Next Livestream this Thursday, Dec. 6th at 11am CST
Tune in to our livestream, Ask Ned, this Thursday, December 6th at 11am CST. Post your questions here in the comments section and I will cover as much as I can. I will also address some questions not covered from last weeks livestream. See you Thursday. -Ned
@ned, I understand that this is a difficult time for Steemit Inc, however it is a also a difficult time for the bloggers, content creators and steem users that are not developers.
Many people feel that trust is broken and want to know what was done with all the funds. I would like to ask you are you willing to make public a list of accounts held by steemit inc, along with a list of accounts held by staff, current and past?
As an investor on steem, its difficult to carry out a proper due diligence exercise with out this information.
The blockchain is about transparency and we are trying to save it along with you. However continued secrecy, movement of funds between accounts and out of steem in a web like fashion to confuse people is leading to more distrust and FUD and possible publications of fake news.
Your previous actions on the block with regards to questions around this line have been met with flags and a tone of 'its none of our business', infact I do recall a comment from you saying more or less that only this year. Things have now changes and it is our business and I respectful request that you make a disclosure to the community that is honest, open and transparent.
You want to win the peoples trust, you got to be honest and believable. Sorry Ned.
Sorry, no -- the company isn't bankrupt. It laid off a large staff who were working on R&D of new assets to avoid bankruptcy over several months. Steem is not Steemit.com nor Steemit, Inc. Steemit, Inc is a private company conducting business without customers, debt or debtors. The Steem community will thrive whether we are here or not. Requests for books simply show that the dichotomies aren't clear enough. So let this be the clarity for anyone who thinks they own a piece of Steemit, Inc. They do not.
They certainly do not show that. Someone engaging in or considering engaging in any sort of collaborative relationship entirely outside of ownership may very well be completely justified in looking for financial transparency. You are entitled to not provide it, but doing so does not encourage such collaboration, which indeed is the reason that private companies are often (though certainly not always) transparent with partners, affiliates, vendors, customers, and other sorts of non-owners about their finances. It is not out of obligation, but in pursuit of opportunity.
That's what the comments about alienation are about. It is certainly not about a CPA and auditor (nor other intelligent and well-informed members of the Steem community making similar inquiries) not understanding the distinction between a company shareholder and non-shareholder. That deflection is frankly insulting.
I beg to differ. The 80% ninja-mining entity doing an exit scam either explicitly or implicitly would be a terrible blow, certainly not conducive to 'thriving' and quite possibly fatal. Likewise for simply mismanaging the resources.
People in the community, as collaborators with Steemit in pursuing the success of Steem, have a very legitimate interest in undrestanding whether this is a situation where Steemit is making the best of limited resources in a manner that is likely to be beneficial to both Steemit and Steem, is cutting its spending on Steem development and marketing to the bone in order to pocket more of the money for its own benefit instead, or is just squandering the money foolishly. The best (or perhaps only) way to understand that distinction is to open your books. If you don't, many people will assume the worst, and not unjustifiably so.
What we most certainly don't need is another lecture on the legal and structural distinction between Steem and Steemit. Believe me, we are all most acutely aware of it, and indeed that is a good part of the reason for these requests, rather than being any sort of reason not to make them.
Exactly. I agree.
I never mentioned bankrupt at all. But i can account for 30m us$ worth of transfers out to exchanges, so we know steemit inc is not bankrupt. We are asking you to be transparent. Simple. No need to cloak it with off topic replies. You either have something to hide or you don't.
I am on STEEMs side and have spent many hours talking down unhappy users. So let me be as clear as you were, I am an auditor, CPA accountant and have a keen interest in data. I have an investment and stake in the blockchain and don't want an investment in a company like yours. With or without due diligence. The request for a list of accounts is simple, not complex.
Posted using Partiko Android
The request isn't complicated and its rebuff isn't either. Steemit, Inc. is a private company that will choose to do most things privately, as it's entitled to do.
So you are not willing to publish a list for transparency then? I think this speaks a volume on how little respect you have for this community. Arrogance and alienating allies is not the way forward. Neither is hiding things.
There's nothing in this aimed to alienate -- it's aimed to make sure there is 100% respect for the distinction between Steem and Steemit.
I respectfully disagree, your tone and choice of wording is extremely alienating. So is lack of transparency.
I see a future poli-tician in the making with ned, he certainly avoids questions like one, and he is oh so skilled at deflection techniques, ned for president 2020 anyone?
You just REALLY fucked up @ned muh boi. REAL bad.
Your company is done now for sure after this ridiculous display, but with you at the helm, it always was.
Yes your private company has a right to be private. Unfortunately, choosing to exercise that right here basically just doomed you forever.
Mark my words now, even though you never have before except to censor myself and others like me, who hold you accountable for claiming and controlling the throne, then pissing it away.
Fail. Of a large order of magnitude. Short sighted, amatuer and obvious. No investor will ever take you seriously again.
His company may be screwed, but he ain't never going to let go of the large stake.
Either way, he poises himself for success when the community rallies to save their investments and build the space.
If I had 50M+ SP, I wouldn't even sell all of it. I would just sit there and let others build for me. At worst, I sell for pennies since they were ninja mined anyways.
Yep he is just piece of shit, end of story.
I just saw this about the British PM. I had a deja vu moment.
@ned Your choice of words & lack of disclosure alienate everyone who has put time into this site. If steemit is a private company, who are its customers? Who is paying you? What is steemit without its content creators/investors?
Try to see things from the perspective of the thousands of people who have chosen to put effort into a platform marketed as decentralized.
Management of steemit should aim to be decentralized. What’s the point of a crypto & blockchain blogsite if they are going to be run more poorly, with less transparency than the Fed or fakebook?
CEOs need to be able to see multiple perspectives. Basing decisions on personal gain will not get you very far in the crypto community. Nor will using disrespectful language & policies towards those who have worked on & marketed this platform with their own work & currency.
There is huge opportunity for steemit if you get yourself off your Kings throne & think long term. Decentralize power, see the value in users & build for the long term.
Otherwise more will power down every time you speak about rights & privacy & you will soon be left with total power & control over a lonely site no one else wants anything to do with.
Content creators and investors are what give value to Steemit inc's holdings(STEEM) by continuously selling you are damaging their investment and a means of income even more so in this turbulent market with so few buyers in crypto price is being pulled lower than if Steemit inc wasnt selling.
how can you state you have no obligation to the thousands of users who have made you and your associates rich?
Hi Ned. Now that you mentioned this, can you further elaborate on a possible exit strategy? Is "we" = Steemit, Inc - or would that also include your new business, the one that is (was?) supposed to develop the application Destiny ? In case Steemit, Inc withdrew from operating on the Steem blockchain, would you consider using the company's stake for a new investment - e.g. executed by that other company you're running? Or would an exit rather include a sell off, and the new business would need to rebuy the tokens then?
I pretty much agree that Steem could live without Steemit, Inc - we'd only need to know if/when this scenario is supposed to set in to get prepared for it. Steemit.com is still the most used application on the Steem blockchain with a widespread reputation on the internet. In case it was shut down, we'd need to try moving the userbase gradually towards other dApps with the largest lead time possible.
We've already lost so many users, we shouldn't dare to loose even more just for not having been planning things accordingly.
Steem on 🤙
Then decentralize and start planning. The internet was built on the back of thousands and thousands of volunteers contributing their time. Later, companies dealt with challenges like email spam because the protocols were open and buisenesses could build on it.
Why still wait for one central entity. In between the lines... Ned has always hinted that it’s up to the platform (community/ecosystem) but with the explicit desire that they develop the blockchain.
But that ain’t necessarily what decentralization is and if we want to avoid this situation to happen over and over (it’s actually a blessing in disguise right now, especially because it seems that Steemit Inc is now set up to deliver and deliver hard), then the community also needs a solid (dev) backbone.
We lost many users because bear market. We had many new ones last December and January. And as the markets declined they left again. There is probably more correlation to be found in crypto marketcap and “users” than because of errors/delays.
I agree with you that we need more decentralization, but that'd also require more investment, and I'm not sure if we're in a position to ask for that.
Why not keeping our feet on the ground and trying to maintain a stable network instead of again aiming for the stars, trying to grow something that doesn't even have a solid basis?
I've never really understood the common belief that success requires constant growth. In nature a species that constantly grew would even be considered diseased.
I also disagree on the assumption that everything in the crypto space needs to be tied to the BTC price. The example of SteemMonsters shows that there is no need to speculate on retention. Even though the markets are down, monsters keep growing their fanbase and stake. This is why they have a solid product that works autonomously and that is creating a constant demand, independently from the dollar price of their currency.
That's one of the reasons why I'm all in for more gamification (little shoutout to @gtg and @arcange). What does that mean? Give people reasons to keep their Steem being a currency that's even more valuable within the network of Steem than outside its borders. Give them even reasons to buy more in order to increase their position within their community: let them level up, buy secret weapons, acquire additional lives, you name it. Make social interaction become fun, engaging and lucrative.
I by myself am no developer which is why you won't see me coding an app that maps those scenarios. But I'm a creative person with ideas and time - just as hundreds of others here who'll be happy to make use of the next generation of Steem applications.
Well, Trump did not share his taxes either... how did that lack of transparency come across to you?? He does not own the US like you do not own steem but he kind of runs the country. A little transparency goes a long way
I think his lack of transparency says it all. He is not willing to show where the money went for a reason... now what reason could that be?!
Can we please have tokens ASAP? It's the best way to expand Steem and probably the best way to restore a lot of peoples' confidence in the project.
Yeah it would be great if they would complete something that the community actually wants. SMT's please. Empower the community to be able to grow.
Maybe large stakeholder can create a fund and have them developed? Are we going to continue to act like SteemIt Inc is the only potential development company>
Very few accountholders are willing to lead. Not many truly have big enough stakes to engage in meaningful development of the kind we have seen with other cryptocurrency coins that have big stakeholder whales. Ideally, witnesses should be funding this as well, but it's hard to expect that with today's low prices.
Inc owns most of the Steem and positioned itself as the dominant institution. One would think they could develop simple tokens, since they've been working on SMTs for months already. If they do, then many Steem projects would have a way to generate the economic scale they need to expand. Otherwise, there simply isn't enough Steem available for most projects to make things happen.
If the community wants to tackle #2, since it seems Steemit Inc. isn't very interested in getting the documentation in shape, then maybe when that's done we can think about adding things. But starting from scratch to solve that problem is still going to be months of work if we can find anyone interested in doing it.
your absolutely right....I have a very simple financial solution.....
2 parts:
(1) - just add 1 line sponsorship to each page view (with a link) no ads though, they can advertise on their own site. would solve the monitary shortfall in no time.
They will need location & category control info but that can be very easy. So local small mom & pops can sponsor. Like your local tavern for the Rugby Blog. Or your local hair salon for a Glamor blog. Or local junk yard for a scrappers blog
Part (2) SteemIt needs to be a separate entity then Steem.
A Kickstarter/GofundMe account needs to be started to raise funds for starting a new open source company to:
to create an advisory committees to determine development and migration needed in the short, medium and long term, And set a public schedule with goals, and possible solutions.
That's how you turn this stuff around!
yeah good points. Shrugs, who knows. At this point, I am not counting on SMTs at all.
If they announce that they won't be doing it, some entrepreneur will probably pick it up (eventually). We already had a sort-of a proof of concept with @biophil's "pocket" tokens, back before anyone was talking about SMTs..
But I think no one is going to take the risk of competing with them for as long as they have one hand in and one hand out.
They did announce they aren't currently working on it.
they said they were tabling it, the problem is, say you start working on a token model and @ned does not like it...and the price of Steem comes back some (which it will)
Then the guys at Steem can hire back the 2 or 3 programmers that were working on it, and viola your aol netscape browser, Internet explorer comes out and knocks you off your perch, you use mozilla, but so does more funded companies like Google for Chrome and Safari on a Mac and not to mention Firefox's open source community...
You essentially become a dead man walking the same way Microsoft tricked Lotus and Wordperfect....How many people use those today????
Agree 100%.
Second this!
Third!
TOKENS! Make them happen. Please.
Totally agreed! At this stage I really hope we can get tokens soon.
I know times are tough but this can make a difference.
Once again, I support this request. There's a lot of negative momentum around Steem right now and this is one way to potentially turn that around.
We need tokens Ned, do what you need to do to make that happen.
Is it possible to release a scaled down version of SMTs?
To be honest, I don't understand all of the intricacies of what was planned for SMTs. But for many months, I have been involved in many conversations that ended with "we will be able to do that once we have SMTs". Most of the people engaged in these conversations had no idea about the intricacies either. All we knew is that there would be a token or tokens that could be used to build.
We don't need the most high tech, intricate and advanced bricks. We just need bricks.
I come from a generation where Lego bricks were simple squares and rectangles... and I still built some awesome stuff!
Arm this community with some simple tools (a token) and we will build awesome stuff too.
Is there a way we can have SMTs sooner or prior to the launch date (not getting it delayed) because right now, that seems to be the smart play.
So many amazing projects out there with the potential to change things and it's mostly a "we're waiting on SMTs launch" or similar things. I understand heavy dev works are already in progress, however, is there a way we can get something for willing and ready communities to work with?
Thanks in advance.
SMTs being introduced into the ecosystem was supposed to be the gamechanger, and most of us (community builders) have used that as a soft landing to pitch Steemit/Steem to the world.
I believe that a foundation as to how this will work will be the best thing we can get from the team so the communities involved can pick it up from where they can just as it is obtained in other Blockchains.
A framework and working code of the SMT released to the public will go a long way to improve things.
I am sure before the layoffs, there already are lines of codes in place for the SMTs even if it has been halted. Get the developers to complete and release same and interested individuals and communities will build on it.
Steem is a Blockchain and is separate from and will continue to exist after Steemit.com so please make it work that way. Lead the way with the creation of a token system.
What is your strategy to bring money into the Steem Ecosystem? Steem and Steemit need to increase the cash inflow. You can't rely only on speculation on STEEM and SMTs.
You can reduce the costs, but you need to bring "real" money. Otherwise, if the cryptomarket doesn't recover fast enough, Steemit Inc is in danger.
Hi Ned and Steemit team,
I really appreciate the last update about cost savings. Willing to see all of them implementated as soon as possible.
First of all apologies if I make any mistake in english as it is not my main language.
My questions are really concrete and I would like to hear also a concrete answer if possible.
-If yes: Is advertising on steemit.com one of them? Which are the ones you are considering?
-If not: Why not? What are the plans to make Steemit INC sustainable in the future appart from cutting costs?
(This has been on discussion among the community last days and I think a lot of Steemians would love to hear your thoughts and plans if any)
If you didn't have any we would love to hear it also.
Best regards.
Agreed to repeat:
(1) - just add 1 line sponsorship to each page view (with a link) no ads though, they can advertise on their own site. would solve the monitary shortfall in no time.
They will need location & category control info but that can be very easy. So local small mom & pops can sponsor. Like your local tavern for the Rugby Blog. Or your local hair salon for a Glamor blog. Or local junk yard for a scrappers blog
@ned i was having estimate account value 35000$ and now its only 4000$ i am really worried what is happening here please if you can do something make price stable.
Can you divide up the exchange Liaison task to witnesses? Also can you allow witnesses to contact exchanges and coordinate listing of STEEM or SBD on the exchange since most exchanges require CEO communication.