Update: Eating wealthy stakeholders to increase the value of steem seems shortsighted to me; All it does is send a signal to the market that the wealthy should not invest in this blockchain. So long as the wealthy aren’t investing, the value of the coin will go nowhere. DPoS might be flawed in that any burgeoning blockchain can get bought and sold. The market signals we send to any potential investors in the chain could be as devastating as a CCP takeover.

I’m not sure there is an out here, Justin Sun might have put the witnesses in the ole Zugzwang. However, that assumes he has a nefarious agenda. Perhaps he’s just a crypto enthusiast. Even if he is your average run-of-the-mill capitalist, it wouldn’t protect Steem and all its stake from getting sold off to the highest bidder by someone looking to make a profit. See, now we’re starting to get into the realm of what it looks like when the powers that be try to force people with money to be altruistic. Even though it’s paved with good intentions, we all know where it leads.

So far, his stake is in a suspended state, but if we fork him out of his investment, Ned isn’t the only person to blame. It amounts to two wrongs trying to make a right. If Steem teaches the world with its actions that your stake isn’t safe here, then no one will buy any. LOL, steem is like steam. You can make it, but you can’t hold it, and the moment you think you’ve grasped it when you open your hand and look, it’s not even there.

In reality, when we talk about forking out the ninja-mine, it's not just a steem burn, it would burn the real-world assets of the largest investor steem ever had. It could very well be, blockchain suicide.

I do think we are at a pivotal moment in Steem's history, and that's assuming it has a future. If a foreign power buys us out, like all of the other social media companies, we will be destroyed just as they were. If we send the wrong message to investors, we will fail in the marketplace. As I see it, the big question is; Is there a middle path? If so, are we collectively smart enough to find it in time? I think it's time to think a little less binary and a lot more quantum if we want to solve this one. My opinion, there has to be another way if Steem is to survive and thrive.