Learn Something About Steemit #5: What Witnesses Do And How You Can Influence Steemit? 💪
Steemit does not work without any kind of control. Somebody has to approve content and document it.
Who is doing this?
Following the idea of Bitcoin this is done in a decentralized way. Several users called “Witnesses” are doing this task. What exactly is done by witnesses is explained below and how you can become a witness.
Why do we need witnesses?
- Block creation
First and most important, witnesses are documenting every content produced on Steemit. This content (posts, votes, transfers etc) is put in a block and documented in the blockchain. Blocks are produced every 3 seconds. There is one round taking place where 21 blocks are produced by different witnesses. After 63 seconds the cycle starts again. This ensures that different witnesses work on the block creation.
- Consensus
If a new version of Steemit needs to be deployed the witnesses have to agree on it. This is called consensus or DPOS (Delegated Proof of Stake). This means that a new version of Steemit is not pushed and everyone has to use it. The witnesses decide if the new version will be activated on the computers they run (nodes). The agreement rate required is 67%, i.e. at least 13 witnesses have to agree on changes.
Surprised?
Steemit is not controlled by the owners. It is by you!
Why ?
See below, "What can you do to influence a witness".
- Interest rate, Price feed of SBD
A hot topic right now: The setting of an interest rate called APR (annual percentage rate) for your savings. Since the SBD price is falling for a long time several witnesses are pushing to set an APR again. This interest rate should be an incentive for the users to hold their SBD longer. Currently, the interest rate is 0%.
See post from @ausbitbank:
https://steemkr.com/witness/@ausbitbank/steem-dollars-are-currently-only-usd0-73ea-i-m-lifting-my-sbd-interest-rate-to-5
The interest rate is calculated based on the APRs provided by each witness. Different options are considered via the DPOS method and an average is calculated.
This is a great mechanism if you ask me. 😊
For details of all witnesses have a look here:
https://steemd.com/witnesses
You will see also in the list that witnesses also maintain the price feed for the Steem/SBD conversion rate.
What can you do to influence a witness?
Everything.
You are voting the witnesses. Every user has 30 votes to elect a witness. Based on the voting the witness can rise under the top 19 and become one who is heavily influencing Steemit.
Most of the top 19 witnesses are the ones, which are doing a lot on Steemit and for the users.
If you have not voted yet or it is a long time ago. Please check and vote now:
https://steemit.com/~witnesses
Can I become a witness?
Short answer: Yes, you can.
You have to setup a server and take part on the Steem Network.
To become an active witness (top 19) you have to interact with the community to get the votes you require.
For further details please have a look here:
Posted by @steemed
https://steemit.com/steemhelp/@steemed/become-a-steem-witness-essentials
Are witnesses earning/mining Steem?
Witnesses (top 19) are earning one Steem Power per generated block. A pure mining of Steem is not possible. Due to the round sharing of blocks only roughly one block every minute is generated per witness.
Do I miss something important?
A visual summary of our learnings today and of the previous posts:
Previous posts in this series:
"#1 Steem Power"
"#2 Steem Dollar"
"#3 What users can do on Steemit"
"#4 How to make profit on Steemit?"
Do you have questions?
You like the post? Feel free to comment and upvote and resteem.
follow me: @jamjamfood
Wow! Did not know we paid witnesses over $12,5000,000 per year. (1200 blocks per hour * 24 hours per day *365 days per year *$1.20 per steem= $12,614,400 Million)
How do we influence the witnesses if we want to lobby for a change or feature to steemit?
Thank you for your comment. It is like the normal elections: you have to select the candidate you like and vote for him. You can select only like minded people, but not direct changes.
I was asking is there like a chat room or 'steemit tag' that witnesses tend to congregate around where users interact with them to lobby for changes and learn what their positions are?
The best is to write a post and tag it appropriately like with the next hardfork number e.g. hardfork20. The right people will read it and talk about it if you have good ideas. 😊
Here an example:
https://steemit.com/steemit/@inventor16/hard-fork-20-my-thoughts
Thanks! What do you think of this idea?
https://steemit.com/steem-ideas/@donaldtrumpfan/allow-a-100-sp-vote-the-best-voting-problem-solution
I think this will not solve the problem. As you correctly mentioned the spam is done to achieve the goal to get money.
If you allow to vote everything in one hit the spammers have their money and you only avoid the comment spamming. But, the reward pool of Steemit is still damaged with this junk information and we are losing valuable Steem.
As mentioned in previous posts of some steemians the spammers network is already big with 1000s of accounts. This problem has to be solved. Currently, they are joining forces to downvote this spamming and negate rewards of the spammers.
I argue that we should let them win. I don't see why a passive investor for example should be forced to subsidize the reward pool. It is entirely possible that if we do not dilute passive investors; they will be more willing to buy steem, the price goes up, and the reward pool is even larger.
i think we should only allow this for owned steem power, not free delegated power. 1,000 fake accounts is 100,000s of delegated steem power, i didnt consider that. but it does cost steem to create an account so probally not profitable to do so by hf20
If we let them win. Do you think they will stop? They (spammers) will make it worse. More accounts and more spam, which reduces the reward pool, since spamming works.
I do not think that you can compensate this massive loss of Steem by higher prices (investors). Steem reward pool is produced constantly and not price dependent. If the reward pool is shrinking the payouts will be smaller. I.e. content creators are demotivated to produce content due to low rewards and spam situation. Can be a poisoning situation.
yeah the more the buyers of steem the more price goes up
Great post!
You've lit the fire in me to actually get around to investigating the steem witnesses...i started tooo but never really committed to it. I am sure certain many many people can relate to this type of experience.
It's a new way of thinking for sure. Indeed a paradigm shift. Taking responsibility for our environment...ecosystem...what a novel idea...lol.
Yes, try it out. It is not very difficult as I heard to setup the server.
You are not committed to anything. You can stop at any time.
@aggroed While writing this post I was surprized to see you already under the top 19. From my point of view, it was clear that this will happen, but not that fast. Thank you again for your great work.
PS: I think we can easily bring you under the Top 10. 😊 This is not the end of the journey.
Wow I had no idea I could vote for witnesses or even what that meant. I think something with witness in it, was in my notifications, but didn't know what it meant. I see in your post someone who helped me early on. I am still a minnow/newbie and will save my votes for those who are worthy. I will pay close attention and start a list of my 30 witnesses that I will vote for. Thank you jamjamfood
Thank you for leaving a comment. I am also a newbie/red fish and still learning.
This post has received a 3.75 % upvote from @lovejuice thanks to: @jamjamfood. They have officially sprayed their dank amps all over your post rewards. GOOD TIMES! Vote for Aggroed!
Congratulations! This post has been upvoted from the communal account, @minnowsupport, by jamjamfood from the Minnow Support Project. It's a witness project run by aggroed, ausbitbank, teamsteem, theprophet0, someguy123, neoxian, followbtcnews/crimsonclad, and netuoso. The goal is to help Steemit grow by supporting Minnows and creating a social network. Please find us in the Peace, Abundance, and Liberty Network (PALnet) Discord Channel. It's a completely public and open space to all members of the Steemit community who voluntarily choose to be there.
This post has received a 0.52 % upvote from @booster thanks to: @jamjamfood.