It has finally happened. For years people were wanting to get the attention of those in the crypto world. Justin Sun managed to accomplish that in under two weeks.
While the attention being received might not be what he intended, it is showing the power of community. The actions by Sun are a hostile attack. This is bad enough but the evident collusion with exchanges were custodial STEEM was powered up and voted upon is really sending shockwaves through the industry.
Andreas Antronopoulos feels this is a huge learning experience for the industry.
It stands to reason the decentralized world is not going to be fond of a hostile takeover. Nor is it likely that they will embrace the centralization of a decentralized blockchain. The idea is to move further away from centralization, not towards it. People like Sun are not scoring points within the industry.
At this point, all eyes are watching how the community handles this situation. I can venture a guess which side they are rooting for. In short, this is much bigger than Steem.
The fundamental basis of decentralization is to create a system that is free from outside attacks. This is true whether it comes from a very wealthy individual , large company, or government. The key is to have the power distributed into the hands of a community where the single point of failure is eliminated.
Of course, Sun was able to find that which is causing the stir. Other DPOS systems are likely equally as exposed. Bet the ranch Buterin is watching closely since Ethereum is switching to DPOS. This is the lesson that Andreas was referring to.
Dan Larimer chimed in with his thoughts on the subject. Since he is the one behind Steem and DPOS in general, he has a vested interest in the system not failing. Perhaps he is trying to shift the attention to the vulnerability in the design but here is what he said.
That said, Larimer is not wrong. Forking is the last defense against hostility from the outside. Anyone can fork a blockchain with the technical know how. It does not require consensus or a majority. It is a matter of altering the software and running it on a computer.
Of course, having consensus increases the likelihood that a new chain will be successful. It helps to have users and applications that are willing to follow. This is at the core of Dan's tweet. A community that is united can protect itself against an outside threat.
The other important component to this is the new chain that is created, the ones starting that are free to distribute the tokens how they wish. They are under no obligation to utilize what was on the previous chain. Thus, bad actors can be left behind.
Where does Steem go from here? It is only a matter of time before we find out. Whatever the resolution is, we are going to be a part of crypto and blockchain history. All eyes are watching to see how the community responds. Is it able to stand up for itself or does it succumb to an outside force imposing his will upon the blockchain.
As an aside, I think it important to understand what Sun's intention was from the beginning. Here is what he tweeted out after the acquisition of Steemit Inc.
This tweet has since been deleted. What is still on his feed is that he retweeted.
Here we see the mindset of what is taking place. You either succumb to Sun or get pushed out of the picture.
Make no mistake: I think it entirely naive to believe that Sun had or has anything other than the intention of completely takeover. Everything associated with Steem is to end up on Tron in his mind. It was evident from the start and everything he did since then only reaffirmed it.
Money created an environment where those who stand on principle get run over. The crypto world is waiting for the Steem community to stand up to money by holding to its principles. What crypto-economics provides is the opportunity to stand up because we have option.
With options comes freedom.
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Posted via Steemleo
