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Oh? What happened?
I guess I'll need to remove that ad.
Thanks for letting me know.

They didn't say specifically... but most of the witnesses outside of the Top 21 aren't profitable at all. With the Steem price as it is, it costs more to run the servers than they're getting paid.

I always assumed that the witnesses outside the top 20 did it as a service and volunteered or donated the service for any of a number of reasons.

Yep, that's my understanding too... but I guess everyone has their limits on how long they're willing to lose money on something for.

That really begs the question about how decentralized Steem really is then. If being a witness is strictly a money-making proposition and only the top 20 make money... need I say more?

Not at all.
I'd say it was very different when Steem was priced a lot higher... the backup witnesses could comfortably maintain their servers. I think that's why we still have over a hundred witnesses... they're mostly just waiting for better days.

I'm expecting better days at any time, but that's just a feeling. Some so-called experts seem to think the Crypto-Winter is almost over as well. What have you heard about this? Can we expect the price to shoot up soon?

Honestly, I think it all comes down to the US SEC approving a Bitcoin futures thingo. I guess that the prices will shoot up literally within minutes of that information being released.

I'm also personally not looking forward to it, because that will mean a whole lot of finance jerks will come into the space looking to make a quick buck and not caring about the technology at all. If it were up to me, I'd ask the SEC to hold off a couple of years to get the technology really right, especially of Bitcoin, but I don't think that'll happen. My guess is sometime within the next year the SEC will make a decision.

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