Beginner's Guide To STEEM Witnesses - How They Work, How To Become A Witness, and Why It Matters
Witnesses are an essential part of the STEEM and Steemit Ecosystem, including providing security to the network, advocating for STEEM policies (interest rates on SBD, account creation fees) and validating price data feeds.
But, as I've only been around a little over a week, I was unaware of exactly how they worked. After doing some quick research, I found a couple of quick must-read guides written by Steemit veterans.
If you haven't looked it up yet, and you're curious like I was, here's an excellent guide by @pfunk that reveals how STEEM Witnesses work:
https://steemit.com/steemit-guides/@pfunk/a-full-steemit-user-s-guide-to-steem-witnesses
If you're interested in becoming a Witness, here are full, detailed instructions courtesy of @steemed:
https://steemit.com/steemhelp/@steemed/become-a-steem-witness-essentials
To vote for Witnesses of your choice, see this page (you can upvote up to 30 at once):
https://steemit.com/~witnesses
My Personal Voting Strategy (and Why)
Witnesses don't usually make a lot of difference to some Steemit users...but certainly they do to me. That's because my Steem Dollars Conversion Strategy requires that the price feed remains accurate as often as possible. Unfortunately, many Witnesses present inflated prices on the price feed, reducing my overall profit during the 7-day conversion period.
As a result, I make it a point to only vote for Witnesses that report prices that broadcast price feeds that are at (or very close!) to actual market STEEM/BTC market prices. If you're using the same trading strategy as I am, I highly suggest you do the same.
You can see Witnesses with their current price feeds right here:
Then see the current prices right here:
http://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/steem/#markets
Then finally, vote right here:
https://steemit.com/~witnesses
If you've found these resources useful, please consider sharing your upvote and commenting. Thank you!
Yes, be sure to vote, don't neglect this important part of Steemit.
I was reluctant to vote for a while, mostly because I didn't know how important it was (or how many witnesses I could vote for, etc). But now I'm kicking myself for not doing it sooner.
Interesting... I have been on Steem for a while, and mostly ignored witnesses, but I will keep a closer eye on them from now on.
It really depends on how important they are to you. I hadn't voted for any witnesses yet because I wasn't sure how it worked, but I just did about an hour ago. I should have done it sooner considering how many Steem Dollars I've converted over the last week.
Thank you :-)
Great info I did not know you can vote on your own witness. Who are the best witnesses to vote for???
I've personally voted for the witnesses with the most accurate price feeds.
Want to vote for someone that isn't in the top 50? Well you can. If you mine you need to go into cli_wallet and issue the command:
Now it appears that in order to be voted on the account must have minded at least one block. And yes you can vote for yourself even.
Good tip, didn't know how to do that.
Thank you, it's all making more sense now.
I'm glad it was helpful!
I upvote U