Interesting thoughts, though I may not agree with all of them :) Still an interesting read.
Regarding that last part about Binance, it is also possible they need to keep an inventory in order to make a market. I would venture to guess they need a certain amount of coins at all times to make and keep a liquid market.
The powered up coins not being immediately powered back down was something they were not expecting.
I don't see why they would need to do this behind their centralized server.
They disabled withdrawals, they should be able to withdraw down to 0.
In fact... they've already allowed 5M ninjamined coins to be withdrawn.
(the ones that Sun transferred the second he took control of the network)
Perhaps you could clarify if I'm missing something.
Making a market for trading. Anyone that buys or sells on there will need a liquid steem market to participate in.
The liquid market is virtual in nature. There is no liquidity when withdrawals are disabled. You can buy 30M coins on Binance but you can't withdraw them.
You don't need liquid Steem to post a buy/sell order on Binance. It's all just numbers in their database. Not your keys, not your crypto.
Agreed. Your trading is just moving bits around in a database, and nothing is realized until there's a withdrawal. This is how some exchanges have been able to get away with posting bullshit volumes on CMC.
Unfortunately, wash trading will also be a thing on DEXes. Nothing stops me from trading with myself on any platform. :/