I doubt that the witnesses would vote for a blatant scam.

However, if you look at the witness list, you will see that most of the witnesses are voting for the exact same HBD reward percent.

20% is a rather arbitrary number. Clearly there is a powerful force pushing this figure.

I opposed the 20% interest. I noticed that witnesses who opposed the 20% interest rate dropped in rank. Those who supported it rose. This probably happened because a few whales supported the move.

I think that 20% is unsustainable. The Ausbit HBD page says says: "HBD Marketcap is currently 5.429 % of HIVE Marketcap". If the percent jumped dramatically, I suspect that we will see the witnesses reacting in concert to the change.

If we saw a bunch of witnesses change their upvotes at a given moment; this would be indication that witnesses and whales communicate with each other.

I have heard rumors that some people on HIVE communicate with Discord Servers.

It's it's like 10 or 20 accounts it won't work.

It is common for legislators to communicate before a vote. Congressional leaders usually know the vote total before a vote is taken on the house.

There are 435 members of the US House of Representatives. If you followed proceedings, you would notice that the powers-that-be pretty much always know the vote count for a piece of legislation before the vote takes place.

It is common for representatives to put off voting for a bill simply because the leaders of the house know that the legislation won't pass.

I guess that game theory suggests that it is impossible for a group of 435 representatives to communicate about a vote before a vote. But it seems to happen anyway.

There are scenarios where witnesses might manipulate the price of HIVE.

Imagine that Justin Sun bought a million HBD. Justin Sun tried to convert his million HBD in one lump transaction.

I would not be surprised to see 20 accounts reporting inaccurate figures just to cause Justin Sun grief.

I think that there is a strong argument for witnesses to counter a blatant move to manipulate either the price of HIVE or of HBD.

Again I realize that I am off base. There is no direct evidence of anyone on HIVE communicating and coordinating activity with DISCORD.

!PIZZA