Help Me Understand What A Witness Is
I read a little about witnesses and am still confused. So let's pretend that you are explaining it to a 5th grader. With a short and simple explanation, tell me what exactly is a witness and why is it so important? Thanks!
What's a Steem Witness and Why Should we Care
I'm not very technical, but I'll see if I can explain it in a simple-to-understand way...
The Steem blockchain requires a set of people to create blocks and uses a consensus mechanism called Delegated Proof of Stake, or DPOS. The people delegated to create these blocks are called witnesses.
They are voted on by owners of Steem accounts, using a steem-power weighted system, so they are generally some of the most trusted members of the community, as well as being tech savvy. They are expected to keep a node running every second of every day.
Blocks are produced in rounds, 63 seconds per round and 21 blocks per round. Every round, the top 19 witness accounts are delegated to produce a block, 1 block is produced by a backup witness, and 1 by a miner. (This configuration will be changing in the next hardfork, which is set to happen in a week or 2. At that time, witness pay will be spread more widely amongst witnesses.)
In addition to producing blocks, witnesses are also responsible for providing a price feed of the US dollar value of Steem as well as setting the Steem Dollar interest rate. As an incentive to do all their required tasks, witnesses are rewarded 1 Steem for each block they produce. (Witness pay is decreasing by about 80% at the next hardfork.)
What kind of mining hardward is used in steems and what kind algorithm?
I'm not the one to answer that question, but hopefully, someone else who knows will come across this post.
Thank you for the good explanation.
I also could use this information. Since it's grade 5 though... I hope I don't get kicked out of class.
A witness is one of the guys who makes the block-chain possible by running a "node" 24/7/365 basically. He has other specific tasks too, and has to be compensated for the electricity he consumes.
The block-chain is a distributed, peer to peer, database which always needs a few nodes to be running to have it exist in the first place, as there is no traditional server!
I am fascinated by this post. It raises a good question. The answers raise more questions than explanations! Would/should a 5th grader be able to explain the following:
Blockchain, consensus mechanism, Delegated Proof of Stake, creation of blocks, voting system/structure, steem-power weighted system?
Enough already!
I could continue and my apologies to @shenanigator for having the uppermost reply!
Communication relies upon two or more entities (people) possessing the appropriate tools (language) for the exchange of data and ideas such that the recipient achieves a level of comprehension as intended by the provider.
This may sound simplistic but I can assure you that it is not. I suspect that the audience of this communication is in need of explanation about blockchain rather than my musings about communication!
This subject is, however, most apt for Steemit. There are a number of uses of language which I could cite within the Steemit platform which are, quite honestly, unhelpful:
Witness, Curator, Upvote, and so forth.
Simple words generally lead to simplified understanding.
I thought of doing a similar post to this asking witnesses:
I've only voted for 3 witnesses so far, please comment with your sales pitch below so that I know why I should vote for you. I'll stop voting after 25.
Something to that effect. ;-)