RE: Believe Sun, Or Believe His PR Team?
Hey, @janton.
I haven't had much of a chance to do much of any digging, and I'm not really sure what I might even find, but Sun's education doesn't line up with blockchain or crypto as far as developing it goes—nor does it lineup with running a business, either.
And yet, he was selected by Jack Ma of Alibaba fame to attend a college where Sun was the youngest in the class.
I don't know. I can see some good coming from all of this. I just think he's not quite what he seems, and that there are plenty unknowns, at least for me, like who is he beholden to, and what will that ultimately cost. If not him, his acquisitions.
I'm not all that keen on anyone who has ties to China owning anything so close to the STEEM blockchain, but I'm not sure how to express that without it sounding small minded or something. I'm not sure when China became well regarded—apparently about the same time they started opening up free enterprise zones and basically taking over the world's manufacturing—but Communism is still Communism, and regardless of what the U.S. may be falling in or out of, I don't like the connections to a State that has already proven itself to rule with an Iron Fist.
Howdy again sir Glen! Yeah I didn't think much about his Chinese background until you mentioned it. That adds another concern and big question doesn't it? Wow, could this whole deal be any more of an unknown? Anything could happen!
I've been contemplating a posts on it, but haven't pulled it all together yet. I wanted to see if I could find out first where the seed money came from for his earlier ventures. The ones for Tron are a little more transparent—a large investment fund in China for one—and so anyway.
If we're looking for our definition of decentralization, which doesn't just mean a blockchain distributed over many servers potentially throughout the world, but the way things are also governed—then TRON is not decentralized. He pretty much pulls the strings, or Binance does, depending on who is more beholden to whom.
I'm just not all that inclined to overlook all of the not-so-great things. Sure, STEEM could use some major marketing acumen, and sure, having Steemit Inc funded and secured, all great.
But at what price?
We're all of sudden talking about voting for witnesses and trusting in them and the Steemit Dev team, when both of those groups have been considered part of the problems, if not the main ones, we've had on the blockchain. Controlled by whales.
Oh, how the worm turns.
Now, they're all supposed to be our firewall in case something untoward goes down. I hope they all, or at least enough of them, prove to be up to the task. Decisions are hard when livelihoods and therefore people's families end up being thrown into the mix.
Meaning, if Sun starts waving money around, like he has, or starts firing people, like he has in other acquisitions, supposedly because they wouldn't tow the company line, well, it's tough to find backbone at that point if it doesn't already exist.
I've been concerned what witnesses would do if they were being harassed by their local governments or some other entity that doesn't want crypto to succeed. Now, I'm wondering what Sun will do if he doesn't get exactly what he wants—whatever that proves to be.
He's very good at telling one group one thing, while going ahead with something else. He's done that quite a few times, too.
Oh great. Now I have all kinds of doubts! lol. It'll be interesting to see what happens. What connection does Binance have with Tron?
According to this article Binance controls 53% of the TRON network, however that works on TRON. Binance is a Super Representative, which is more or less the equivalent of a Witness on STEEM. I'm sure there are differences, but TRON is supposed to be DPOS, too, though there are probably differences with that, too.
What is DPOS again? Does China own Binance? What did you think of that open letter to Steemit from Sun? Is this enough questions in one comment? lol.
DPOS stands for Delegated Proof of Stake, as opposed to PoW, or proof of work, like Bitcoin is. There, they mine for Bitcoin. Here, we buy and power up STEEM, and then use the SP for most of what we do on chain.
re: Binance
It originated in China, but it appears that somewhere in 2017 they moved everything to Japan due to a pending ban on crypto in China.
re: open letter
If you're talking about his latest post after the soft fork, I agree with exyle—he doesn't have a whole lot of choice but to come to the table and discuss his plans. Obviously, he should have at least been in communication with the Witnesses before now, but apparently he wasn't.
You didn't ask this question, but I feel like it's implied—who do I trust?
The answer is, no one. Sun is yet to prove trustworthy based on the conflicting information that continues to come from his PR folks (or him), and because of his dealings with TRON.
However, the Witnesses have pretty much set a precedence with the soft fork and binding of STEEM stake, no matter how temporary that it might be, and have open the door for potential freeze outs in the future. At the very least, I think it's a slippery slope, and if at all, it should have been the last resort, not essentially the second one (there are claims of attempts to talk to him).
Lost in all of this is the Steemit Team. I got the strong sense from Andrarchy and the others was they were essentially asking for time to talk to the TRON folks, which is supposed to happen this week, to allow for some road mapping, etc.
Apparently, that wasn't good enough for the Witnesses and whichever 'community members' I keep reading about who were apart of the closed doors discussions.
Ok, so the witnesses acted very fast to send a strong message. But we don't know if that was the best play or not. But at least Sun is setting up the meeting between his people and ours for discussions so that's good, right?
I guess we'll find out, if something doesn't happen between now and March 6.
It's not like I don't see their point of view. Up until they did it, I was starting to lean towards something like that, but as a last resort, after much more than what apparently has already happened. Before coming to that conclusion, I was opposed to any hint or talk about doing it to Steemit Inc. when it first became an issue last year.
Somehow, someway, people have gotten it into their heads that Steemit's stake is illegitimate, that it should belong to the community, and as such, it's not really Steemit's to control.
Even though without Steemit, or those behind it, there wouldn't be a STEEM blockchain. It's kind of like being invited to live in someone's house and then essentially taking it over.
I keep hearing how everyone's free to use their stake as they will, but that doesn't seem to go for Steemit.
It actually doesn't really go for any of us, if we manage to get in the crosshairs of those who strongly disagree with what we're doing and have enough stake to do something about it.
Might continues to make right here, and right now, the witnesses and I imagine the upper SP are flexing their collective muscles.
How Sun is ultimately going to take this, I don't know. He's good at talking out of both sides of his mouth, depending on the audience and the circumstances. If he really wants to destroy the STEEM blockchain by trying to somehow bring it all to TRON, this isn't going to stop him.
Supposedly he's got a billion dollars worth of TRON sitting out on an exchange somewhere, in addition to what the TRON foundation has on chain. If that's even remotely true, he's got a big enough war chest to crush any attempts anyone here might try, including this warning shot across the bow.
So, I'm hoping that someone is watching the different portals and trying to see which new accounts powering up are potentially connected to Sun, because otherwise, this move is all for naught.
I don't know. It feels a lot like poking a sleeping bear. But if your trapped inside the cave with it and it's lying at the entrance, that might be your only way to get out, by getting it to move and hoping it's still asleep enough to avoid getting mauled.