I am a mere content creator (singer/musician/blogger) I'm not even much into crypto, I've never cashed anything, I just enjoy blogging and the community I found here. I just want to say (as RANDOM user of the platform who I believe post high quality content) the charm of Steemit is precisely that we gather, we discuss, we do witnessess pannels, we as users carefully vote for those who align with our thinking, they are always reachable, and usually go to these pannels to explain. For me as an USER entering and seeing overnight an unknown top 20 was scary. I actually started on Steemit doing concerts on Dlive and it was super fun, but they detached so SUDDENLY I did not even have a chance to download my streams or migrate my account... so when I read of a change of hands I feared... (I don't post that often) do I need to do a swap, what's happening...? as I say I come here when I can as a BLOG and I'm not updated with all the news as others do, but as me many others... I think the community trying to restore their top 20 to "known names" was kind of statement to say, this is not the way things are here... you are now part of Steemit! be PART of this! And I tell you the community is real and some have endured seeing the value go down but people return cos they made friends here, I as an artist I come because I do get feedback of my work, simple as that.

This is not a about countries, politics or a coup, I hope all is resolved and we are all ready to move forward, I'd find sad to see this place gone wrong but I only have but a voice here. Many of the witnesses that did the softwork have acted always in the best interest and have been in touch with users whenever, so it's logical the community will be scared if they see an unknown top 20 and more even will assume that what's done was also done in the interest of protecting "us". So there is steemit and there is "us" the community, and there will be unruly people, and creative people, and trolls and peaceful ones... but first, join us, be PART of this, show your vision, join the discords, be patient. Most of those witnesses that you name as hackers have backed us a long time and know a LOT of this place. I don't know if this is a dicotomy a or b, I hope not, I hope as naive as I am this gets solved and maybe then you realize that with all its particularities, there is a "real" community. I haven't even checked the price of steem in ages... but I tell you the community is there and you may even enjoy and love it if you give it a chance to get to know it, I'm kind of hopeful it may happen so we can all grow together.

but some of the people you have called malicious and hackers, I tell you, they are elected by the community.

I'm not into drama, wars and fights... but if this is the beginning of something, assume you should first BE PART OF THIS and understand how it works and what makes people return to it. Cos it's not a number (most of the times)

With this, good luck to all parts to the crisis to be overcome for good.

I'm also seeing kind of racist comments from fellow people here and I don't like that either... this is something we build together, Steem has no country, so not in favour of using the crisis for slurs about politics or countries or threats or whatever... it's not about that but you can't pretend everyone behaves the same, precisely in a place where "free opinion" rules.

Now I hope you understand the position of mere users (I'm not involved in the politics of the chain or even crypto much) I just return to a place I found interesting as a creator. Now give it a try... you may be even love it.