Steemit Update
Hello Steemians,
As an update, one issue we have begun to address is reducing the cost of running Steem nodes. We are happy to report that we have made some progress by already realizing improvements that have enabled us to reduce the number of nodes we are running and the size of the instances. At the same time, we continue to build out a longer term strategy for reducing the size of full nodes and their cost even further.
Pitchforking Steem was eliminated as a potential option and instead we are focusing on Hivemind and RocksDB. Leveraging these pieces of software is extremely complicated and consists of countless small stages. But progress is going well and we are optimistic about our current roadmap and ability to deliver the necessary improvements.
While we are “picking the low hanging fruit” relating to node size reductions, we continue to evaluate the merits of releasing an SMT-lite protocol as well as any potential opportunities for generating revenue.
We appreciate your continued support and patience, as this has been a challenging time and the work we are doing is highly technical. We understand people have been frustrated by the dearth of communications, but the team is healthy, energized, and eager to take on the challenges ahead of us.
The Steemit Team
What this means ?
Just thought of explaining in layman terms about what this is all about. The Steem nodes means various types of Steem API nodes, TESTNET etc which uses a cloud hosting solution from Amazon's AWS.
Instance = a server running under the virtualized environment. (AWS terminology). Essentially its CPU power, RAM, Hard disk and Interconnection.
Instance Size = This means how much CPU, RAM, Storage a server has. Cost increases as the size.
Some of the Full node functionalities are getting moved to Hivemind.
RocksDB = Almost like an external storage where certain type of data is stored. Technically it is a database. This work is very complicated as code changes are involved. Personally I feel this work will make Steem one of the fastest chains and also increase its use as a general purpose chain.
State of DApps on Steem blockchain
Further, I also want to plug the state of Dapps - built on Steem blockchain and others. The number of people who use the applications built on top of the Steem blockchain is higher if not very large even if we compare the entire public blockchain eco-system. This will eventually bring in real value of the STEEM coin and the Steem blockchain.
References:
https://dappradar.com/ Gives a comparison of various blockchains and comparing the users of apps with the number of active users from https://steemapps.com/ will give the real picture of blockchain eco-systems and the "intrinsic value" of various chains.
Ned noshowing = dearth of communications ?
Thanks for your dumb ass logic Steemit Inc.
Great translation into non-super-geek-speak!
Steemit Inc Glossary.
Seriously @bobinson I say you should come in here and write a comment/post translating their posts! It's awesome and hilarious.
I mean I'm just glad they communicated... baby steps.
thanks for the effort
Translation: We are still here focused on making things more affordable. (this is good)
We don't know what we will do after that.
One thing we might do is SMTs Lite.
Okay they breathe, time to look for other development options if the community feels upgrades are important.
We can likely continue to limp by as is.
STEEM blockchain already can handle tokens. In fact, @pocket-a by @biophil was the first token that was airdropped on Steemitians (one million per account). Anybody could send POCKET with a comment. It was initially traded at Bitshares 100-200 per BTS. It is not maintained anymore. It is open source and anybody can launch a TOKEN (similar to SMT) right now if one wishes.
pocketsend:100@whatsup
https://github.com/biophil/pocket
https://steemit.com/pocket/@biophil/the-future-of-pocket
https://cryptofresh.com/a/POCKET
SMT should not be that hard. It will be probably released but delayed.
Lol im slowly dieing. Are hope comes from otger devlopers
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You will not die, don't be dramatic. Perhaps you feel discouraged.
No need to panic it is a good thing they are working on making the blockchain more efficient, which is good for all of us. My point is that is all they are committing to and some people are still pretending we will have SMTs and upgrades coming. I find it really unlikely.
The track record is that even things they 'commit' to often don't get delivered.
Even relatively simple things like a livestream.
Anyone who still believes a word any of them say this point is a beyond helping.
Is this the end of the road? Are there any emergency plans? Witnesses are also silent, very spooky, how is their take on the way forward?
Steemit Inc, drops out, and burn their stake? smiles
Or a reverse split, 4-1 steem and sbd with incentives to convert so that this huge sbd debt is gone or minimalised? It's going to slow now...
But most important is some voices on this silence, can you as a witness confirm all those top 20 witnesses are ready for whatever comes?
I can't speak for 20 witnesses. I have little doubt there will continue to be witnesses willing to sign blocks even if not necessarily all of the current ones. The list has changed over time anyway.
I know for the first time in 2.5 years (to my knowledge), some people have been seriously talking about a fork that would lock or erase the ninjamined steemit/founder stake because they are not convinced that Steemit as acting in good faith nor holding up its end of the social contract. It is disturbing that things have gotten so bad that is actually being considered.
It isn't something I'm in favor of at this point, but frankly Steemit seems to be doing its very best to push people toward that. I guess one might wonder if they have reasons to want it, or are really just THAT incompetent. I'm honestly not sure.
I've heard the word fork a lot recently also. I think it will just create a larger split.
Not sure I've seen a realistic proposal yet.
I think it is clear we should not have any expectation from SteemIt, Inc and move forward as if they are a large stakeholder.
A large (likely 50%+, but certainly at least 30%+) stakeholder who didn't buy in and doesn't contribute (sufficiently) is just a parasite who will not only dilute the good work of others but also depress the price for years with their continued selling. That doesn't strike me as realistic.
I'd likely just sell my stake for whatever I can salvage from it and move on to more promising projects if things don't turn around.
Thx for your answer smooth,
Good to know there is some real disturbance in the force, we can all feel that...
Time will tell, I will have your back if needed.
thumbsup
Likewise mate.
Maybe they can lower their share voluntarily..... do an airdrop to steemians.... especialy to the active ones
Hey @smooth, I would never tag you lightly, there is a meeting tomorrow regarding technology with and without SteemIt, Inc's influence.
I don't know if you ever do voice, but maybe at least chat with us?
Anyway, would love to hear your input.. https://steemit.com/steem/@pennsif/sosdailynewsallyouneedtoknowaboutthestateofsteem19december2018-5p50lpibkj
no need for a reverse split they changed the upvote chargedown by 30% ALREADY BY MAKING 2 FULL UPVOTES INCREASING THE POWERDOWN PERCENTAGE TAKEN OFF FROM 2.5% TO 3.5% SO FOR A FULL RECHARGE IN 24 HOURS YOU CAN ONLY HAVE NOW 14.5 FULL UPVOTES A DAY DOWN FROM 18 !!!! That is a sh-tload of money being taken out of the pockets of everyone who rented delegation for long periods of time, bot owners, curators, authors....
The hosting costs were actually much less than what they let on....
THIS IS THE COST SAVINGS THEY WERE HIDING....I HAVE PAID FOR 14000 5 MINUTE PROCESSES A DAY ON aws AND THE COST WAS UNDER $900 A DAY, THAT MEANS ON THE COURSE OF A YEAR IT WAS LESS THAN $320K.
The $2 million cost of server operation was BS!!!
Anyone can do the math....
As a Steem (backup) witness, I am prepared to support the chain by whatever minimal support I can do + running the servers up for the foreseeable future without any revenue from the effort. I think many others also will do the same - but I can only speak for myself. I hope that answers the "whatever" comes scenario.
I can't comment on STEEM/SBD values as as markets and economics is not my area of expertise.
Sadly, that is a more direct way to say, what I am feeling as well. My point is why pretend we are getting any SMTs or upgrades. I don't understand why we are acting like we are going to get it.
I think it's unbelieve, hope I say that good on english.
I still can not grasp what is enfolding, sometimes I think, it can not be otherwise, it is so, that they plan this "shit" because you can't make this up. Looks more and more a planned hit and run job from the side of steemit inc. They ninja mined a huge stake, dropped a year 2000 blogging website, a beta... suck it all in, and after things get to hot under their feet (when the community asks innovation, new features and is demanding), spit it all out... and they will milk this cow until the end of time, at the expense of us, community and investors.
It's spooky that there is still no communications, not only from steemit inc. but also not from our top 20 witnesses, I surely hope they can find a way to speak with one voice and have a scenario ready, for the future,... but maybe, that's also whishfull thinking on my part.
We have more problems at hand, even when steemit inc drops out, witnesses should take over, but the state of the blockchain today demands some really nasty decisions, investments and fixes.
Even more important then this whole steemit inc. drama.
I
I don't think it was intentional, as in a plan, but it really doesn't matter if the result is the same.
If they hold the most stake it is hard to imagine they have the ability to "milk" the community. lol.
There was a communication today, you are commenting on it.
The top 20 witnesses might feel like they have to be careful what they say right now.
We are okay, we just can't rely on SteemIt Inc. That is all there is to it. No drama just a calm realization.
I understand the meaning, intention, plan...
Steemit inc. wants to change into a blockchain company. Same structure as block.one (EOS). So yes I agree, and that's also my take on the state of affairs, no drama, just calm realization.
And I am surely not sad because of the change of roles steemit inc. sees for themselves. I hope for some new kids on the block.
Time will tell, if steemit inc. with its huge stake will allow a new kid on the block... if they block this... I am sure we will fork our way forward. :)
LOL, imagine getting the attention SMTs from somebody like Anil Dash and including “realnedscott” in the twitter convo. Even telegramming him about it.
Guess who doesn’t feel follow on. Unless, of course, it wasn’t placed on the roadmap. The 2016 one.
There a million incidents like that. If you are expecting anything different at this point, that could be viewed as a sign of mental illness.
So true. Luckily I never expected anything from a “perennial reader”.
Nor did ever expect to find a dating post from a CEO who otherwise doesn’t communicate.
Im just playing around. I dont hold my breath about smts.
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STEEM blockchain can already handle tokens. In fact, @pocket-a by @biophil was the first token that was airdropped on Steemitians. Anybody could send POCKET with a comment. It was initially traded at Bitshares 100-200 per BTS. It is not maintained anymore. It is open source and anybody can launch a TOKEN right now if one wishes.
https://github.com/biophil/pocket
SMT should not be that hard. It will be probably released but delayed.
Probably... Isn't very inspiring and unfair to those developing projects.
Interesting about biophil's project, but if there is no place to trade it... ?
??? They are not working to make the blockchain more efficient, they are working to make steemit inc, more efficient...
Interesting take. but by making it cheaper for themselves they help the witnesses also.
True but I will reply below with a counterpoint as well.
We are satisfied with explanations, and explaining everything away we call knowledge. :)
Centralisation comes with a cost,
They thought to fix the cost part with HF20 and resource credits, that did not work out.
It's also not part of any roadmap anymore, heard nothing about it anymore.
Whatever they try, it's centralisation, and centralisation comes with a cost.
If you gonna take things of the blockchain, it's centralisation, and centralisation comes with a cost.
I'm not sure this is a matter of centralization directly but it is a matter of Steemit injecting its own operational priorities on to development priorities which is indeed a form of harmful centralization.
This is why I proposed that they shut down or spin off their own nodes (in an orderly manner) and only then undertake to optimize the code. I'm not aware of any other blockchain project where the developer team runs nodes for everyone else and it is fundamentally not a favorable model in terms of development supporting long term success.
There is a real tradeoff with RocksDB in that it will likely be a lot less efficient in terms of performance while reducing memory usage. That will have a long term cost in terms of scalability of transaction rate and then ultimately other complexity and maintainability issues (which is why graphene was designed with a non-blocking in-memory model for transactions validation in the first place).
It may turn out that this is a good tradeoff, but the problem is that neither demand for it nor any specification of requirements is coming from a broad community of people trying to run nodes and scale businesses who then feed back those diverse experiences to a neutral developer team. It is one company deciding that its own short term AWS bill should determine the course of the development roadmap for the entire blockchain, and that's a problem.
It sounds like the technical debt is as big as their stake.
translation; blah blah , eenie meenie miney moe, keep saying same empty jargon
sorry, but true
So basically the same shit you've been saying since over a year ago, more or less, mostly less.
How did things go in Malta, eh @Ned? Why don't you start telling some truths, instead of stretching your lies.
as long as you put BETA on the website. - it's ok
Oh it's really NOT okay. @bearbear613 - dm me in discord sometime. We should talk.
Gosh! This is tantalizing! What's been hidden from the public?
More info, if possible!
Cheers.
I'd say that's up to non-existent numbnuts @ned to explain, I'd say everyone will know what Im talking about within a month or so anyway.
Is this going to cause a huge selloff?
You mean more than is already happening with ned, dan, alpha, and other whales and stakeholders, et al?
Debatable. Genuinely could be great or terrible news, depending on the outcome. However, if said rumor is true, certain aspects of it will be very gratifying to some of us for more philosophical and hilarious reasons.
Oh, see, now you're just being a cock-tease. You've got to kiss and tell or we wander around disconsolately.
How is that different than what we were already doing?
More whispers.
I hate riddles. So ned died by going to malta to beg for investors and instead they threw him into the sea. Your not selling your steem so it must just be more of the same stuff from them.
I am in full power down... Also, I cashed out and made my bank at $12 LAST december, I could sell what is left or leave it to die and it wouldn't matter. Currently I give what I do power down every week to a venezuelan who needs it way worse than me. I'm a partner in a "real world" company. I make my money elsewhere than the chain. This was something very important to me 18 months ago, a year ago. Lately it's just a lark to watch and spin like a slot machine. One with a seriously poor set of odds at the moment. People who want to believe as hard they can, hate on me, but so far, I haven't been very wrong yet about any of my assertions about the state of things or the people I've specifically singled out and called fakes, frauds or fools. Wait and see ;)
Or you could tell the community what this rumour is and save more people. Doesnt sound like your much better than these people you call frauds. Who knows things and keeps them hidden, makes no sense.
Awesome! That’s all we need; short and sweet! As long as we get some communication I think the community can continue forging forward. I know it encourages me to continue investing time and money into the ecosystem. Thanks!
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no, we need more than something every fortnight ... I thought steem boasts about rapid transactions !!
We'll do our best to keep the communications coming! Thanks for sticking with us
Are you still working for Steemit Inc, or you supporting pro bono?
You stole that line, from the booster bot. :)
:Thanks for sticking with us:
Has STINC ownership changed hands?
And what happened to Ned? Is he still alive? I’m very worried. I’ve heard troubling rumors about his well-being.
Thanks, but your last comment - this one - is already 7 days old ...
Why don't you take part in the discussions more frequently?
What is @ned doing? I hope he is doing well! What happened with the last announced livestream?
Merry Christmas! :)
You’re easily pleased.
Some talking to the hand and you’re satisfied. Wanna blame BTC that Steem dropped from around 24 out of the top 50?
Pleased that communication has come back rather than the uncertainty and not knowing what was going on. Given a smaller team, they probably need to prioritize their efforts at the tasks at hand but the fact they were not communicating was concerning. A short and simple statement of acknowledgement that they are present and working goes a long way for me, my opinion, my stake. I no longer seek to depend on Steemit Inc for all I want out of Steem but this transitional phase is important for them and the community to be present.
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What is important for the community is that it STOPs waiting for all that.
It’s time to learn from more than a year of broken leadership. Stop hanging on to it already.
You only continue the dependence on them.
Cannot disagree with you... However, it is a process of transition that needs to happen as the community assimilates the transition and its governance. If not, we will never have a consistent approach to serve the community going forward.
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Will there be a technical post?
Or just this wishy washy one?
As the de facto only developer of steem, you should tell us more complicated things.
I am not familiar with Hivemind. But RocksDB related work is happening here : https://github.com/steemit/steem/tree/mira
There are frequent updates.
Ya Think ! hellz yea
_
Tldr: We continue to do nothing. This is just another all talk no action announcement to keep your hopes up while we keep powering down and sell our ninja mined stake.
Only a some 8 digits more to go! Oh wait...they might stick around to milk more for the fun of it.
Can someone please explain to us, how big this awesome team is?
Downvoted because of the $1 self vote but its actually a legitimate question. Which they won't answer because they don't understand the business they are in and think they are a spy agency.
I upvoted just for visibility, to stay on top because we all want to know the answer.
Not for the reward.
There is no transparency on steemit.
My grandkids can draw the charts of steemit progress like steemit.inc did for SMT. For free, of course.
Who the hell would buy cheap steem not knowing who's driving this crazy bus?
Fair enough. It got voted back up anyway, which is what should happen for a good (if likely futile) question.
power down is to cash out - correct?
So wait for the exit.
Now this is a relief for me! Finally I can stop hyperventilating! News from home base!!! Still Kickin and alive! Good to read that you are working hard with the team in the background!
yeah, but "kickin'"the can down the road, or actually kicking ass ?!?!?! who knows
Because I am a positive guy, I choose to believe in the best scenario for now
that's nice,,, but things haven't been too positive over the past 10 months, and just look at the ongoing headaches people have just to try to sign-up and use STEEM blockchain.
True, but not everything was foreseen in advance. and while things weren't as positive as expected over the past 10 months, I expect that we all can see quite quickly some results now from this team. They have to
... they or others
or others
Believe? Ohh boy, have a cigar!!!
I really do believe in cigars though!
"by the way, which one's Pink?"
I was under the impression that you folks quit...
!popcorn
you mean quit communicating again ??
No, I meant quit for good. @ned (CEO) not showing up for his scheduled post and new account creation has stopped with no word from Steemit Inc in a while. I was just under the impression that they have totally quit and shut down. I was just waiting for Steemit to stop functioning too.
i wouldn't be surprised with their track record... let's be honest
Well, it is a pleasant surprise to see a post from @steemitblog that they are moving towards a goal.
I'm pretty sure we are less than a month away from @ned not having to quit, I suspect his termination announcement is imminent and a big surprise is coming, if there is any truth to rumors I am hearing tossed around, which I won't be elaborating on here just yet since they are just rumors after all.
@socky i fully expect steemit to stop functioning any day now too
Thank you for your update. What about Ned? Is he okay? Why no update about already postponed livestream from anyone? Steemit, Inc is a company, so someone should update the announcement about it.
I second that complaint
Livestreams aren't top priority right now, focusing on the roadmap and implementation is mission critical.
Of course, but no update doesn't make sense. I'm not saying Ned should do livestream. Ned is the CEO of Steemit Inc, a company. Then, someone should update the announcement. That's all I'm saying.
ps. Wow, seems you're working there (I'm sorry if you're not). If you really think Steemit, Inc doesn't need to update the Ned's announcement, I have to say it's a very wrong idea. Even 5 mins can make a huge difference.