RE: Thoughts on TRON acquiring Steemit INC?
Some asked for my opinion... i have lots and they're changing by the hour.
As we get more info I completely reserve the right to change those opinions.
1. THIS COULD BE GREAT... IT COULD SUCK
This could be awesome... But there is so much we don't know.
2. NED SOLD HIS STEEM? What does that mean?
Assuming Ned sold his steem... what does that steem mean? It means a lot of RC and a lot of governance. It means that TRON FOUNDATION (assuming they're the buyers and not Justin Sun personally) that means Justin has the POTENTIAL to have a huge say in the governance of our blockchain.
3. A SWAP IS A SELL
Then you add to that how TRON FOUNDATION / Poloniex is looking to BUY (they call it a "swap"... you're SELLING no doubt about it) ... so what are you selling if you sell your STEEM? You're selling your governance control of this blockchain.
What are they buying your steem token for? Well it sounds like they will sell it to you for a token called... "steem" which is on the tron blockchain. Maybe ned sold him rites to that name? We don't know what that tron-steem-token does yet.
4. BACK TO BASICS ... WHAT DO STEEM TOKENS DO?
... what is TRON offering buy buying our steem tokens. What is the governance they offer. Do they offer just a token... what will that token do?
On the steem blockchain STEEM can be powered up which allows you:
- to make an account
- have RC
- participate in governance.
- Vote on posts determining distribution of inflation
Tron foundation still has the ability to offer us something better or allow us all those things perhaps?
5. WHERE DOES THE TRON FOUNDATION (justin) STAND ON GOVERNANCE
Tron foundation could say nope you'll be under our governance entirely... and honestly they could use NEDs steem and then buy from other steem users and then have enough tokens to impliment 20 witnesses that do their bidding. #hostiletakover.
6. HOW CAN TRON BENEFIT US?
However again we still have much to learn about how this benefits us and not just how it benifitted ned financially.
- Maybe we end up with more and better developers
- Maybe we end up with airdrops of trx or trx based tokens
- Maybe smts and trx-10 tokens are perfectly compatible or will be designed to be that way.
- Maybe we end up with awesome integration of BitTorrent!!
- Maybe we end up with much better marketing
- Maybe we end up with a huge war chest to make steem development happen better and faster
- Maybe we end up with a foundation that is still committed to decentralization. Turns out ned was willing to sell his portion of steem that could put our decentralized system at risk of not being decentralized. (We still have to wait to see what that new holder thinks)
- Maybe the foundation LOVES our apps and wants to see them succeed and maybe even helps incubate them with money.
7. TRON BUYING OUR TOKENS
Another thought is that even if we don't sell our tokens to the tron foundation they probably have enough money to buy tokens on the exchanges pretty easily ... not sure how many they could get before it shoots up out of range. So that may not be a big worry.
8 WHAT DOES STEEMIT HAVE THAT WE NEED?
- Programmers that know the steem blockchain code
- An API many places use
- Steemit.com / Steem.com and maybe they even own the right to the branding.
- Steem blockchain code repository on github
- I need some input to know what are some of the other things we use... i'm sure they exist just need the heads up.
Possible solutions (assuming what tron has to offer isn't appealing)
- Hire @justinw @roadscape and the others and have the community pay. (sps... we can even change rates to make it work)
- There are other APIs ... they can charge apps or they can get a better funding from SPS. Or some sort of combination of both.
- So we loose those websites... not the end of the world.
- The code is open source... i guess we'd need another repository. Finding a place to trust i guess is an important thing to thing about. solveable
9 STILL WAITING TO SEE WHAT TRON / JUSTIN IS PROPOSING.
- We can brainstorm lots of options and that's fine... but I still think there's a really good possibility everything goes well.... it depends on how they feel about governance
10. OUR OWN THING
We can do our own thing and who knows maybe that means new branding and maybe a blockchain that doesn't have all of NEDs tokens if they don't want to play ball with us or don't propose a governance option that benefits steem holders.
- We can hire @justinw / @roadscape and other perhaps if they're out of work or want to stick with steem (again a lot of this hinges on what tron has in mind with their stake and their new company acquisition)
10. NED AMA
Ned is doing an AMA tomorrow... it will be interesting to hear why he did what he did.
But I really want an AMA with Tron Foundation to know what they plan to do with their stake of STEEM and the company known as Steemit INC
11. MY AMA QUESTIONS
We should perhaps make another post that let's people submit questions and let people vote on if they want that question asked.
- What will a tron-steem-token do?
- Will tron-steem-token still have the same governance? Are we still self-governed?
- Will tron stake stay out of the governance decisions like steemit did?
- What will happen with the developers at Steemit INC? Are they still employed? What projects will they move to?
- What is happening to the steemit API?
- What is Ned gonna do with his life now?
- Will he be involved with Tron now? Or is he completely out?
- Cursios to know what his payday is?
- Did other Steemit inc employees know about this?
- Does their (steemit developers) contract include a no compete clause and does it transfer to tron foundation?
- Will tron attempt to force people to sell their steem-steem for the tron-steem?
- Does tron foundation still believe in decentralization of platforms... they own steemit.com presumably so are they ok with the multi-platform system? Aka SteemPeak.com / eSteem / STeem-Engine interfaces.
- Who else knew about you selling steemit inc?
- What other big stake holders are on board with you?
12. HOW DOES IT IMPACT STEEMPEAK
I have no idea right now... no one really does. It may be awesome. It may suck.
I am actually somewhat of an optomist by nature.
One thing is for sure... No one really knows that SteemPeak has a couple marketing plans that has the potential to bring in millions upon millions of users. But we have to prove retention and we want millions of viewers so we have to prep the site for them to come and make guest comments and several other features.
There is no reason to get millions of eyeballs right now until we can keep a decent proportion of them here. We believe the answer is with content creators that have a loyal fanbase. Something I believe I can make happen when the ground is fertile enough to plant/harvest.
13. AWESOME POTENTIAL OPTION
One really cool thing that may still be a possibility is that trons steem token may simply be a quick and easy way to move tokens from steem to tron network. That's actually a rockin' feature set.
If poloniex/tron has to keep them LIQUID and never uses them to power up on steem blockchain and impact governance then there is no real threat to decentralization that I can presently think of.
It's not tron owning too much steem that would concern me... it's them owning too much SP and exercising governance with it that could hurt us.
This. Glad to see you understand this.
Can you get up your own API, and how soon? (not a dev. Dunno what I'm asking, except that I know you need it.)
I moved to Steempeak while awaiting responses from steemit.legal regarding the TOS. I never went back - except to rescue my account when I got hacked. This brings that capacity to mind.
Can Steempeak restore accounts that get hacked as Steemit does? Not gonna be much of a platform if restoring accounts is no longer possible in the event Tron executes a hostile takeover.
Hoping for the best, but counting on you to be not only as rational as I've observed, but far more competent than I can comprehend. If we need that github repo to fork, I'll be counting on you to do it right.
Thanks!
I am still pretty optomistic about the AMA and the upcoming details. Fingers crossed.
But about the API there are people out there that know how to do it. We'll do it if needed and for sure eventually but less time on those types of things right now means more on the user experience side which is where we really need to focus in order to make retention happen.
I'd actually love to learn how account restoration works.
Given that Steemit has been sold to Tron, Steempeak is now the primary app through which folks interact on Steem AFAIK. Can you clarify whether that is the case, and which apps are also significant vectors of Steem?
In the event this becomes a hostile takeover, a core of Dapps that vector Steem working together will greatly facilitate a functional post-fork Steem. Absent such cooperation, I don't think there's a great prospect for success insofar as achieving the access to exchanges that will be necessary to draw investment and grow the value of Steem.
My only understanding of account restoration was delivered to me by @r0nd0n and @guiltyparties IIRC. All I remember is that they said 'go here. do this.' and when I did those things I ended the powerdown the hacker had initiated and changed my keys, regaining control of my account. I'll be of no help in that regard.