A couple of days after the soft fork, I wrote a post wondering if there was a plan in the event that Justin Sun/TRON, et al decided they wanted the 75 million (or however much the heck it is) Steemit stake back without having to grovel or say pretty please.
I did have a couple discussions with witnesses and a couple of other users where some of that got answered, but I think Sun himself answered it without even knowing I'd asked it.
Sun/TRON/exchanges/whoever not only brought in enough witnesses to undo the soft fork, they replaced all the top 20 witnesses in one stroke.
Now, it sounds like there's some scrambling around going on as to what's the next step. People seem to be rallying around the witnesses in an attempt to try to get control of the STEEM blockchain again. A few prominent Steemit employees (including blockchain engineers) have announced their resignations. Even Steemit was down for a while today, and it must have extended beyond just the site as I couldn't get through Steempeak for a while, either, and Steemworld started cycling through its ample APIs.
Meanwhile, STEEM prices are moving a little, but mostly shrugging and saying "Meh," for now.
I sit here watching all of this and I see so many running in one direction—save the blockchain! Help the witnesses!
And I can't help thinking—what the heck makes me trust the former top 20 witnesses any more than I trust Sun?
The belief in decentralization?
I do believe in it. I want it to work. Unfortunately, I have a hard time getting past the fact that the former top witnesses took it upon themselves (along with several others) to make such a big decision behind closed doors in the name of urgency and surprise.
On a side note: I didn't vote for most of the top 20 witnesses. And, I didn't give a blank check to any of the ones I did give my vote to. I'd like the community to be advised of what the witnesses are thinking, have them listen to more feedback than just a select few, and take time to consider it all. In other words, communicate, just like they were wanting Sun to communicate with them.
Even so, I understand why they did what they did. I get the need for secrecy. I even feel they thought it was the right thing to do. I just don't agree with it.
I'm agreeing to disagree.
Two wrongs don't make a right.
There's always a bigger fish.
You don't tug on Superman's cape, you don't spit into the wind, you don't pull the mask off that old Lone Ranger and you don't mess around with...
...Sun/TRON, et al, when you don't have a bigger stick stake.
Especially when you know going in what he's capable of because he's already done it somewhere else.
You can't say, "See! We told you he was bad!" after you essentially dared him to respond.
As far as I know, unless there proves to be something untoward in the new code the 20-in-1 witness is currently running—all Sun has effectively done is take the Steemit stake back.
I mean. I'm still here. I'm commenting as normal. I'm upvoting as normal. If this manages to make it to the STEEM blockchain, I will have posted as normal.
I have yet to see a post saying anyone's accounts were frozen out with the 22.5 hard fork. So life on STEEM is proceeding just as it was before the soft fork.
With the huge difference that what was at least debatable decentralization before (witnesses running different servers in various locations was definitely decentralized, governance, that's another question).
Now, not-so-much.
Therefore, while I can't really condone what Sun has done—I've never been one for brinkmanship—I can't just excuse what the witnesses did before it.
To tweak the old adage, You live by might makes right, you die by might makes right.
I wish I had a way to convince everyone involved here that instead of running pell mell into the next counterstrike, that taking a step back to take a deep breath, calm down, and then, you know, maybe actually try some dialogue rather than preemptive strikes and escalation might be helpful.
I know. Witnesses and others tried to get ahold of Sun for 10 whole days.
Wow. Eternity.
Blocktrades in a couple of posts last week laid out the fact that there's at least not existing legal recourse for someone losing their stake to a hard fork. That's good. My guess is, that also applies to someone coming in and using the existing witness voting system to get what they believe to be their own stake back.
I don't know if there's going to be a better man (woman, person) in this scenario or not. I don't know if anyone is going to say, "You know what, I screwed up, and I'm sorry," and really mean it.
I don't know if trust can be established or not. I don't know if all sides can ever get to what's best for STEEM while also doing what's good for them. Amid all of the uncertainty, there was at least a slim chance of that happening before the soft fork and top witnesses swap.
Now, I don't know if that slim chance exists or not.
This was supposed to be a rant. I don't think I got there. I think it's more of a tell it as I see it and then just let the chips fall where they may.
What else can I do? I can try to be true to myself. So, as I did in the previous post, I'm mainly putting this on the chain so I can at least say I shouted into the void.
Again.
Image source—Pixabay. Videos from YouTube
P.S. I don't know if anyone else saw this, but the amount of stake keeping the TRON witnesses in place have all dropped significantly within the last hour or so.
