By @cryptoctopus and @clains

First off, i want to raise my hat to @clains who has been working hard to gather the information found in this update. As stated, the goal is to inform the community on what the people who are the backbone of Steemit are doing, to glorify the good actors and to expose the not so good.

What are Witnesses?

For those who already know, jump ahead to the update. For those who do not know, here is a short explanation.

Steem currently has 19 witnesses that validate the transactions of the network (you can see them here) and they get compensated for every block of transaction they validate. It's a very important job and it is literally the backbone of the steem blockchain (the technology that powers Steemit.com).

Witnesses have to run and maintain steem servers, update them, and provide reliable price feeds for the Steem Dollars. Witnesses are voted into position and can also get paid to provide services that benefit the steem platform, such as code review, documentation, developing new services, or helping out in the community.

A witness node in the top 19 get paid a fixed amount of about 1 blocks a minute or 1371.42 blocks/day assuming no misses. Payments are ~1430 steem per day (paid in VEST aka SP). At $2 per steem that's about $2860 per day each. However, when it comes to salary the following was brought forth in the comment in the first edition and it's important for everyone to take this into consideration:

The payout of Witness is more akin to stock options than a salary or fee for service, because it is tied to the future value of Steem and can't be cashed out (more than 1% per week). This is a good thing because it means the interests of witnesses are aligned with the interests of Steem in terms of long term value (and increasingly so as witnesses are more vested). However, it does mean that you can't reasonably say to witnesses, "You are being paid all this money, so you better go and spend it every week" because no one is receiving that in actual, spendable, payments. Expecting strong qualifications, competence, engagement, attention and effective representation are entirely reasonable expectations however. There is a tremendous amount of uncertainty as to how much they will truly profit in $USD.

Witness Update

@svk

https://steemit.com/bitshares/@svk/bitshares-gui-release-2-0-160813

@roadscape

No updates to steemd.com this week; began work on a separate app that will index posts and provide a variety of discovery/filtering tools for power users.

@pharesim

i don't have content for a post. Working on the things mentioned before, updates will come when something serious happened. (See previous edition)

@smooth

I'm very accessible and anyone who wants to know what I'm doing can ask. Sure. Anyway, I'm doing much the same as last week, no change. (Communicate via steemit.chat)

@riverhead

https://steemit.com/rocketchat/@riverhead/witness-riverhead-update-week-of-august-1st-2016

@xeldal

No update provided.

@bhuz

I plan to do an update for my #findandreward project, but I am not sure I will be able to
do it before your witness update. Tuesday I started to power down part of my witness pay, this means that next week I will be able to distribute the first reward as stated on my Find And Reward post.

I would also like if you could publish the link so more people can comment and point to me
contributors that deserve the rewards for their work.

I need the help from the community to be able to find and Reward the worthy people and make this little project works.

Link to the post:
https://steemit.com/findandreward/@bhuz/let­s­find­and­reward­steem­s­contributors

@arhag

https://steemit.com/witness-category/@arhag/witness-arhag-update-aug-1-2016-to-aug-8-2016

@wackou

https://steemit.com/witness-category/@wackou/version-0-4-2-of-the-btstools-released
https://steemit.com/steem/@wackou/btstools-development-bounties

@complexring

https://steemit.com/witness-category/@complexring/witness-update-august-4-august-11

@blocktrades

https://steemit.com/witness-category/@blocktrades/blocktrades-witness-report-for-2nd-week-of-august

@abit

No update provided

@silversteem

No update provided

@datasecuritynode

https://steemit.com/peerplays/@peerplays/announcement-bts-snapshot-date

@steemd

No update provided

@joseph

I do work on weekdays, so it would be nice if the witness update is pushed to a weekend. I will make the post tonight, but not sure it will make it.

@kushed

https://steemit.com/steem/@kushed/steem-now-on-noble-blockchain-payment-app

@clayop

https://steemit.com/witness­category/@clayop/witness­clayop­update­2016­8­1­2016­8­7

@lafona

No update provided

Witness Proposal

@geoffrey

https://steemit.com/witness­catagory/@geoffrey/witness­geoffrey

@someguy123 (powerful server)

https://steemit.com/witness-category/@someguy123/someguy123-witness-thread

@coinz

https://steemit.com/witness-category/@coinz/coinz-witness-application

@roelandp

https://steemit.com/witnesses/@roelandp/the-story-behind-naming-paynode-my-witness-node-on-the-steem-blockchain

Comments

Many witnesses didn’t feel it was urgent or important to update the community about what they are doing. This is why i would love for people to show their support for witnesses who took the time to update us. We are doing this to separate the weed from the good grain and your participation and theirs is the only way to optimize the political structure and the backend of steemit.

Conclusion

https://steemit.com/~witnesses

Does the update above inspire confidence and competence to you? Please vote for them. Please contact them via steemit.chat if you want details or want to complain about a lack of transparency. We are increasing the pressure for detailed updates as time goes on. We will demand competence and RESULTS from our witness to ensure the best long term success of this platform.