A Guide to Steem Witnesses - How to Vote for a Steem Witness and The Role of the Steem Witnesses
A Steem Witness is a key figure in the Steem blockchain. Steem witness is responsible for maintaining its integrity. Stem witness ensures that the decentralized platform functions smoothly. The witnesses play an important role in the validation of the transactions. They produce blocks. They protect the overall security of the network. Here is the detail information about Steem witness.
What is a Steem Witness?
Steem Witnesses are similar to miners in traditional blockchain systems. But there is a difference between the Steem witnesses and traditional blockchain miners. Steem witnesses validate the transactions and produce blocks in the blockchain. They are the trusted members of the platform. They are elected to keep the system functional and secure. They produce and sign in new blocks and make it sure that all the activities on the Steem blockchain are recorded accurately and with transparency.
Each Steem Witness is elected by the community. The users are free to determine the specific users who can maintain the blockchain in an efficient way. These witnesses run the specialized Steem softwares to maintain the network.
Responsibilities of a Steem Witness
Steem Witnesses have different responsibilities to maintain the operations of the network:
Producing Blocks: Witnesses produce blocks every 3 second. Each block contains all the transactions submitted to the blockchain during that period. It includes posts, comments, votes, transfers and other actions.
Validating Transactions: Witnesses validate transactions to ensure that there is no fraudulent or harmful activities those can compromise the integrity of the blockchain.
Updating the Blockchain Protocol: Witnesses can propose and implement updates to the Steem software. It is done to enhance the functionality, security and efficiency of the platform.
Network Security: Witnesses help to maintain the stability and security of the blockchain. It helps to protect the platform from external attacks or malicious activities.
Maintaining Consensus: Witnesses contribute to the consensus mechanism where the majority agree on a common version of the blockchain. It is necessary to ensure the consistency and accuracy of the platform.
How Steem Witnesses Are Elected
The Steem blockchain works on the Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) consensus mechanism. In this mechanism the Steem users elect the witnesses by voting the witnesses. The users cast vote with their steem power. Steem Power is the measure of the influence of the user on the platform. A user which has more steem power has higher impact in selecting the witness.
A Steem user can vote for up to 30 witnesses at a time. It allows a diverse witness pool. This democratic system to vote allow to choose the witnesses which are trusted and can add value to the platform. And it ensures that the governance of the blockchain is community driven which leads to decentralization.
The top 20 witnesses elected based on votes are responsible for the production of the blocks. And the witness on the 21 place serves as a backup witness which steps in if one of the top 20 is unable to produce the blocks.
How to vote for Steem Witness?
It is a simple process to vote for a witness. The process is given below:
- First of all you must be a Steemit user
- Go to https://steemitwallet.com/~witnesses
This is the witness page and we can see all the Steem witnesses here. In order to vote for a witness first of all we need to determine the witness.
- At the most left side we can see a button associated with each witness as I have highlighted them with the red box. So click on the button and follow the next screen.
- There will be the pop up window to sign the witness vote.
- You need to add your username and private active key.
- After adding the credentials and clicking ok the vote is done.
- As you can see in the image that if the user is not available in the top 100 witnesses then we can vote the witness by adding the username here. Moreover if you do not want to scroll down to find your witness in top 100 then simply add the name of the witness in this section and your vote will be cast after signing in.
- Further there is another unique option to cast your witness votes by setting a person as your proxy. It means the person to whom you choose your proxy will vote the witnesses from your side. So if you do not now much about the work and importance of the witnesses then you can simply set a well know and trusted person as your proxy to broadcast your witness votes.
So in this way we can vote for any desired witness.
Why the Steem Witness System Matters
The Steem Witness system demonstrates the potential for community driven governance on a decentralized platform. It encourages transparency and accountability. The witnesses must maintain a good reputation and fulfill their duties to keep their positions. This approach helps to build a trust. By following this approach a collaborative network is formed where community members can interact and transact freely.
Conclusion
Steem Witnesses are the backbone of the Steem blockchain. They play a important role to maintain the functionality and security of the network. They ensure the integrity of the network. Through a community-based election process Steem users select these witnesses to ensure that blockchain governance remains decentralized. Although the system faces some challenges but it is a powerful example of how decentralized networks can govern and evolve while ensuring trustworthy actors to maintain and protect the blockchain.
I have come up with this information after seeing the post of @steemchiller, The post is I need to make this clear now!
Upvoted! Thank you for supporting witness @jswit.