With the inevitability of a fork onto a new chain arriving in leaps and bounds, I guess we should talk about what goes and what stays. There have been many chain splits in the past, but I have never really been part of one this directly before and my experience is back in what I think was 2017 when Bitcoin couldn't hold its shit together and got forked like 17 times.
Technically, I don't know much of what actually happens, but I am guessing that there is going to be a snapshot taken of some point which becomes the copy that becomes the new chain. I will assume that it is going to be a private person/group that is going to fork the chain, which means they can pick and choose what components they keep at a technical and content level.
I will assume that the Steemit Inc stake form will be vastly changed and it will either be completely omitted, or become a funding mechanism. When it comes to a new chain, it really is up to the developers what goes where, and that means at the point of creation, nothing belongs to anyone - but I will assume that at that instant, the majority of users will have their account credited similarly to what it is now.
However...
I wonder what could happen if for example the global blacklists were used to omit accounts from being credited, or the known automated accounts that were posting hundreds of times a day pre-Resource Credits were removed, does this lighten the chain?
What about more touchy areas, like those who have sided with the centralization of the chain? Yes, it is their STEEM, but on another chain, there is no STEEM. Perhaps rather than trying to decrease inflation through burnposts, a massive amount of traitorous tokens could just, never exist. At least, if they want to be part of the new future, they would have to buy-in.
Speaking of the inflation, there is obviously changes that can be made to the economics of Steem also. For example, Rather than the decreasing inflation rate, the pool inflation could be set at a steady 2% for example, and with significantly less tokens in the initial supply than there are today, that could make for quite a narrow tap nozzle. Rather than 26 million tokens coming out of the pool each year, there could be 5 million.
This might not sound like a lot, but if the idea is to try and make a valuable chain, perhaps it is a good way to create some initial scarcity and then additional liquidity through those who choose to dump their new coins. I wonder, if instead of putting it straight into Token Power, it was put into liquid wallets, how many would power up on the new chain?
Then there is the question of SMTs to consider, as they could near immediately be integrated and become the earner for new accounts, while the inflation pool was spread amongst STEEM holders who chose to power up on the new chain instead. Wasn't that the "sometime down the track" future anyway?
I think that this is something that should be considered when forking the Steem chain, as it is an opportunity to keep what is working well enough, and cut away what is not. Having the holders get staked as infrastructure investors from the start that are able to use that same stake to reward some SMTs might be a great way to distribute tokens.
As you can see, I am just rambling some words out as I do not know what is technically possible, nor what people will have the social constitution for. I know that since this clusterfuck was initiated by 
For me, I do not like the feeling of being controlled by an authority, and definitely do not like being held for ransom by a small group of people who are doing all they can to get all they can, regardless of the damage it does to the others sharing the same space. The lucky thing with a forked chain is, it does no damage to them to not port them over to a new chain at all, as they keep everything they currently own.
There is a saying, you made your bed, now lie in it. There is another one that I like too, Lay with dogs, rise with fleas. I think there are a few who are curled up in bed with a dog at the moment. Getting itchy?
Anyway....
Enough of a ramble for now, but I do think that if the chain forks and the economics and mechanisms change to better empower the user base, it could be a pretty successful move. However I also think that it might be worth considering what gets taken and what gets left so that the initial start can skip a lot of unnecessary drama and focus on building the community, rather than repairing those who have proven untrustworthy.
As I keep saying, trust is important.
Taraz
[ a Steem original ]
