"Respect is all you have left in the morning."

Here we go, back to it, back to the Steem controversy. There are several things in play. First, you have the infamous ninja mine. Yes, it happened. Was it dirty? Probably. Maybe. Almost certainly depending on who you ask. However, there are bigger fish to fry. What I speak to is the entire ecosystem of cryptocurrency and dPoS in general.

It's common knowledge, even according to Wikipedia, that dPoS is vulnerable to centralization, very similar to how a gazelle is helpless against a pride of lions. However, most steemians, and many times because of the steem whitepaper itself, have conflicting opinions about all the bullshit acronyms.

I say bullshit because it feels to me like some millennial coder can make up a three-word acronym, and everyone drops all they know and worships the concept like it's a God. Regardless if it's true and real or not, give that shit three letters and obfuscate it by capitalizing one or two of those letters, and you have a brand spanking new deity for people to believe in.

In reality, as all things do, it's a bit more complicated than that. I've shown this in a previous post where I debunked the notion that proof of brain can exist on the blockchain. One of the two core elements in PoB as suggested by the blue paper is the wisdom of the crowd. However, dPoS cripples the ability for the wisdom of the crowd to exist by giving people uneven votes based on their stake. At best it's WoS (wisdom of stake), yeah; Why don't you go and worship that one for a while?

Anywho, back to the matter at hand, the title of this post. "Respect is all you have left in the morning." That was a line from Teddy KGB to Mike McDermott in the movie Rounders. Teddy is a Russian mafioso, and Mike is just some guy who likes to play poker. They both know the game is outlawed, i.e., outside of the legal system. However, in the realm of crypto tokens; Some might suggest, that's the reason the damn thing was invented in the first place, to get outside of the legal system which has become a mafioso in and of itself.

So, our beloved Steemian witnesses have existed in harmony with the ninja mine and its holders for up to four years now and counting. They could have acted against and nullified it when they had a better argument, but instead, they chose to legitimize the stake by putting it to work for the blockchain and paying those who have "learned to code."

Now that a large portion of stake has changed hands through a sale on the marketplace, many prominent individuals want to pitch a fit and nullify its existence entirely. This, after already having condoned its use to either enrich themselves and or fund dApp developers.

I love Steem, and I love the way it inspires me to get creative and tap into an ability that I didn't previously have access too. Steem gamifies creativity and cuts through all the red tape so that creative people can create, express themselves, and get remunerated relatively hassle-free. Kind of like poker, if it doesn't pay you well in cash, it will pay you well in dopamine.

That's all that everyone's out for, and it doesn't matter what you do. If you love doing it, you're doing it because you love it, and if you love it, it's because of those gat damn brain chemicals that keep you coming back for more. I don't care if it's a relationship or a fish that just moved your bobber. If you're into it, you'll get a rush from either or.

When all is said and done, Steemians will collectively send a clear message to the market. As the house in this casino-like game, we will honor the chips we've distributed, or we won't. This message will instruct the feels of all crypto enthusiasts out there, more specifically, it will directly influence how they resonate with our token. At the end of the movie (Rounders,) you couldn't help but love both the antagonist and the protagonist. As it turned out, despite all the shenanigans, they were both standup guys in the end.

If Teddy KGB had Mike dragged into the alleyway at the end of the movie and shot in the back of the head, he'd lose all his future business. If Mike robbed Teddy at gunpoint to retrieve his losings, there goes your protagonist and the entire plot of the film. The long and short of it is that the Steem blockchain has it's reputation on the line here. We didn't do what could've been done when it mattered when it was an internal fight. That ship has sailed and is gone now. But now we're talking about an outside investor of real capital.

As unpopular as it may be, as far as I'm concerned, the ninja mine is no longer in contention, and we need to pay that man his money. Sun needs to be able to break even with his investment and then some. This, in addition to becoming a whale, and owner of STINC, and a respected member of the community with voting rights intact—or we can tell him to fork off and lose all credibility among the cryptosphere, and he gets to take the Steemit brand name with him.

I know many of you are like, who cares about the brand. Steem is not Steemit, and although that is true in some sense. It's the new brand, Steamy, or whatever the fuck you might call it, whose name will be eternally tarnished in the eyes of future potential investors.

My final thoughts on this matter are that both sets of witnesses; Tron and the Steem community have to codify a trustless solution that ensures Justin Sun (at the bare minimum) gets his investment back and then some, and has enough stake leftover to make him a whale in the community with a reasonably influential say. If we can't do this, whoever we become in the end, our name is mud. We should be thankful that we're currently at a gridlock if we still are because it prevents either party from burning the whole damn thing to the ground.

I know it's fun and games to say fork it, but when reality kicks in; If you nerf the value of the coin. You get what you get, and you get what you deserve. If increasing the value of crypto was as simple as forking chains, that's all anyone would do. In reality, forking chains dilutes crypto by creating a winner and a loser. The winner ends up with less than they could have had if there wasn't a loser, to begin with. But what say you, sound off in the comment section below. After all, isn't that what this place is all about?