We, Steem, have suddenly been availed an amazing opportunity. @ned has always possessed nominal stake to effect governance of Steem at his sole option, but his belief in decentralization obviously compelled him to stay that imperial prerogative so that the community could prove it's competence.
We are blessed to have had that benign guidance that has enabled Steem to be the transitional state between legacy financial centralized mechanisms, and de novo decentralized society.
The DPoS blockchain @dan and @ned have provided us has been availed ~four years of experience before this existential event of the transfer of @ned's controlling stake to Tron, and while in some degree this has been squandered, in many ways this has been an extremely valuable educational opportunity that has enabled competence to develop regarding governance of decentralized society.
Steem must now fully transcend legacy centralized financial mechanisms to embrace decentralization. We don't have a choice. Steemit has been sold, and that corporation no longer can be the central provider of development if Steem is to remain an independent decentralized entity instead of an app on centralized Tron.
Heretofore, due to @ned's benign abeyance of imperial authority over governance, whales have had that power. To date we see that their due diligence has led them to see cash as king, eschewing risk to their stakes to the degree that retention has been a distant secondary goal of governance.
However, HF22 recently revealed that they aren't nothing more than profiteers, as EIP successfully eliminated the blatant vote selling mechanism and the bots that egregiously delivered the vast majority of rewards to whales. Retention was below 5% YOY at it's worst IMHO, and over 95% of rewards were flowing to whales as a result.
Even though that worst of all retention worlds has been resolved, we yet hemorrhage users today, and retention remains below 10% (at best) while ~90% of rewards flow to whales and provide ROI that diminishes risk and prudently manages their stakes.
@ned sold that controlling stake to Tron. This is remarkably fortunate, and @ned must be sincerely thanked for his heartfelt dedication to Steem for selling his stake to Tron, rather than other potential buyers. Justin Sun is a visionary and blockchain guru who has a remarkable ability to market his vision, while banksters or Goolag would have simply sought to eliminate Steem altogether as a disruption to their business models.
@justinsunsteemit has benevolently similarly held his ability to effect governance of Steem in abeyance, at least temporarily. All Tron has to do to replace all the consensus witnesses is to vote them in, and Sun has not done that yet. This reveals that he believes Steem may be able to profit Tron more as an independent entity, if we govern ourselves wisely. Clearly, this is a time limited offer.
The success of EIP proves that governance can be undertaken contrary to mere profiteering. While that has been proved, it has not risen to the level necessary to support the expense of mass onboarding Sun and Tron must undertake to justify their investment in Steemit, Inc. Retention remains subpar, and the primary goal of governance has remained ROI for whales and not growth of Steem. That has to change, and if Steem doesn't do it successfully, Sun and Tron will.
The circumstances Steem finds itself in today have radically changed from what they were a week ago. Our former considerations have therefore been superseded by extant conditions. What has been our operating procedure now must change to reflect that reality, and we must establish satisfactorily that Steem is most profitable to Tron as an independent entity governing via decentralized mechanisms right now, before Tron simply makes Steem an app in it's centralized ecosystem.
Extant stakeholders, including Tron, will best profit from Steem if decentralized governance proves competent to support onboarding masses of new users by improving retention to industry norms, and will best demonstrate this by elevating retention to the best in the industry. Sun has extraordinary competence at marketing, and can take full advantage of the best retention rate Steem can provide. It is important to recognize that if we don't provide that governance he will - and forking to remain independent will be extremely financially risky.
Prudence demands undertaking necessary risk to avoid worse risk. Clearly, while I may have utility in grasping these issues and presenting them to the community, I am incompetent to personally devise and present a holistic and effective means of accomplishing these goals. Frankly, I was blindsided by the success of EIP, and it is easy to see that better minds than mine are managing governance of Steem today. It is imperative that those minds quickly dedicate themselves to effecting governance of Steem to best enable Tron to profit from it's acquisition of Stinc by leaving them in control of Steem, and leaving Steem an independent self-governing decentralized entity. @justinsunsteemit has expressed this belief and desire in his introductory post on Steem, and in his AMA with @ned.
Folks, let's rise and shine in this new dawn of opportunity, so the rising Sun may best radiate masses of new users to profitably grow Steem to fruition in it's season. This is our season to grow. Let's not allow dark clouds of self interest to obscure that powerful encouragement that may bring the blossoming of our vision to its full potential verdance.
Is Steem and decentralization really transcendental opportunity to benefit human society to a far greater degree than legacy centralized mechanisms? We are today given the opportunity to prove it.
Here are some concrete ways I think we can do that.
1) prepare to fork at the drop of a hat in the event of hostile threat to reduce Steem to nothing more than an app. While this is risky, it is less risky than the alternative, and it is easy and facile to do. In fact, it is already done and the repo is prepared and ready to go on github.
a) we should discuss openly and forthrightly conditions that would trigger that fork, and prepare in advance necessary operations and procedures to undertake that process.
2) we should also revise our plans to implement HF23 in view of our extant circumstances. IMHO, this fork needs to include a change in how witnesses are supported. Presently, the votes for witness do not deplete VP. This allows 1/3 of extant stake to completely force new consensus witnesses into power, and this was done to enable @ned and Stinc to be able to govern Steem at their sole option in the event that was necessary in their opinion, for their financial interests. This is insuperable on a decentralized platform, a malignant legacy of centralized institutional financial mechanisms. The solution is to deplete VP by 100% for witness votes. If Tron casts 20M votes for a witness, it will then have 55M votes left. Since there is ~210M vested Steem presently, Tron is able to force 1/3 of consensus witnesses into power at it's sole option under this paradigm, but the community (the other whales) will remain competent to prevent governance from simply being at will to Tron at it's sole option. It's the only possible way to maintain decentralized power over Steem at present.
@starkerz well argued that we have been naive in simply trusting @ned to not do this, and it's time to grow up a little. @ned is no longer in possession of that stake, and Tron is. While this does diminish the value of that stake to Tron, it does not eliminate it, and if we do not do this the value of Steem as an independent entity cannot be supported and Steem will be folded into Tron as an app eventually.
I believe @justinsunsteemit will agree that this is a necessary step in making Steem a more mature and profitable decentralized entity, and in Tron's best interests in the long run. If we can't do this - and Sun can stop us - we will eventually be forced to fork off and abandon Sun and Tron, and they will lose this community that is the most valuable part of the acquisition of Stinc - and no one will profit from that more than they will by making this change.
3) governance is presently still in the hands of Steem, and while I am sure the whales are fervently discussing this present circumstance, I am also sure that some of them aren't considering what's best for Steem, but are intent on doing only what is best for themselves and their wallets. It is in even their best interests to consider what is best for Steem, because their stakes may best profit by the strong growth Sun and Tron can clearly make happen.
There is no way to eliminate risk, and prudence demands that risk be minimized to the degree necessary to ensure capital remains to derive profit from. Presently, the least risky action stakeholders can undertake is to optimize Steem for user retention, rather than immediate ROI. Tron demonstrably will do this if we do not, and this is apparent from it's history. Sun is remarkably competent at marketing and will be able to drive mass onboarding - but he will not do that just to allow profiteers to extract the rewards of those new users for their ROI while leaving retention of those users at the present dismal level.
We have to implement necessary rewards mechanisms to raise retention nominally to justify Sun's marketing expenditures before he does. He will if we don't.
At present that's about all I can suggest to those better minds and more competent governors of Steem that may see this.
Rise and shine Steemers! Our time has come. Make it happen.
Edit: sorry about the formatting of the numbered points. I am unaware of how to do that better.
