I am voting for witnesses running the modified code. I believe that firm action to address Steemit's lack of transparency and candor, repeated empty and broken promises, mismanagement, and exploitation of the community should have been taken long ago, though, unfortunately, consensus to do so could never be reached for a variety of reasons. Better late then never, I guess.
Is there an easy way to see who has upgraded and who hasn't so people might adjust their witness votes?
Thanks
0.22.2 is the updated version. Look on https://steemd.com/witnesses
Thanks
Time to reshuffle my votes
https://steemian.info/witnesses
Well said, @smooth!
Doesn't this look like a form of the Top witnesses just entrenching themselves in the top witness spots?
Not to me, unless you think that the way to get them out would be with the ninja-mined stake voting. I don't believe that.
No other votes are affected. The top witnesses can be voted out just as easily today as they could two days ago. In fact I would venture to say there has been more movement in and out of the top 20 in the wake of this fork than most times before, but I'm not basing that on real data, just an impression.
i beg to differ. there are many large accounts that have proxies set that have quit / died, but they are stil voting for 'the top 20' - and there is no way to 'overpower' them as they are autovoting, etc, and forever getting stronger... even though they no longer exist. shrug maybe im wrong
In support and running it.
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As a STEEM witness, I've implemented the related soft fork, and support the statement in this post.
I fully support this update and will write my statement soon.
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