Is Steem Broken?
Steem HardFork 20
The Steem HardFork 20 launched at 11am EDT yesterday and promptly prevented almost all users from doing any activities that interact with the blockchain. That's right, you couldn't post, comment, vote, power up, or even claim rewards. In the first 9 hours after HF20 was brought online, only 77 posts had been created.* That's a far cry from the normal number a user might see.
Resource Credits
The main problem is in the new resource allocation system that Steemit Inc developed for the new HardFork. In order to better allocate resources and "charge" those back to each account, they developed a new system called "Resource Credits" which is different than their old "Bandwidth" system. It seems that when HF20 launched, there was no code to instruct the system to start everyone off with a specific balance, or even with a zero balance. When the system launched, it assigned RCs used based on activity prior to HF20, but didn't give credit for RCs earned. This lead to many users having large negative balances of Resource Credits. Some balances were as low as -50 quadrillion credits. No word on how many credits a user earns per day, but that sounds like it could take a while to recover.
Another issue is that some accounts that voted shortly before HF20 was implemented have found themselves with much lower Voting Power than expected. A user is only allocated so much voting power per day and it recharges slowly. For some larger accounts that had been managing their VP to stay higher suddenly find that the potential they had to give rewards has been removed. This can cost a user tens, even hundreds of dollars. Thus far, Steemit's response has been to say the issue will be resolved within five days. In truth, this doesn't mean it will be resolved, this means that the VP will have naturally recharged to maximum level at that point. However, it does nothing to correct the numbers in error, leaving some users out the money.
Failed Promises
For an event that was supposed to set the groundwork for the next big things at Steem, this HardFork has been a disaster. Steemit has called it a success, but any update that takes 99% of your user base offline can't be considered successful. Also consider that a week ago, the entire Steem blockchain locked up and prevented ALL actions, including viewing of old posts (which don't require interacting with the blockchain). This foreshadowing should have been a warning for users that things wouldn't go well, but it's basically what we've come to expect from CEO Ned Scott and his team at Steemit Inc.
A lack of preparedness and testing have contributed greatly in both issues and the team at Steemit doesn't seem to be learning or expanding fast enough to meet the requirements the project demands. Various improvements to the blockchain have been delayed multiple times, and the price has dropped along with the unmet expectations. While the price earlier this year was holding steadily in the $3.00+ range, it recently hit lows in the mid $0.60s.
A Pattern
Large changes and improvements such as "Hivemind," a new system that was supposed to allow people within specific communities to find content more easily have been pushed back. The lauded Smart Media Tokens, or SMTs have been touted as the "next big thing" in crypto, but have yet to materialize. At this point, the earliest estimate for SMTs launching is in Q1 or Q2 of 2019. The SMTs which are equivalent to the Ethereum networks, ERC20 tokens could be a boon for Steem as it could encourage more money to pour into the token as people purchase and sell it as a bridge to their SMTs.
Still Waiting
In what has been a frustrating 24 hours for users and discouraging day for investors, the ability to interact with the blockchain has only just resumed, but only intermittently. The longer these stoppages last and the more frequently they occur, the more the users and investors will lose faith in Steem's ability to deliver a robust system that can safely store users' data and provide potential for future gains. As of right now... we're still waiting.
*The figure does not include NSFW posts which are blocked by default
Note: I wrote this article as a post on Trybe last night, and modified it slightly to post today. It's a site similar to Steemit and seems to have potential. The site was recommended to me during the Steem outage and I have been pleased thus far. If you're interested in signing up, you can use my referral link.
Thank you for your continued support of SteemSilverGold
I'd upvote you, but one 10% upvote I gave someone else depleted my voting power by 80%, so now it's recharging.
I'm hoping we'll be learning a lot more about how these RCs work based on our SP and whatever other factors might be involved.
Right now, I'm just trying to figure out how much commenting is going to cost me. :) So far, it's been all over the board. I think it's actually taking a look at how much text I have (character length).
I also wish I would have held off upvoting, so I'm not sure what's that going to look like over the next five days or however long it takes to recharge.
I had the same thing happen to me. Apparently all accounts were effected by the VP bug. However, some were showing before the patches, and some are only showing once you vote. Regardless, that VP was gone, we just didn't know it. I was in the same boat as you.
I don't know how much RC things are going to cost, but any freemium system isn't going to succeed, if users have to be worried about the cost of each comment.
Sorry about your VP, but it should be back to normal within 5 days. No word on if Stinc (the new word I've been hearing for Steemit Inc) is going to make it up to us. (1-3% of account value airdropped from their account would be nice)
I'm afraid STINC has been bouncing around for a while—it may find wider adoption, though. :)
Well, what's five days? Who wants me to upvote their stuff anyway?
It's been bouncing around quite a bit. I think one comment cost 13 billion and another was 8.5 billion or something like that. I've been trying to keep track, but I'm not always as quick on the draw as I should be with the screen shots. Then, there's the other transactions, like claiming rewards and trading in SBD and powering up that are all adding to and taking away.
I've got 1.78 trillion right now to work with. So, that means I have a 1.78 thousand billions, right? Hmmm. I might have to open up excel at this rate. :)
It looks like a certain former presidential candidate is calling them Stinc now. Ack!
I'd like to go on record as saying that I appreciate each and every vote that I get from you. I know that I can't return as big of votes as you give, but I really appreciate it. I appreciate the interaction more, so even if you can't vote, if you have a little RC for comments, feel free to drop them even if you don't have the VP for votes. :)
Coins mentioned in post:
nice