The past few days have been unfortunate and terrible decisions have been taken by many people, both for us, the Steem community, and for themselves. The exchanges Huobi, Poloniex and Binance allowed themselves to be bribed into manipulating Steem DPoS governance.

However, now the exchanges have their Steem stuck on the Steem blockchain's 13-week power-down delay. They don't want that, so they are likely to protect anyone who will solve this problem for them, be it Justin or the Steem community-voted witnesses.

Steem trading pairs

As of now, it is inconvenient for the exchanges to increase the number of pairs that Steem can be traded against because, the more it's traded, the more they will have to allow for withdrawal, and they don't have many funds now. If we want more trading pairs, they need more funds, and they have it all powered up.

The funds can be leveraged for our benefit

Right now, Justin is the only one willing to work with them. Most of the Steem community is alienated against the exchanges because they unethically used custodial funds against our governance.

If we offer a temporarily fast power down in exchange for more trading pairs and global exchange benefits for the Steem currency, we're likely to get heard.

The bad side

Bittrex refused to work with Justin out of ethics and better long-term planning. If we provide benefits for trust-infringing exchanges, we will be indirectly penalising Bittrex and making them reconsider their previous position. We will be encouraging infringers, telling them "we will offer business opportunities once you're done stabbing us".

The good side

The business opportunities are good.