For my own sanity, a deconstruction of Tron's announcement regarding Steemit Inc
This post is in direct response to a Medium Article published by the Tron Foundation earlier today. In it, there are many vague statements made. Before I begin, I want to make a few things clear. This may end up being a technical post, and will most certainly be a speculative one.
Here's a picture of my car. This is from a time where I personally did not know the difference between Steemit and Steem. I explain that in a seperate post.
What you need to know before reading the below (for the benefit of those who are new to the Steem blockchain and the "Steemit" eco-system)
Steemit Inc is not "STEEM"
Steemit Inc is a company that develops the steem software library (not to be confused with Valve's STEAM PC gaming platform). Steemit Inc is responsible for a few properties relating to steem:
- The front-end of Steemit.com, allowing users to blog, comment, and view content. (You should use SteemPeak instead)
- SteemitWallet.com, which allows users to perform transactions on the blockchain
- Steem.com which talks about the crypto-currency itself
- Assorted IT infrastructure which helps to keep the blockchain running (but is not integral to its operation)
I'll take a look at the announcment:
The first sentence is factual. Steemit Inc is the main front-end (and entrance point) to the wonderful world of Steem, which as I've said, goes much deeper than what I've explained above. The statement regarding the partnership is interesting. Hype++
The second sentence regarding development teams starting to work together is where the waters start to become immediately muddied and confusing. I'm not sure how Steemit Inc developers can start working on other Steem blockchain projects and a migration - does that mean that third party apps build on steem will get the support of Steemit Inc's developers? I doubt it. It seems like this sentence is in regards to "transitioning" the steem blockchain to a "side-chain" of the TRON platform.
Tron is a good, technical blockchain. It is quickj, scalable, and hasn't had a whole lot of downtime. The next sentence is truthful, but is also filled with a bit of a "kick" in the face of those who've been on the steem platform for some time. That's the mention of DLive, which started its life on the Steem blockchain. Further to that, if you go digging into the past history of Steem, you'll see lots of documentation with users experiencing issues with using Poloniex as their exchange of "choice" for Steem.
Let's move to that second paragraph now. I wouldn't describe Steemit's front end as a reddit-like. I would definitely say that Steem, not STEEMIT (caps are my own emphasis here) does have a thriving community of dapps with things like @splinterlands, dTube, Appics, and many other things.
Historical fact about Larimer and Scott rings true.
This is where it gets confusing. The STEEM token becomes a TRX token. "Giveaways to the existing TRX users with the new TRON based STEEM token" is very concerning indeed. What do loyal Steemians get other than "accelerator program" for developers? What does each and every Steemian, witness, developer, and contributor to the Steem blockchain get in exchange for this?
Justin chimes in:
Excitement. No need to be excited. We've been excited, enthusiastic and loyal Steemians to a platform that has at times broken beyond repair for days on end, but also a platform that has enabled artists to genuinely eat food, people to obtain goods and services that they normally would not, and other feel good projects like charity donation drives.
Ned chimes in:
New heights. (of his hair?) I don't know. This is more hype.
It's a press release about what TRON Foundation wants to do with Steemit Inc holding its hand.
What could happen next?
- Witnesses could fork our Steemit's Stake and create a "Steem-Classic" of sorts
- Steem becomes a sidechain to TRX, and Steem-Engine becomes a side-side-chain?
- SMTs get launched on absolute steriods and we get an incredible migration to a true reddit-like platform
I am not sure on the consequences of each of these probabalitites, but I think there hasn't been a better time to be a proponent of the original vision of Steem, and what bought me to the platform...
Imagine a world where something I say, something I write, captures me, at a certain point of time, and try as I might, I'll never be able to delete it?
As a creator, as a human being of conviction, honesty, and believing that everything ever said is a moment of personal growth and a strand of the historical fact weaves you into the conciousness that you currently inhabit. Cause and effect my friends.
Further reading on this topic can be found in @lukestokes excellent post: https://steempeak.com/tron/@lukestokes/steem-is-still-not-steemit-even-if-tron-buys-steemit
Keen to hear the comments of others on this news.
I’ve known you as an active blogger since my initial days on Steemit. When i joined Steemit things were refreshing and that spirit continued for a while. With the bear market, Steemit and steem and everything else around steemit lost its mojo. Including your own posts and confusion. It’s not just you, I personally Went through it. I had this great idea that I’d be able to launch a token for my publication and further excite my readers and gain their attention back from Facebook and insta and Tik tok. I waited for months and even after a year there was not talk about Smts or anything. Let’s be honest the whole steemit journey has been filled in with potholes and disruptions.
Since smts didn’t take off, I tried waves platform. I even launched a token and onboarded a few readers. But waves proved to be clunky.
Very recently I moved the whole idea to Tron and I got to tell you that the ecosystem is a lot more friendlier and down to earth. You can easily find a dev who can put together a smart contract and integrate stuff to your platform. It even costs very less. Just from a practical point of view; this is what we need. We need real soldiers on the ground to fight Facebook. And Tron and its Dapps are very inspiring.
I’m not a developer, I’m a micro publisher who has been very badly burnt by the rise of monopolies like google and Facebook. I respect and understand the contribution these corporates have made in advancing decentralisation of information.
But now that Facebook and google have become so powerful, we need practical solutions that can work for us. Not endless debates on how and when to launch smts.
With Tron taking over steemit, I firmly believe this will accelerate innovation in the media space and give a boost to the fight against large corporations like Facebook. Yes Tron will eventually turn into another beast, but that’s a problem to solve another day. Right now we have other issues to resolve and Tron is our partner and a friend. Let’s welcome this move and get going. We have no time to lose my friend!
This was a really informative comment. The last point about another beast rising is worth thinking about. In the end it really depends on what Sun decides to do with us and I appreciate this as a huge wake up call to those who believe decentralized currency means decentralized power.
Thank you for your wonderful comment. I'll be sticking around no matter what.
As a creator, I must create. It doesn';t matter what the medium is or what the reward is. The act of creation continues.
The ability to publish and share and be rewarded is the boon for that effort. I said this on another post for this topic, but the capital expended of our "time" is not wasted, even if this move is the worst thing that ever happens.
We've gotten friendships, connections, endorphins and all that oher fuzzy, luke-warm stuff.
Time to Fork
Three branches. Steem-TRX, Steem-Classic, and Steem-Perhaps-Golos? I didn't want to complicate the article further with that ;)
Sweet - thanks for the update. Gosh where will this go? but the real question on everyone's lips;Does the Tron guy have cool hair like @ned, what is he bringing if not large hair?
According to this
https://steempeak.com/steem/@liberosist/steem-classic-anyone
Yes :)
I've read a bit of doom and gloom since the announcement. Thanks for sharing this balanced, calm analysis
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It was my way to sort out my own thoughts. I'm glad that it helped you!
Hello can i ask for little donate ?:)
My comment is it's too early in the morning for this XD I don't know if I actually care as long as the existing ux remains or improves and "they" don't start trying to centralise the whole thing (good luck with that I guess? But if it's managed it will definitely be time to bail).
We'll just have to wait and see! :)
We'd been hearing rumours for a while, but this seems to be more and more legit. I do wish that @ned or someone official would release a press release explaining their position and what it means.
I hope that this is a good thing for everyone. Time will tell.
There'll be a live stream later tonight. None of this stuff will change overnight, the code-back-end stuff will (although depending on Tron's developer's prowess) take a long time.