The @steemitblog has an account of what happened over the last 24 hours. I thought I would chime in briefly. Basically there was a bug in the code. Lots of people looked it over. It was tested. The bug made it through, and that bug caused a forked chain. Before the chain stopped I elected to stop running my V20 witness boxes so as not propagate the fork.

Several of the Steemit Devs and witnesses worked hurriedly to patch the code so that we could get up and running. Gandalf started the bad boy up and then witnesses started latching onto the fork.

It was intense as many were watching and reporting about if they were on the same chain, forking off, connecting disconnecting. The chain works best when we're all producing on it. So, it's trickiest at the starts and at the forks. It's a good metaphor for the reality.

The chain works best when we're all on it.

I can say I spent roughly 16hours glued to my computer waiting for patches to apply, replays of witness code, and trying to make sure I knew to the best of my ability what was going on and how I could help it best.

In this regard I mostly left it up to the devs, stayed out of their way, and tried to do simple things like fetch codes and things from chat to help them as they were doing the work they excel at.

A different type of witness

I've been upfront that the code isn't my strong point. My strong point is community development and working on adoption. On that front when the chain started working again Steemmonsters.com through @yabapmatt's effort got a fresh face and a deck of Beta booster packs for sale.

Since launch we've had around 10k packs sell. You can check the wallet for @steemmonsters. This stuff is all on the chain. You can see purchases come in through USD and other cryptos. You see every currency that comes in is converted to steem before being used to purchase a pack. This puts buying pressure on the price of Steem. it also gives another reason to stick around. People are buying and selling packs, hanging out in Discord, and trading with Steem. That's where the value lies!

We're going to do what we can to build a rewarding game that's fun that keeps people on the Steem blockchain, has them spend their other currencies to have ours, and dream about launching their own projects here.

So, it's been a long couple of days for me, and it's not letting up. I've had some family celebrations mixed in. I have a Minnowsupport moderator meeting to organize in 90 minutes.

If you can't tell I live here. I love it here, and I spend nearly every waking hour that I have trying to spread the values of Peace, Abundance, and Liberty, help the Steem ecosystem grow, and train and retain community members.

I'm so proud of this place.

To the moon!

Lastly, I'll mention that last night is a perfect example of we all go to the same moon. This community sticks together. It's one chain. We don't fork unless it's a scheduled hard fork. Get used to the people around here and make peace because this community is here to stay and grow. And as we grow and more games, more Dapps, and more communities grow to meet to the capabilities of our chain we'll only get stronger.

It's a pleasure to serve this place and this community, and I thank many of my fellow witnesses and the Steemit devs for an intense dedication to this chain.