About the author: Jing Kai, head of Chintai and eos42 China.
Behind the Steem fork incident, the theme of the blockchain governance controversy looms: when barbarians knock on the door, who is the winner between capital and the community? How to find their own suitable way out after the unavoidable differences occur?
There is no single correct answer to this question.
Let the community return to the community, let TRON return to TRON. However, the rivers and lakes are still there, and the disputes continue. The blockchain community is just the epitome behind the disputes of human social governance.
1. Steemit changed hands
The unclear definition of property rights is the fuse of Steemit's power struggle.
After purchasing Steemit at a discount, Justin Sun did not expect that the Steem community would greet him not with flowers and applause, nor with the rise of STEEM or TRON tokens. It's a mess of trouble, controversies, and protracted power struggles.
The dispute over the definition of property rights is the essential reason why the Steem conflicts continue to increase and the members of the Steem community leave through hard forks.
Specifically, the core question behind this Steem dispute is: Do some of the Steem tokens obtained through pre-mining held by the original Steemit company have the same rights as other Steem tokens?
To put it simply, Steem is a content vertical public chain, Steemit is a DApp on the Steem public chain, and it is also one of the portals and access portals of the Steem public chain. At the same time, the Steemit team is also the founding team of the Steem public chain. Access portals like Steemit on the Steem public chain, as well as SteemPeak and other blockchain websites.
For the Steem community, although the Steemit team is the founding team of the Steem blockchain. However, the total amount of 65 million STEEM tokens in Steemit's hands is pre-mined by Steemit, and they cannot enjoy the same voting rights, but should be locked.
Before Justin Sun knocked on the door of the Steem community and announced that TRON had acquired Steemit, Steemit reached an agreement with the Steem community that these tokens would be used as development and marketing funds and would not participate in voting on the Steem chain, and thus could not compete with other STEEM tokens. deemed consistent.
However, after Steemit changed ownership, the original temporary balance was broken. The dispute between the community and Justin Sun emerged around the part of the tokens originally owned by Steemit and now owned by TRON. Let’s take a look at the main events:
When the Steem blockchain was launched in 2016, the founding team pre-mined a large number of tokens (65 million, about 20% of the total). The status of these tokens has always been controversial.
On February 14th, Tron, where Justin Sun works, acquired Steemit, and the 65 million disputed STEEM tokens pre-mined belonged to Justin Sun. This day is also the day when the EOS community releases a Steemit-like product -- Voice.
On February 24, the community deployed soft fork 22.2, which aimed to freeze the 65 million STEEM tokens held by Justin Sun and originally belonging to Steemit.
On March 2, Justin Sun launched a counterattack through the three exchanges Binance, Huobi and Poloniex: the exchange used the Steem tokens deposited by users to participate in the voting, and the nodes with objections were removed, resulting in the nodes (witnesses) on the Steem blockchain There was a big shakeup, and all the top 20 witnesses were replaced.
Since then, the new Steem witness has deployed the soft fork 22.5, revoked the community's modification on February 24, and unlocked Sun Yuchen's frozen tokens. In this regard, Justin Sun called it:"We want to protect the sanctity of private property and the interests of all people from malicious hackers."
During this period, there were constant criticisms between the community and Justin Sun. Several senior executives, including Steemit PR director Andrew Levine, have resigned, and multiple DApps in the Steem community have announced the closure of their services.
The public opinion is on the cusp, the exchanges are under pressure to withdraw from the power struggle one after another, lowering the right to redeem STEEM, and the nodes controlled by Sun Yuchen are gradually losing the wind.
On March 17, Dan Notestein, a Steem witness and founder of the blocktrade exchange, issued a statement stating that a hard fork of the Steem blockchain will be launched on March 20, and the blockchain after the fork will be Hive. Keep all the original accounts and content, and airdrop Hive tokens to the Steem account 1:1. However, if the exchange wants to get the airdrop, it needs to contact the Hive team; the Steemit account, and some tokens owned by Justin Sun, will not be able to get the airdrop token.
Binance, Huobi and other exchanges have issued announcements one after another, announcing support for the Steem hard fork upgrade, and issuing Hive tokens to STEEM token holders on a 1:1 basis.
On March 20th, the hard fork of Steem - the Hive blockchain was officially launched.
So far, there has been no response from Justin Sun and TRON. Whether the next battle is still brewing, we don't know. However, this dispute in the Steem community has provided a vivid case for blockchain thinkers. In the history of blockchain governance, it may be recorded as a Steem fork event.
2. Forks cannot save Steem
Forking can resolve differences, but it cannot save Steem.
Forking is a natural right in the blockchain world. The source code of the blockchain project is open source, and anyone can fork any blockchain project.
Although "can be done at will", forks still have certain costs, and often cause major differences within the blockchain community, and hard forks will only be used when they cannot continue to coexist within the existing game rules. Just like ETC is to ETH, BCH is to BTC.
This time, Justin Sun, the new head of Steemit, had a major disagreement with the Steem community. Under the controversy and struggle, the disagreement evolved into a soft fork battle, and finally declared a break through the hard fork to launch the Hive blockchain.
Regarding the Steem fork, Vitalik, the founder of Ethereum, believes that it seems that this will be a potential watershed in the history of blockchain governance, which is of positive significance. If Hive (the forked chain) surpasses STEEM (the original chain), it will prove that the community is the ruler and no one can buy the community.
Forks may resolve differences. When there are differences among game participants that cannot be resolved through negotiation and dialogue, hard forks have become the last resort to resolve differences: from then on, one is different and the other is safe.
The part of the pre-mined STEEM tokens on the Steem blockchain has not been clearly defined: the identity of these tokens is unknown, and their names have not been determined. Before the acquisition of Steemit, it has caused continuous controversy in the community. The arrival of Justin Sun and TRON detonated this time bomb.
Tokens are an indispensable part of the blockchain community, and consensus is the soul of the blockchain community. And when the community disagrees on the definition of value property rights represented by tokens, the resulting battle to delineate the boundaries of property rights will be at the cost of damaging the consensus of the blockchain community.
For Sun Yuchen, a new investor, we have no way of knowing whether to conduct due diligence on Steemit before the acquisition is finalized, and know the existence of the hot potato of pre-mined tokens. Despite trying to regain control of assets through various methods, he did not hesitate to use the power of exchange allies to turn things around. But no matter what the result is, they are already in the same situation as many original participants in the community. As for whether Sun Yuchen is suffering or not, only this heart knows.
For the witnesses, the original stakeholders of the blockchain project Steem, the identity of this pre-mined token is unknown, and its binding force is limited to the "intent" of the original owner of the asset, without any real binding force . It is hard to say that the concerns of the Steem community are unfounded. After all, as long as Justin Sun is willing, he can use this asset to vote at any time. The original verbal agreement to define the use of tokens cannot restrain the new head of Steemit.
As the proposer and implementer of the soft fork restriction plan, the reason given by the community witnesses is that they are worried that Sun Yuchen and TRON will use this 20% of the tokens, resulting in unprecedented control over the Steem blockchain , and even incorporated Steem into TRON.
For Nate Scott, the seller of Steemit and former CEO, this Steemit sale is likely to be his last chance to participate in project mergers and acquisitions. Steemit is facing serious financial difficulties, and it is a good deal to exit by selling. However, due to the existence of this undetermined risk asset, no matter whether it has been stated with Sun Yuchen or not, it will still be a big blow to its reputation in the future.
A series of controversies and problems also arise from this:
Do the verification nodes and witnesses of the Steem blockchain have the right to change the original agreement through a soft fork and freeze the token assets purchased by Justin Sun?
How is the ownership of the tokens deposited by the user in the exchange defined? Does the exchange have the right to use user assets to participate in blockchain governance and change the direction of blockchain projects?
Does Justin Sun have the right to, and should he, break the original pattern and vote the controversial tokens to change the inertia of the community?
As Steem holders and ordinary users of the Steemit website, what should we do after this dispute?
Through the hard fork, the Steem community and Justin Sun made a conclusion on this part of the pre-mined tokens with undetermined property rights: on the Hive fork chain, this token no longer exists; on the original Steem blockchain, Justin Sun can use it freely This is a STEEM token asset.
However, after Nora left, what should she do?
3. Behind the fork, no one is a winner
A house with big cracks, uninhabitable. After the hard fork, even the original chain of the Steem blockchain is no longer what it was at the beginning: when the proportion of the community on a chain is weakened, and the new leader and the community start with a power struggle, the Steem chain The game pattern has changed.
The future battle between Steem and Hive will essentially be a competition for stock resources for quite a long time.
1. Major premise: Steem is getting tired
The point is that Steem is no longer young, after 4 years of development, although sites such as Steemit are among the top blockchain content communities. But the embarrassing reality that has to be faced is that the community has become exhausted, and it is already weak in attracting new users.
Just take Steemit, the main traffic portal of Steem, as an example. In the past year, the ranking has continued to decline. Created in 2016, the rank of Steemit is currently 17222:
Steemit ranking trend:
Steemit website traffic situation:
As a comparison, we can look at the performance of the EOS version of Steemit -- Voice, which started internal testing on February 14 (compared to Steemit, Voice has a higher threshold, adopts an invitation system, and adopts KYC user authentication before it can be used) , currently ranked 76530:
In addition to the influence of the life cycle of Steem's own products, it is predicted that the supporters of their respective communities will focus more on continuous fighting than active community building after the fork is dominated by blockchain tribalism superior. After the fork, Steem or Hive may think that they can win the battle, but no one is the winner.
Whether it is Steem or Hive, although the dramatic story at this moment has attracted high attention from the media and the community, and the exposure has increased sharply, the collapse of the Steem community consensus will continue. When the resistance movement went through the high-light moment of passion, the Steem/Hive community had to face up to it. After the heat subsides, the things that can determine the fate of the project are still inseparable: witnesses, developers, users, and funds.
Whether it is Steem or Hive, the future is uncertain and there are many difficulties.
2. Difficulties faced by Hive
On March 18, BlockTrades, one of the leaders of Steem hard fork and a top-ranked witness node, issued a post: Why don’t we compromise with Justin Sun?
implied in the text:
The blockchain industry has always regarded Steem as a failed project of Dan Larimer, and has been ignored by most people. Now, we have the opportunity to show you that our community is so much more than that. With the new token, we can re-emerge as the dominant player in decentralized blockchain development.
In addition, in order to demonstrate confidence to users, Hive also lists community resources that are actively flocking to Hive:
There are currently over 30 experienced developers contributing to the new ecosystem, as well as many community members working on many aspects of Hive. These individuals may announce their participation through their own accounts in the future. This is a true community effort and as such is open to all.
For the new chain Hive, although it is backward compatible with all accounts and content records of Steem and has been supported by many witness nodes and users, although it has received a lot of attention during the bifurcation controversy, although there are existing chains including Binance and Huobi The exchange announced support for the distribution of Hive tokens after the hard fork to users. But as a new platform, in addition to loyal supporters resolutely turning to Hive, there are still many troubles:
Steemit, as the largest entrance on Steem, obviously does not support the Hive blockchain.
Users have platform stickiness. In the battle between Justin Sun and the Steem community, there are still a large number of ordinary users who do not pay attention to and participate deeply, and will still get used to using the original platform. Hive did not bring enough appeal to this group of users. For new users, Hive.blog has no obvious appeal over Steemit.
Witnesses and the fragmentation of the community ecology, in the short term or at least in the medium term, Hive still cannot compete with Steem. Like any new platform, Hive still faces a series of problems that need to be solved in the early stage of the cold start of the project: brand building, attracting users, and shaping the development ecosystem.
Funding issues will become an issue that the Hive community needs to face up to. As Hive tokens are gradually listed on more exchanges in the future, this problem may be somewhat resolved. In terms of community-driven development, Hive announced the creation of the DHF (Hive Development Fund) to incentivize user development. However, how to use DHF's funds reasonably and whether it can generate enough incentives to promote the sustainable development of the community is still a difficult problem to be solved.
Although the Hive team is ambitious and committed to building a new home for Steem community members. However, Rome was not built in a day, and it is not easy to operate and build a blockchain content platform and a new vertical blockchain. In front of the Hive community, there are many dangers to overcome.
3. Steem: Turning the inevitable TRON
The power structure has changed, and Steem's surname Sun is irreversible.
After the fork, TRON controlled more than 20% of Steem’s tokens, and the departure of the original opponents in the community also allowed TRON’s control to be further amplified. Most of the existing witnesses are Sun Yuchen’s allies and direct descendant nodes, and the balance of power is further tilted towards TRON, which also means that Steem will inevitably become TRON.
Comparing the Steem witness list with the Hive list, the differentiation of witnesses is clear at a glance:
The previous concerns of the community are more likely to become a reality under the situation of centralized power and loss of checks and balances. The TRONization of Steem will not be a question of whether it is possible, but a question of when it will be carried out. For this, you might as well look at the example of BitTorrent.
On January 28, 2019, TRON issued BTT tokens after acquiring BitTorrent (the inventor of "BT" downloads), and opened crowdfunding on Binance's crowdfunding platform. According to an Odaily report: “After TRON acquired BitTorrent, Justin Sun announced to the outside world that BT and its more than one billion global installed users have officially become part of the TRON ecosystem, and the TRON ecosystem has officially become the world’s largest decentralized Internet ecosystem.”
Shortly after Tron's acquisition of BitTorrent was completed, several executives, including BitTorrent inventor Bram Cohen, resigned and left, casting a vote of no confidence in Tron.
After the fork, with the further operations of Justin Sun and TRON, Steem was further transformed into TRON, and community developers left in large numbers. Will the TRON team, which is good at marketing but not bright in technology, inject enough money into Steem? Development power will be an unstable factor for Steem.
4. Where should ordinary users go?
Silent users have always been the norm in a community, especially when faced with major differences and have to use a fork to solve the problem decisively. For users, what they never face is not the Steem or Hive blockchain itself, but through websites like Steemit and SteemPeak as entrances, posting, commenting, liking, and participating in the blockchain content ecology.
After the fork, the new content on the two chains is not connected to each other. Do these access entries support the Steem or Hive blockchain? At the same time, DApp applications, which are part of the community ecology, choose to stay behind or choose to migrate to Hive? As an ordinary user, what kind of token do you get when you use it on the website, Steem or Hive?
As far as the Steem community is concerned in a broad sense, ordinary users will face many confusions, "just don't use both, and talk about it later", which may become an incentive for users to leave.
At the same time, as the two camps continue to fight, the emergence of content censorship on their respective blockchain content platforms will continue to cause damage to users. Taking Steemit as an example, Hive related posts have been hidden a few days ago, although the content on the chain still exists. As the war continues, such phenomena will appear more.
Four. Summary
Four. Summary
The property rights of the pre-mined tokens are not clearly defined, and the new leader, Justin Sun, has difficulty reaching a consensus with the community. In the end, Hive and Steem parted ways through a fork. However, everything is just the beginning, and we will see more stories staged in the future.
No matter what the outcome is, after this dispute, will the already weak Steem brand accelerate its decline, or will it return to glory? And can the newly forked Hive develop rapidly as it wishes? Not yet known.
It is foreseeable that the once popular content platform in the field of blockchain content will be difficult to obtain opportunities for secondary development for a long time.
By the way, regarding the Hive hard fork Steem, as of writing, we have not seen further actions from Justin Sun.
Guess, will it be the one million inherited from the Sun family?
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Disclaimer: This article is the author's independent point of view, and does not represent the position of the Blockchain Institute (public account), nor does it constitute any investment opinion or suggestion. The picture comes from the Internet.
