Passing on the STEEM torch

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Wow... I've been following on and off the progress of the STEEM torch as it has passed through the hands of some of our most respected STEEM accounts. I've always wondered if someone would eventually find me worthy of of the responsibility of holding and passing on the STEEM torch... and last night... just before I went to bed, I found that @jaynie had passed the torch on to me! Thank you @jaynie, it is a great honour to have been seen to be trustworthy enough to hold and pass the torch.

On the eve of the gigantic June 1 EOS (mEOS?) annoucement, I did want to reflect on what might be the STEEM chain's biggest challenge to date. At their heart, cryptocurrencies are a way of attributing worth to networks and network effects, contrary to public opinion, they are not primarily currencies in the way that we would ordinarily think of them and probably not even get rich schemes either!

In a decentralised (or partly decentralised world), we have built this system of protocols based upon the mathematics of cryptography such that we can have transactions and interactions that are not based upon trust (hence, the use of the word trust-less to describe many of these systems). This non-requirement of trust (between two unknown parties) is what allows a decentralised network to be formed... in that we no longer need a mutually trusted third party (bank, lawyer, stock exchange) to facilitate interactions between two parties.

However, as we move further into this sort of "trust-less" space... it does become apparent that there are bad actors that will harvest and game the system (not saying this doesn't happen in a centralised system... just pointing out the obvious idea that decentralisation is not the Utopia that some might have thought it would be... or in a more logical way (false dichotomy?... I'm not a rhetorician) being different to "bad" is not neccessarily inherently "good"..

The symbolism of the STEEM torch (and it's inspiration, the Lighting Torch) is to showcase and highlight the continuing importance of trust in a trust-less system. This sort of trust, learning who to trust and how much to trust, is a quality of a network that just takes time to build. It is not a function of wallet size, it is not a hard-coded rule set in the blockchain protocol... it is the result of many many individual interactions over a sizeable amount of time.

There are many things that we all would wish were better about our beloved STEEM chain, and there are many things that perhaps future blockchain based social sites will do better. However, there is something here already... something that future challengers will need to build upon. We have a core of trusted accounts, communities, dApps and people here on STEEM... this is something that has taken years to build and is not something that is readily transplanted overnight.

You can read more about the Steem torch here: https://steemit.com/steem/@geekgirl/steem-torch

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So, this leads me to who I consider to be trustworthy in my circle of Steem accounts... someone who I think would be a great holder of the STEEM torch. There are a few that I would choose from, but some have already held the torch... and there are some who I know have lost access to their wallet keys (which would kill this project!).

In the end, I decided upon @apolymask. @apolymask is one of the first accounts that I had met in my first couple of months on STEEM and was one account that leapt immediately to my mind as potential holder of the torch. Through his Information Finding Contest (@ifc), I started to find my feet as I learnt how to write... I hadn't written anything of any length since high school... Lab reports in university don't really count and Classical Musicians don't tend to write (and when they do, it is completely wanky!).

So, @ifc brought so much structure and a welcoming community to my STEEM experience... and it is one of the things that kept me writing and engaged in those dangerous early day of a new STEEM account! I have @apolymask (amonst others!) to thank for forming such a great initiative.

I have always found @apolymask to be a great person to communicate with via comments and Discord. Many @ifc topics could bring up quite deep subjects, and the follow on conversations generated by entry posts could get quite lengthy and involved. We don't share all the same ideals and principles, but we do have great fun talking!

So, ending this up... I will be passing on the STEEM torch to the @apolymask to be the 126th holder. Thanks to @jaynie for selecting me and thanks to @geekgirl for beginning this project. It has been such a great honour to be included in the chain of holders... and 125 is a really cool number as well... square and cube!