A reasonable thinking. But a reasonable solution demands all the sides thinking reasonably. And that will be possible only in the balance of power.

Until a software fix is in place against hostile take overs we should imposed an analog one in the meantime.

I’m not a programmer, @novacadian, and I can’t tell what is possible and what is not possible. I must admit I’ve never trusted security of DPoS systems, and I consider this a good chance for learning. Is your analog fix possible? Who can send ninja stake to @null?

By my understanding it would take a hard fork, as opposed to a softfork, so that the chain could be rewritten.

We all need to calm down and try to fix this mess. We have stopped them from being able to hardfork chain. But we can't reclaim all top spots. We need to talk with Justin and find a common interest.

My honest opinion is that what ever happened Justin he had a oportunity to make something big in crypto.
But he didnt think a same way as we think even he call himself a businessman.
If he is a wise businessman than he invest lil bit more in steemit he help to get exchanges listing steem and onboard new people. Than his "investment" he can sell for much much more.
But what we see now is somerhing crazy.
There is no logic in that what he is doing.
Or maybe i miss somerhing and he is something like George Soros 😁

If someone had frozen your money - he paid for it, he would not have talked like this. Communication and negotiation do not have a good tone, neither of you acknowledges personal failures as if we were saints and he was a devil. We need synergy, we just have to look to the future, because with the old way we have a reputation that is falling, Steem is a value that is falling and we need investors and businessmen. We need to find a solution because here I see that both parties are right, he has private ownership and we have promises from the previous owner.

We need a serious business team for negotiations, a new roadmap for mass admission, greater decentralization and democracy as well as the elimination of negativism in the form of abuse of the downvote.

All the solos will fall into the water unless we find synergy, and he certainly won't leave Steem because of his reputation. Where money speaks is won by one who has more, so we should be wise.

> This community has been relying on the funds inside of steemit inc accounts for four years to onboard users and develop the ecosystem.

Keep in mind the result - it didn't succeed in bringing a sufficient number of people to the platform

> an exit scam by Ned

How is it a scam?
Ned invested his knowledge, time and money to create something.
Now he is cashing out and starting something new, what's wrong with that?
Have you ever break up with a girl?
Why do you act like a melodramatic one? :D

> you've unfortunately purchased something like property with liens or stolen goods

He did not.
What you, unreasonable people are doing, is screaming at a new user that the old one was owing something to you.

> Steem is left without a development fund

With the fund... It's... Still... A stupid beta...

> attempt to flee with developer funds meant for steem investors

No, he is not Utopian to do that :D

If this is true, Justin knew exactly what he was buying.
https://steempeak.com/hive-100421/@ura-soul/yjovxoxe

Yeah. Thanks for sharing this.It sounds to me like the soft fork was essentially a SOUND maneuver to put the funds in "escrow" while thing got sorted out. And as I have been saying, with the long trail of mischief following this Justin Sun character I think one would be FOOLISH not to set up this sort of control mechanism. I full believe that Justin had already planned to do what he did. Of course, without hard evidence I can only assume this to be that case, based on OTHER dubious actions taken by Sun. But I think it is safe to assume in this situation. It's just a nasty situation all around, and it's sad that this has happened.

In my opinion, the only way out of this problem is through dialogue and making agreements that benefit both parts, otherwise this war will be eternal and will harm us all

Yes but how? He had a meeting than later he make again a tweets against our community?
That is the main problem that he is changing his mind every hour or maybe every minute.
And again i woke up today for anews that he offer his stake to fheycallmedan. So how u can talk with somebody who keep change his mind?

you are right it is very difficult to trust a person like JS but at some point after so many conversations an agreement must be reached, I fully support the witnesses chosen by us the active communities in STEEM, but we must be aware that if a quick agreement is not reached, this could be very bad for steem

As i mentioned on discord it will be the best move if he remove his witnesses.
If he remove he can prove that he is serious to talk with the community.
While everyone is watching us our witnesses cant HF his stake because that will be a end of steem. Nobody will not join us anymore.
But if that happen i am sure we can talk about the next step wit JS.

in full agreement with this

All this drama gives me anxiety to accumulate and hold STEEM. Hopefully there will be a win-win solution within a week or two that can at least calm things down.

I would wait to accumulate until funds are released. Now you buy for 0.20 it could be very well go to 0.07 because of the users funds being released.

For me, while I can understand where you are coming from the quote,
> " You (Justin Sun) paid money for Steem, and believe that because you paid for it that it's your property to do as you see fit",

is exactly how I view his stake.

I think its largely unreasonable to expect the man to spend stake to support the projects of the blockchain. Would it be awesome if he decided to on his own, hell yeah it would. I don't see any obligation for him to do so.

Are the ones asking him to hand over his funds willing to do the same with their own funds?

In the past Ned's Steemit Inc. decided to use their funds to support the blockchain but that doesn't mean that same responsibility will be taken on by the new owner of Steemit Inc and its stake.

I think there's a large group being very unreasonable in this situation. I don't see any exit scams. I see a man who sold his stake to a business man. Its the idea that Ned's tokens (now Justin Sun tokens) weren't his own that's incorrect and what is causing allot to have an incorrect view of the situation.

Unless someone can show me some sort of legal document that shows proof the STEEMIT INC. Ninja Mined stake wasn't privately owned the above is how I view the man's stake.

Anyone in their right mind would do what they could to secure their investment worth millions and that is what Justin Sun tried to do after yous soft forked him. While I don't like nor do I agree with how he tried to take the power of his stake back (used exchanges), I fully expected him to fight back for the stake he rightfully owns and purchased with his own funds.

Simple public statements from witnesses stating that they wouldn't re-do the softfork would go a long way to de-escalate this thing. I don't want to see these long political posts that don't answer the question Justin asked in his latest blog.

I agree, that would be a step in the right direction.

>... is exactly how I view his stake.

The exchanges, which colluded with Mr. Sun in fraud to their users, demonstrated clearly that in the cryptoverse possession is ten tenths of the law.

@null|Mr. Sun

>I see a man who sold his stake to a business man.

Yes, after using it for 4 years to ~~milk~~ bilk us into investing.
The very definition of exit scam, IMO.

I think is more acurate to say, after he helped the chain with his own stake for 4 years he decided to move on and sell his shares to someone else who may take a different approach with the privately attained stake.

Well, yeah, except for those empty promises that are now proven lies.

Well, yeah, except for
Those empty promises that
Are now proven lies.

                 - freebornangel

I'm a bot. I detect haiku.

"Promises" ...... promises that Justin Sun didn't make.

Like I said, I get where some of these responses are coming from but the fact is if its not legally binding then there isn't much ground to stand on for forking a mans stake who used his own funds to purchase said stake.

He's been free to transfer it, power it down, or burn for several days.

That doesn't excuse the fact it got soft forked.

Do you expect him to just trust those who soft forked it to not do it again?

It would be foolish of him to do so. He likely needs some sort of insurance that gntds. his stake won't be forked again. A public notice from those who did like @tamiil suggested would be a nice step in the right direction.

Once he starts an operation it takes a hard fork to stop/reverse it.
He is, and has been for days, free to do as he pleases with his funds.
The sf was used to get dialog, it has served its purpose.

No guarantees in crypto outside the code.
This is why becoming known as a liar tends to precede folks with the reputation of lying.

> The sf was used to get dialog, it has served its purpose.

I call B.S. on that .....

The man is rich and has other investments to tend to. It was only days between the "A.M.A." and the secret metting between 65(?) steemians who thought it was a good idea to implement a soft fork on an man with a vast amount of resources and funds. The softfork was a foolish idea that got all this mess started.

The coming in like a wrecking ball with token swaps and ending the chain, then voting with nonvoting stake in tron, got this started.
Then doubling down with exchange stake just proved the assumptions right.
The witness done right by us.
We won by inches.

Regardless, done is done.
We only want to move ahead, now.

When smteees!, and tranquility?

The token swap is a none issue. Anyone can offer a token swap, its up to the community to accept it. What happened on the tron blockchain has no affect on the STEEM blockchain. We can't point to that as justification to freeze the mans stake he paid millions for.

I don't like how he tried to regain his tokens power (the exchanges should of never got envolved) but I don't fault the man for protecting his millions that he just invested.

In short: No softfork / No need for exchanges to get envolved. The softfork started all this but like you said, lets look forward not backward.

!ENGAGE 25

Can somebody get JS to swing the big stick on some legacy bullies?
Maybe not proactively, but certainly reactively.

https://steemitimages.com/0x0/https://cdn.steemitimages.com/50x50/https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmdHfkhCPGYcfUqZqT4Br3nsmCpeVPj1BcLoepVX2PYeAE/engagetoken.png/ @freebornangel you have received 25 ENGAGE from @rentmoney!View and trade the tokens on Steem Engine.
This tip bot is powered by witness untersatz!

There are several video recordings of them acknowledging that the stake was intended to be non-voting and spent on development. Making that statement does hold legal obligations.

And you can't buy a stolen car and expect to keep it after the police come to your door. Justin Sun may not have known about the obligations put on the stake, but those obligations were made by the CEO and CTO of Steemit Inc., which means that Steemit Inc., which is the actual holder of the stake continues obligated to fulfill the statements.

DISCLAIMER

Steemit Inc. (The “Company”), is a private company that helps develop the open-source software that powers steemit.com, including steemd. The Company may own various digital assets, including, without limitation, quantities of cryptocurrencies such as STEEM. These assets are the sole property of the Company. Further, the Company’s mission, vision, goals, statements, actions, and core values do not constitute a contract, commitment, obligation, or other duty to any person, company or cryptocurrency network user and are subject to change at any time.

Source: https://steemitwallet.com/about.html

Outlining and speaking about what their then current plans were doesn't mean plans don't change.

To date I have seen 0 legal proof the Steemit Stake wasn't privately owned. Your comment hasn't changed that fact.

But was that disclaimer done after the fact or before? Ned has been recorded in interviews talking about the purpose of the stake, and that disclaimer seems like a direct response to public opinion regarding previous statements made on the stake.

To be honest I'm not sure. I know if I was a witnesses I would be doing a number of things to garner support.

(1) I would search out and provide any legal proof the Steemit Stake isn't private.
(2) I would compile all promises made by NED in regards to the Steemit INC. stake
(3) I would find adequate proof that the disclaimer is after the fact of this issue at hand.
(4) I would provide all the above in a single post and referance it everytime a topic like this comes up.

Its the legal aspect that truely matters here, not promises that aren't legaly binding. If there isn't enough legal proof the Steemit INC. stake isn't privately owned then its privately owned regardless of if promises were made or not. Its the job of those saying Ned's Steemit stake isn't private to provide evidance to support those claims.

Wrong. Ned had his own [substantial] personal stake held in his own personal account(s). So did Dan. But the STEEM held in Steemit accounts was something else entirely. It was meant to develop the ecosystem, and much of the community participated with that in mind. Many people bought stake, powered up, and invested their time with that understanding. I personally powered up more STEEM after this understanding was reaffirmed by Ned late last year. Otherwise I was prepared to dump. The Steemit stake is CLEARLY encumbered with an obligation to the community.

Having said that, I believe there is room for a compromise that would ensure Steem has the decentralization and development funding it needs going forward, while still enabling Justin to make a huge return on investment.

Not wrong .... Its Ned's business where he holds his personal stake. Many others here have their stake in multiple accounts as well. There's only one type of stake in this situation ....... that's Ned's (now Justin Sun's) personal stake.

As I said in my opening statement. I think there's a large group of people being unreasonable due to the false narative that the Steemit INC. stake isn't privately owned. If you have a legal document stating otherwise I'll gladly reconsider my position on the issue.

> Having said that, I believe there is room for a compromise that would ensure Steem has the decentralization and development funding it needs going forward, while still enabling Justin to make a huge return on investment.

Justin Sun shouldn't be stronged armed to spend his stake on the development of the chain. It should be his choice to do so or not just like its your choice to spend yours on the chain or not.

Are the ones asking him to hand over his funds willing to do the same with their own funds? If not they shouldn't be demanding someone else does.

The Steemit Stake is encumbered by social contract. Maybe you don't know the history. Briefly:

From an early stage, the community was understandably concerned about Steemit's large, ninja-mined stake and many were reluctant to invest their resources in the platform. In order to mitigate concerns and attract maximum participation by new and existing users/stakeholders, Ned assured the community that the Steemit stake would be used only for development purposes and would be diluted over time for greater decentralization. He repeated this many times in many public venues, and it came to be considered a social contract between Steemit and the community.

Many (if not the the vast majority) of Steem ecosystem participants factored this social contract into their decisions about whether to buy and power up STEEM (and how much), whether to invest their valuable time blogging/commenting/curating, whether to run witnesses, develop dApps, etc. Many would not have engaged in these activities without the social contract. It is clear that the stake Justin Sun now controls as a result of purchasing Steemit Inc is encumbered by this social contract.

The bottom line is that Ned has put both Justin Sun and the community in a very difficult position. Unless, of course, Justin knew these details. Either way, the only way out will be some kind of compromise. That's what civilized people do when their strongly-held positions are at odds. What do you propose instead, a fight to the death?

> What do you propose instead, a fight to the death?

This gave me a chuckle. I touched on my opinion on everything else you wrote already in my various comments so I will just address your line above.

I purpose a rework of how witnesses are voted in. I always said 30 votes was too much ..... With less votes per account Justin Sun or anyone with a significant amount of power wouldn't be able to over take the top witness spots. With less votes, Steemians will have to be more picky about who they think deserves a witness vote. The witnesses would also have to work harder to attain a vote due to votes being less plentiful, which in turn will help better the chain.

Edit: Here's a decent system that's allot better then the current...

https://steemit.com/steem/@holoz0r/changing-the-witness-voting-system-by-introducing-witness-downvotes-could-this-work

I feel Ned is the one that fucked us including Justin and believe that Justin really had no idea what he purchased.

Yes, I would like to believe that too, but it seems naïve, for a multi billionaire.

Yeah you would think he would of had one of his employees look into all the details before spending millions on something.

He let Ned talk him into jumping off a cliff, iyam.

I would say, uh, maybe?))

Lol, we seem to be winning, for now.

When smteees! and tranquillity?

The SMT development was unfortunately somewhat botched in my view. Too much scope taken on in one bite for the amount of resources available (meaning the resources available after Ned pocketed most of the money and left development running on scraps) and the quality is not quite there. Hopefully (independently of current drama) we can get to where it can be deployed and the block chain does not explode, but I don't know when.

Wonderful.
I think we got time, provided this witness drama blows over.
The chain looks near complete, to me.
At least for the bloggers, gamers will never have enough.

He has trouble holding onto employees :

https://www.coindesk.com/former-employees-sue-justin-sun-and-tron-foundation-alleging-workplace-hostilities

I judge people by their actions. I've done a thorough enough analysis of the top Tron dapps to conclude that they're basically all gambling, and full of tricks (just like Justin himself). Regardless of who owns what, in my opinion this Justin Sun characters is a shady dude who I wouldn't want to sit down at the dinner table with (even if Warren Buffet were there too -- Buffet is also shady anyway). Regardless of who owns what, who tricked who, etc. my magical power of intuition just tells me to run in the opposite direction of this Just Sun character. I don't care it Steem goes up to a ZILLION dollars under his reign. All business is ultimately personal relationships, and Justin Sun has shown me (very clearly, through his actions) that he is someone I DO NOT want to associate myself with in any way - plain and simple. NFor me, there's no need to overanalyze. Ned is an a-hole for subjecting (me - I'll speak for myself only) to Justin Sun, and Justin Sun is a shady character who I want nothing to do with. My Steem value is being reallocated into DEC (Splinterlands) where I feel COMFORTABLE having it.

Now that was pretty darn easy.

Well they did get sold out and the mayority of the dev team seems to have gone away, more of a regular acquisition (which usually suck) dyt?

Meh, rich people problems.
As long as my payouts don't get interrupted, it's not very likely I can influence either side, much.

@rentmoney agree with you. Something is abnormal.

Posted using Partiko Android

If you believe corporations shed their liabilities every time new stakeholders attain majority stakes, you are no capitalist, but something else. Either Steemit Inc. made such representations to investors, or they did not.

I submit that plentiful written representations of Stinc as to their use of the stake they mined exist, and further that 4 years of history of deployment of that stake back that record up.

It is facile and disingenuous to purport that Stinc's Steem has no limitations and earmarks on it's use that differentiate it from all other stake, and since that is your position, your position is irreconcilable with extant circumstances.

Get good, or get gone. Pander to Tron somewhere else.

Show me a legal document in regards to the Steemit stake and your claims. Until you or someone else does all I'm seeing is opinions based on emotion.

I don't pander to Tron or any other company. I simply look at all the facts brush all the emotional opinions aside and come to my own conclusions.

You can research corporate law as well as anyone else. The fact is that what constitutes a contract isn't restricted to documents executed by hand in front of witnesses, and myriad precedents to this fact apply.

Why do you think prospectuses carry disclaimers? Because they can be interpreted to be contracts between advisors and investors, and thus would create liability were the disclaimers not present.

Disclaimers such as this one ....

DISCLAIMER

Steemit Inc. (The “Company”), is a private company that helps develop the open-source software that powers steemit.com, including steemd. The Company may own various digital assets, including, without limitation, quantities of cryptocurrencies such as STEEM. These assets are the sole property of the Company. Further, the Company’s mission, vision, goals, statements, actions, and core values do not constitute a contract, commitment, obligation, or other duty to any person, company or cryptocurrency network user and are subject to change at any time.

The representations Stinc and it's principals made long predate that disclaimer, and it is probably unenforceable due to that and investors reliance on those representations, as well as it's obscure placement.

There's a reason the disclaimers in prospectuses are unavoidably obvious, and this disclaimer is practically impossible for folks to find. I've never seen it before now, for example.

Lots of people sign up to different sites without ever reading any of the T&C's sites have in place. A site/company (Steemit or otherwise) can't force someone to read disclaimers and/or T&C's. They can only provide the information in a reasonable manner. The disclaimer is located in the wallet section which seems like a reasonable enough place for it to be to me.

Since you admit to never seeing it before, how can you be sure the disclaimer wasn't up before the "promises" made? It could of been in another place you haven't looked before.

No legal document that shows the Steemit Inc stake is not privately own means that it is privately owned. When push comes to shove, the legal aspect here is all that matters. If Justin Sun was to take on the same goals and promises made by the previous owner of the stake then that would be his decision but he shouldn't be strong armed to do so.

The Ninja Mined stake been alive and active on this site and now when someone uses their hard earned money to purchases millions of dollars worth of it a small group of hand selected individuals decide to fork that stake. I'm sorry but that's a real shitty thing to do. Steemit Inc. isn't the only ninja mined stake on this blockchain. I think legally, Justin Sun has allot more on his side then not.

I have my fingers crossed this all works out in the end and Hopefully Justin Sun is going to stick around to help Steem(it) and the Steem blockchain grow because after this whole fiasco who in their right mind would invest big money into a place in which treats large investors as Justin Sun has been treated.

Look, you clearly intend to pander to Tron, so I'm not gonna bother to read your screeds anymore. Here you begin by ignoring we're talking about investors spending cash, not signups for free emails, and you're obviously spinning and dodging any facts that don't support your obsequious intention. I have no interest in BS.

Have a good day.

As I said already, I pander to no company. I simply push aside emotional dribble and look at the facts. Like the fact you brought up its hard to find the disclaimer and the fact you admited to not seeing it before. I addressed both andnow you whine about the fact I adressed those comments of yours.

I ignored nothing, Justin Sun (Ned)/Steemit stake is private and if some invested in the STEEM blockchain because of his actions then great. The man has a right to sell any amount of his stake he wants to regardless of the reason you or anyone else invested.

You say you don't pander yet you say that while pandering. Scarface pointed out we only have two things in the world, our word and our balls. I hope you still have your balls, because your words are without value.

You claim to have addressed the fact that the disclaimer you tout is hidden, and late to the game, but you did not address these facts. Neither did you address why disclaimers on prospectuses are highly visible, even unavoicable, in sharp contrast to the Steemit disclaimer.

You're not avoiding drivel. You're spewing it. Did you take lessons in speaking from Roy Liu? You seem to state exactly the same nothing with your words he does.

> You say you don't pander yet you say that while pandering. Scarface pointed out we only have two things in the world, our word and our balls. I hope you still have your balls, because your words are without value.

Stop being so foolish ....
> You claim to have addressed the fact that the disclaimer you tout is hidden, and late to the game, but you did not address these facts. Neither did you address why disclaimers on prospectuses are highly visible, even unavoicable, in sharp contrast to the Steemit disclaimer.

I'm sorry you are upset because I don't tow the company line you want to hear. I did address every part of your rebuttal. I already pointed out to you that I thought the Disclaimer is in a reasonable spot.

To further touch on your disclaimer claims .....Tons of sites have disclaimers written in very small text hidden to the side / at a bottom of a page or tucked away in varous other places.

The Steemit disclaimer is very clear and in big text on a page that you admit to not visting. Its nots Steemit responsiblity to hold your hand and guide you to that page. The page is not hidden and its easy to find.

> You're not avoiding drivel. You're spewing it. Did you take lessons in speaking from Roy Liu? You seem to state exactly the same nothing with your words he does.

More foolishness from you, at least your first foolish paragraph was a little funny. ... .try harder next time.

>" I did address every part of your rebuttal."

That's a lie. You're lying, and I will waste no more time on you.

Ok let me rephrase .... I addressed many parts of your rubuttal but its possible I missed something.......

Go get yourself some midol, you're getting too emotional.

Welcome to the internet where you will meet people who have different opinions/views as your own.

The question for some people is why would they want to stay on a chain with justin when they could pretty easily not be on the same chain.

They believe he adds discomforting centralization and has zero history of work on steem. And now instead of 4 developers just 1 experienced developer. Meaning what really can he do that we cant do ourselves with fraction of the stake.

Could the community and past steemit employees do more than justin for much less and without years of downward sales pressure?

So it maybe isnt even a matter of if those funds are his, if they properly tranfered or if we should trust him.... it becomes WHY?

A chain split is an option, however, will we lose out on SMTs, RC delegation and access to top exchanges?

Creating a sister chain that burns all of the remaining Steemit stake could go badly, on the other hand, the reduction of all that stake could improve the price of the remaining tokens. Its a gamble, but I think what we can take from this is that much of Steem's design needs to be reconsidered.

The SMT code is still available, and it was a non-Steemit dev, @howo who was doing final testing on it paid for by SPS. There might be, and probably is, some further refinement needed before it could be considered deployment ready but I think it could be done in time (and quite frankly I wasn't convinced it was going to happen very quickly with Steemit working on it either).

The others I don't know.

Okay, I was not aware of that. That would be very good news for Classic Steem if we go down that path.

If enough feel the same way as you do then to them I say, make a sister chain model after STEEM and give it a go. I'd support it but I don't support forking a man's stake that he purchased with his own funds.

I honestly dont think there are many at all that would support anything like that. Maybe a witness like that exists but certainly haven't heard of anyone willing to do that. I think people thought that was the case with 22.2 but honestly they just were worried about a hostile takeover and wanted to get @justinsunsteemit to explain his intentions. That's how I read all the witness discussions from back then people were opposed until they were convinced it was a temporary measure

They gave @justinsunsteemit just days from the AMA to the soft forking. This man is a millionaire many times over with other investments to tend to. Days is not enough time to jump to the conclusion of ........ well, lets fork his stake. The witnesses fired the first shot in this mess and Justin Sun fired back as he should. I don't agree with how he did it but I certainly knew he wasn't just going to sit back and allow his millions in invested private Steem to be messed with.

Private Stake should never be forked regardless of the situation. The only legit reason is if the private stake owner agrees to it.

> Private Stake should never be forked regardless of the situation. The only legit reason is if the private stake owner agrees to it.

I cant be 100% certain but I think that is the total consensus of witnesses. But obviously they also wanted to protect the chain. Think about this justin could have done some incredibly bad stuff when he had all 20 block producers... like really destroyed everything. It's not a matter if we think he would have it's just bad that one person could have. And at the time there was lots of talk of token swaps moving over to tron. Etc

Justin Sun bought Steemit, its his property to do with as he wants. Token Swap is a non issue for me. Anyone can offer a token swap, some may have accepted the swap but I think its likely most wouldn't have. I think the fear built around that potentail swap was unwarrated.

I understand the potential downside of Justin Sun stake but lets be honest here a handfull of people already dictate who the top witnesses are. If the witnesses are serious about the current narrative their pushing (not haven one person with too much voting power) then they need to rework the whole voting system so its more fair to those who don't have a bunch of Steem.

Thanks for your comments @jarvie. I respect your thoughts andopinion on the matter.

> Unless someone can show me some sort of legal document that shows proof the STEEMIT INC. Ninja Mined stake wasn't privately owned the above is how I view the man's stake

Multiple video and audio records of the man saying this in his own words among a boatload of other supporting evidence all saying the same damn thing is more than sufficient to me. In fact that is more compelling to me than "legal documents", which could more easily be fake, taken out of context, not necessarily properly understood by non-experts, etc.

Justin got a massive discount on this deal. How that came about in the negotiations we can only guess, but at the very least he should have known something was not as it seemed and looked into it. Was it merely a careless error by someone inexperienced and in over his head, or was it something else?

DISCLAIMER

Steemit Inc. (The “Company”), is a private company that helps develop the open-source software that powers steemit.com, including steemd. The Company may own various digital assets, including, without limitation, quantities of cryptocurrencies such as STEEM. These assets are the sole property of the Company. Further, the Company’s mission, vision, goals, statements, actions, and core values do not constitute a contract, commitment, obligation, or other duty to any person, company or cryptocurrency network user and are subject to change at any time.

Source: https://steemitwallet.com/about.html

Outlining and speaking about what their then current plans were doesn't mean plans don't change.

To date I have seen 0 legal proof the Steemit Stake wasn't privately owned. Your comment hasn't changed that fact.

I will say that, all those videos and other proof you speak of should be compiled and put in a post to support your cause. I don't like what the man did to regain his power of Stake but I also don't like that his stake was forked.

When purchasing large amount of stake or anything for that matter a discount is to be expected. People buy in bulk all the time to get discounts. Justin Sun doing it for STEEM is no shock to me.

> I will say that, all those videos and other proof you speak of should be compiled and put in a post to support your cause.

That's been done there are several of these if not dozens.

That "Disclaimer" you posted (and the web page it is on) didn't exist until AFTER the community already discussed forking to exercise control over the stake, but ultimately decided against it, in part due to the stake no longer being powered down and hidden and instead left transparent in the steemit accounts, where the community could monitor it and measure performance in developing the ecosystem against cash outs of the stake. Why do you think Ned did that?

Ned unilaterally writing "These assets are the sole property of the Company" on his own web site in a self-serving manner does not make it so, nor obligate anyone else to believe it or agree to it in contradiction to years of representations otherwise.

I can tell you that I personally told Ned on numerous occasions going back years that I would never let him or Steemit off the hook for his commitments on how the stake would be used, and I will not.

If you came along later after Ned stopped using the existence of a block of ninja-mined (essentially premined) stake earmarked to the development of the ecosystem as a tool to recruit and encourage support for his project, and felt those disclaimers applied as a condition of your joining Steem, then that's fine for you, but I did not and they do not.

Again, proof is needed of your claims. You say its been showed many times but I been linked to 0 topics (more importanly 0 legal documents) that show your claims are true. I would suggest one clear topic with all the proof shown in it. I think it would go along way with garnering more support or at the very least more sympathy for your position.

To that I would add words are not enough, they need to be legally binding. In the end it comes down to one position for me which is, If you can't legally prove The Steemit INC. stake is not private stake then it is private stake.

I always find I'm debating for the Justin Sun side and that's not my intention. I also don't like how Justin Sun responded to all this mess but I do believe he had a right to protect his millions invested. I by no means want the STEEM community to split. I been here 2 + years and rather like all the interactions and different opinions such as ours that I come across.

Thank you Dr. Aggroed! A post with verbs in it. Action verbs.

I sincerely hope that your plan is acted on. It can be pretty darn straightforward from here...

Thank you for the writeup.

But I believe that simply demanding him to remove puppet witnesses would go nowhere. If you were him, how could you be certain that 22.2 would not happen again? The moment he removes his votes, 22.2 witnesses may fork out his stakes.

If i will be him i try to prove that i am serious. His stake will be there.
If i will be him for sure i will start to invest in developement of steemit and onboard new users. Put steem on exchanges.
Trust me after that everyone will be supporting him.
He should start to communicate with us and start to work from the first minute. But like this he can still fix and his investment will grow.

> If i will be him for sure i will start to invest in developement of steemit and onboard new users.

Are you willing to fund the above with your own private funds? If not why do you expect another to?

Why??? Because he bought steemit. And steemit is on steem. How a silly question. He invested sonhe bought steemit if i buy a land of course it will not worth much but if i build a house on it will worth more.
Do you get what i try to explain?

Your response here is in a different light then what I took from your orginal. If you are saying its in his best interest to help the STEEM token succeed then I would agree it is. But its his funds to do with as he pleases. If chooses to spend to help the chain grow then that would benefit us all including Justin Sun. That doesn't mean he has to ..... its his choice to choose to or not.

Thanks for the response and clarification on what you meant :)

Yes he doesnt have to. That is true. But as he mentioned in a town hall he wanna make money. If he wanna make money of course he need to take care of his investment in this case steemit.
So i try to take his point as a business person and i just dont see anything good in his decissions.
His investment is depending on our community. Because we are the value of steemit and steem block chain.
And he should know this. Or is it a smart businessman who buy something that he dont know what it is?
By the way if he treat the community nice i am sure the community will also support him and that will be the win win.

Do you think the witnesses will remove his stake?
If that happens than our witnesses will kill the steem blockchain.
That will be the worst move ever in steem history.
But if he remove his witnesses it will be a good start to find a solution for this whole mess.

I'm not demanding anything. I'm requesting. That's a giant difference.

There's no hardfork on the steem blockchain that's going happen because the exchanges are unlikey to update to the new version. The witnesses have been able to softfork his voting rights for almost 3 days and haven't.

Then make public statements to that fact. In his latest blog he asked if you supported freezing his stake again or not. If witnesses came together and made simple public statements that no we're not going to re-do the softfork since you've had your answer then that would hopefully ease his mind a bit.

Because it's impossible to make any deeply tangible statements honorably while in what I perceive as a hostage situation.

From his perspective his funds will be frozen again the moment he lets go of his sock puppets. So the only thing he can do is to keep voting, otherwise he's going to be locked up and unable to make any moves.

I don't like the way he's reacted to this whole mess any more than you do, but you have to signal a way out for him to break the stalemate. If he continues to vote in his witnesses, then tough luck, evidently we can fight him enough to veto his proposed changes.

The other possibility is he cashes out, which would decentralize the chain further and that's a good thing in my eyes.

The last option would be for him to build something with the community and get some ROI.

But all of these possibilities won't become a reality unless you guys signal him that it's okay to get rid of the witnesses.

I think @theycallmedan offered some solid suggestions in his reply. I like the idea of a portion going into the SPS. It's a safety net for us and an incentive for Justin to get involved in the space. Even if his only interest ever is to just make money, I have a feeling he can find opportunities abound here after all this settles.

Yeah, I like his response as well.

It's a hostage situation going both ways, He's taken our blockchain hostage, we've taken his stake hostage. Need to make a trade, We get governance back, he gets his coins. But accompanying that need to be the fixes that prevent or reduce the risk of his large stake taking over consensus.

We never took his stake hostage. JS claims he wants to invest in Steem via Steemit, so the company's funds being frozen should have no effect on that. If Sun planned on being around 5+ years he wouldn't have been at all worried that we froze his accounts temporarily out of fear.

In fact, Justin has so much money, that we should have all fully expected him to invest even more in Steem outside the initial investment. He should have been getting us exchange listings and looking for more developers before even trying to unlock his accounts. These are the kinds of actions that generate a lot of sympathy on the community level. Instead he tries to rule with an iron fist.

> Hey guys, I need a million coins to hire more developers and get exchange listings. Please unlock liquid coin transfers on X account so I can do this.

And we would have done it... so obviously. He doesn't need 65M coins all at once. He can't use 65M coins all at once for anything except to fuck us over. This is exactly why Ned sold instead of performing these same fucked up actions himself.

Sun has no intention of helping us, and he has ruined everything, and now he will lose everything. End of story. (unless he deescalates, which I would be floored)

It's a hostage situation in his eyes as well. You guys froze his stake and he believes that if he removes his witnesses you will go right back and do it again. You have framed him as the enemy but it was you guys that drew first blood here, and then he responded. Either way, you can't demand he remove his witnesses without also putting in some safeguard that will prevent his stake from being frozen. It's a give and take at this point, not a take take.

Witnesses will not fork out his stake they would leave the chain. Justin's funds were never at risk

I think the best way forwards as of now is to implement a fix to the DPoS system that reduces the impact and risk of large stake holders on taking over the complete consensus.

We should focus on that and only that. leave out any asset freezing, leave out the promised use of steemit stake for now. Deal with that after chain governance is back on track and safer from abuse.

I think we'll have a very hard time getting justin sun to agree to keep the steemit stake promises intact. As far as he sees it, he brought steemit and it's steem stake and it's his property to do as with he pleases.
So with that in mind, making the DPoS governance more robust against large stake holders makes more sense.

I personally think having your MVESTS be divided between all your witness votes is the way forward. then you can also let people vote on as many witnesses and the want.
An alternative is allow people to specify how many MVests they give in the witness vote.
either way a persons stake can't then be used at 100% power on 30 votes.

Regarding programming this in, we could ask the now former lead devs of steemit to help us out one last time on a critical update.

This of course would take a bit of time, as you need to code and then test something like this. but it would be time well spent if we all have enough patience to get it done.

My suggestion for a way out was for the community to buy the 70M stake at a price both parties find agreeable: https://steempeak.com/hive-111111/@borislavzlatanov/proposal-resolving-the-stalemate-with-tron-steemit-inc-a-concrete-way-of-moving-forward

Thoughts?

What I think Sun Yuchen should do:

1. Power Down
2. Use it to buy SDB
3. Sell that SDB in parity to the USD in an easy way without excessive bureaucracy(PayPal, Amazon, eBay, ...)
   1. I'd buy some of it.

Unplug those sock puppet and get it offline is the best thing Sun can do if he is true about STEEM development.

Thanks you for your well written thoughts, and for all you do to defend Steem!

insane crypto

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We need to stop this fight and make things progress.

I agree with everything said here, and while I’m not in favor of a fork that would nullify or redirect the ninja-stake (at present) I would strongly encourage our witnesses to keep it on the table until we’re safe.

Simply put, Justin can’t be trusted and the only reason he’s Reaching out is because he’s backed himself into a corner. He’s proven, beyond the shadow of a doubt, his only interest in our community was a quick fuck and duck, and to rob as as he slipped out during the night. He got caught and instead of running now he’s back to sweet talking.

Justin is a hustler and doesn’t appreciate the concept of fair play. I support no cooperative action or peaceful negotiation while he’s still in a position to influence our chain.

Justin smiled to our face and buddied up to us while positioning himself to choke us out. Not we have him in an arm bar, but instead of begging us not to finish him he’s turning on the charm, looking for his next move. I say make him tap out before hearing anything he has to say. As long as he’s in the ring he’s not finished fighting and that means he’s still a threat. Nullify the threat, then peaceful negotiations can begin.

Well said. Exactly my opinion.

How can he possibly remove his witnesses without fear of you guys freezing his stake again? Do you not see that is what this is all about?

It's not about controlling the steem blockchain, he wants to ensure that you guys don't just take away the steem he just paid $10 million for.

You guys started all of this and are not unwilling to work with him. He can't remove his witnesses because you guys will simply take his property again.

He didn't pay anything close to $10 million. Don't assume facts that you don't know.

He PAID for it though. He who has the most has the vote power. If some other party bought 50 million worth on exchanges would they have their steem soft forked away too? I guess we will never know because no one is going to invest now are they? Ned dumped how much Steem every month and no one said boo, because Steemit inc owned assets including large amounts of steem. Steemit openly declared they OWNED those coins, why wasn't there a fork there and then?
Hypocritical to fork away Neds steem and not the other pre miners like Freedom, Bernie etc. just because those people are voting like you.

> He PAID for it though

He paid for a company that came with certain history, obligations and reasonable expectations of the blockchain community it led.

> If some other party bought 50 million worth on exchanges would they have their steem soft forked away too?

I doubt it. More likely would be just forking to a new chain and leaving him behind which would also likely be a loss for him, but who knows. This is a hypothetical that did not happen.

> Hypocritical to fork away Neds steem and not the other pre miners like Freedom, Bernie etc. just because those people are voting like you

Where are the videos of Bernie or Freedom promising to use that stake to develop the ecosystem? Where is the evidence that Bernie or Freedom rigged the mining setup to spend almost no money while attempting to evade regulations when doing a fund raise? Where is the history of that stake already being subject to possible remedy, by fork, of failure to properly support the ecosystem a year or two ago, something Justin could or should have known before he bought it? (And, unless we take him at his word, which at this point I'm not sure why anyone would do, we don't know that he didn't know.)

None of that exists. It isn't the same situation at all.

The Steemit ninja-mined stake is unique. The community considered (though ultimately decided against) forking controls over it when Ned was still in control of Steemit and then considered them again (and decided in favor) after Ned sold Steemit to Justin. Nothing really changed here with the sale of the company. Justin got just what he paid a heavily discounted price to get, which is (a company with) a weak claim on stake on the blockchain with historical and practical encumbrances against it.

Just because a previous ownership had intentions of how they would use their assets doesn't mean new ownership must have those same intentions.

That goes both ways. Just because the ownership of the company changed doesn't mean that the community's acceptable parameters on how the stake is to be used need to change.

Do you think Justin was aware (among a the vast history of complications that surrounded that stake) that forking to impose on-chain control over the stake was discussed a year or two ago but not carried out when Ned stopped powering down and hiding the stake and made various new promises (most not carried out) to fund a Foundation, improve transparency, etc.?

He should have known what he was getting into, no?

Sure, still doesn't mean he has to abide by it.

And you know this how?

I suggest that the Tron Stake gets sold in a public auction, where private investors have a chance to acquire Steem Stake with all normal voting rights included. This method would guarantee that the stake gets distributed to many different investors as possible, who believe in the future of Steem Blockchain.

> Do you like Justin Sun or you just want to fuck him?

He is continously lying and trying to manipulate the opinion and public outlook on his actions.

He would give a shit on community opinion if only he could. He will do it the very moment the power shifts to his side.

Do not forget it.

please show the Legal Documents Ned made to the community. This is over 12 million dollars. What agreements on this planet for 12 million dollars dont come with Legal documents. ????

oh wait , ned also promised me 1 million dollars also. please mention to Justin Sun he also has a million dollars of my money also.

Witnesses please freeze 1 million dollars of Steemit Inc account and send it to this account. Then let Ned know i got it.

Justin didn't pay anything close to 12 million dollars.

@aggroed, the question I keep coming back to — and which sits at the root of much of this entire circus — is that of whether or not Justin Sun was even aware that he was purchasing "encumbered" property (be that explicit or implicit) in the sense of whether Ned even made mention of the fact that the ninja mined Steem was "supposed to" be used for future development and marketing.

"Due diligence" notwithstanding, it's a bit like a developer buying a prime piece of real estate that is technically without liens, not knowing that the land is very likely the habitat for an endangered species which would effectively block the developer's ability to build his shopping mall or housing development. "Caveat Emptor" and all that good stuff, but even high level transactions are often riddled with ambiguities...

Was Ned just so hot-to-trot to "exit stage left" that he conveniently "forgot" to mention this small detail about the intended use of the ninja mined stake? Whereas it doesn't materially alter the current situation, if Justin was substantially deceived about the nature of his acquisition it would go quite a long way towards explaining why he is playing his hand the way he is.

Keep in mind that I don't know the technical/logistical aspects of this, but could it be that a possible way forward is that a formal agreement is drafted and published that as of some pre-determined time and date, ALL witnesses — Justin's AND ours — agree to reset/update their witnesses to perhaps a ver. 22.6 that essentially mirrors the code that was running PRE 22.2, 22.444, 22.3 and 22.5? No changed powerdown time, no blocked stake, just "old" Steem.

Risky? Sure... but make the whole thing EXCEPTIONALLY PUBLIC so that IF anyone was to renege, the effect would be that they were standing up in the middle of town square saying "Yes, I'm an untrustworthy cheat and scammer." The possibility of publicly losing face with the entire world watching can be a very strong deterrent.

Perhaps negotiations can start towards creating an entirely new account called something like "Steem Development Fund" that can FORMALLY be declared and mutually agreed to as holding all/some of the ninja mined Steem, not just as a "vague promise" but as part of the Steem(it)'s formal structure... and that account be subject to special rules/exceptions written into the code. AND, could additionally be used/encouraged as an active "beneficiary account" for the greater community to support, KNOWING that the "donations" they send that way are formally earmarked for specific purposes.

>"Please have the sock puppet accounts stand down..."

I reckon this is only even useful if Tron and the exchanges execute the code on the chain already that declines governance through voting witnesses. Absent assurances - i.e. additional code - I can't see them doing this.

Please use your influence with competent devs to provide such code to Tron for it's deployment, and hopefully we can proceed therefrom.

Thanks!

Just thinking out loud ....

Justin says he owns the Steemit Inc steem now. The witnesses/community say the Steemit Inc steem belongs to the chain always.

I think the community and Justin should mutually meet in the middle and code it into the chain. For instance, let’s say everyone agrees that after 3 years, Justin fully owns the tokens. It could be coded that if he powers down on day 1, 100% goes to the SPS. If he powers down on the first day of year 2, 66% goes to the SPS and so on.

This has several benefits. The first is it is coded so it removes the trust factor. The second is it is a win-win mutual compromise for both sides so we can move on from this.

The win for Justin is there is a point in time that he will fully own his tokens unlike at the moment ... at least from the community’s perspective.

The win for the community is this agreement keeps Justin here for at least that length of time. He will want to get a return on his investment, so he will likely develop the chain during that time. The second win is this gives the community more time to distribute tokens, further diluting the initial ninja mined stake so when Justin does gain full control it will mean less overall as far as governance.

Just my rambling brainstorm. It is a compromise on both sides which means it is likely a fair deal.

The problem is, with supermajority of witnesses anything can happen, so written in code is not as safe as it seems.

Sure but that will always be the case to some degree. The only way to permanently reduce the risk would be to hardfork the stake out but that would be like killing yourself so you don’t get cancer. I think we need to stay united and decide on how best to move forward as one.

Bottom line is Ned fucked us and Justin. The history of this stake is what it is. We need to quickly come to a resolution and compromise in my opinion.

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I agree we need to try to find a way we can all walk away happy. Mutually assured destruction isn't the way to go, but I'll tell ya right now, after the stunts he's pulled here, I will NEVER have ANYTHING to do with a project Justin Sun is involved with again. I don't care how "awesome" or "profitable" is is.

You guys need to negotiate. Stating he needs to remove his sock puppets before any negotiation can happen is one-sided and will likely lead to the stalemate continuing until he forces a hard fork on us. You need to offer him a reason to not hard fork the shit out of us and divest himself of his stake. I'd suggest a powerdown concession (maybe 4 weeks) in exchange for a portion of the stinc ninja-mine put aside for community development. Would this be something that might interest him?

This battle will turn worse than the Hatfields & McCoys. A hard fork is inevitable because Justin does not have the mindset to understand why we feel the way we do AND Justin will never want to admit he did not do enough due diligence to what he bought, Justin needs to go his own separate way and we need to go our way. I’m fine with it because Justin is to reckless and not a good enough leader to move us forward in a consensus matter. He’s brain doesn’t work like that and he’s not cut from the same cloth as we are.

THIS
TBH

Justin's owned stake vs Community POV

It's a tough situation, and listening to Ned's interviews, he was using his psycology knowledge to create a "Non-profit" model, to create a community mindset.

It's a very effective form of "motivation", that corporations use, to get a buy-in from people who do not own the company.

You talk with open language, use "We", "community", "us", to draw in a commitment of shared value and equalness. A version of reality.

Realistically, Ned owned the original stake, found some of the challenges for Steemit way more than he wanted to deal with, and worked out a way to exit.

Without the ninja stake, is Steemit at a point where it can survive?
Has the community, and senior memebers, reached a level to move it forward?
If Sun keeps the stake and tries to command control over Steemit in a centralised way, is that a good or bad situation for the future of Stemmit & Tron in a consolidating stage of Crypto?
If Sun sells out his stake to make a profit, does that create an opportunity for Steemit to be a Crypto vehicle for venture capitalists?

Why are the Justin Sun haters still on Steemit? Just go spread your conspiracy theories on Steempeak.

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