A few days ago, we reported that Steem witnesses had conducted a soft fork to limit Sun’s power after Tron bought Steemit Inc. However, Justin Sun appears to have collaborated with several major exchanges to forcefully oust the governance body of the Steem blockchain.
The Hostile Takeover
Tron recently acquired Steemit Inc and the CEO, Justin Tron, is already working to consolidate his control over the Steem blockchain. Following the recent maneuvers by Sun, most of the Steem witnesses, who are in charge of the Steem blockchain’s governance, had been ousted. The takeover involved several major exchanges including Huobi, Poloniex, and Binance. They used the staking power they held and delegated the votes to an account that appears to be owned and controlled by Sun.
About Steemit And Its Blockchain
Steemit Inc is a private firm that was run by Ned Scott, the founder of Steem. The company developed the Steem blockchain and it maintains Steemit.com, the primary platform for the Steem community. While Steemit Inc is a private firm, it holds a huge percentage of the Steem tokens, which it acquired via pre-mine. These tokens are called the ninja mined stake and they do not take part in governance. This allows democratic decision-making in the governance of the Steem blockchain. However, once Tron acquired it, things changed.
How Ned Scott Reacted
When Ned Scott learned about the hostile takeover, he was supportive of the move. He tweeted that the Steem witnesses stole Steemit Inc’s coins. He added that Steemit did not owe anything to anyone and any other action was tantamount to bullying. Additionally, he defended the pre-mine noting that without the pre-mined coins, there would not have been any investors in the blockchain. He has since deleted all his tweets.
The Steem community was understandably unhappy with this comment. They claimed that Scott had promised he would be used to further the decentralization of the Steem blockchain and would not be used in the governance of the blockchain.
The Move to Limit Tron’s Influence
About a week ago, the Steem witnesses conducted a soft fork in which they temporally limit what Tron could do with their hoard of Steem tokens. The soft fork was called Soft Fork 0.22.2. The soft fork was meant to give the community time to come to terms with the Tron acquisition.
Justin Sun Acts
Tron issued a statement recently in which they said that the Steemit Inc tokens would be used for voting. Besides that, they would be using the tokens to overturn the soft fork, which was supposed to have limited the power that Tron has over the Steem blockchain. The statement claimed the soft fork was malicious and they deemed it criminal and illegal.
To execute the reversal, Sun appears to have convinced several exchanges holding huge amounts of Steem to take part in a vote to remove the current witnesses. However, Sun later said that this was misleading. He did not work with major exchanges to execute a hostile takeover. He tweeted that he had used users’ funds to reverse the vote due to pressure from customers. However, not everyone who responded to the tweet expressed support for him. Some expressed serious doubts about his intentions. No matter how he executed it, Sun managed to oust 20 of the 21 existing witnesses. The witnesses that replaced them appear to have been created recently via an account that seems to be controlled by Tron.
Tron Intends to Improve Steem
Recently, Sun announced that he would be hosting a Town Hall on March 6. The top 50 witnesses have been invited to share their views on how to make Steem better. Thus far, Tron appears to be off to a disastrous start.
Image Source: Shutterstock
Notice: Information contained herein is not and should not be construed as an offer, solicitation, or recommendation to buy or sell securities. The information has been obtained from sources we believe to be reliable; however no guarantee is made or implied with respect to its accuracy, timeliness, or completeness. Authors may own the crypto currency they discuss. The information and content are subject to change without notice. Visionary Financial and its affiliates do not provide investment, tax, legal or accounting advice. This material has been prepared for informational purposes only and is the opinion of the author, and is not intended to provide, and should not be relied on for, investment, tax, legal, accounting advice. You should consult your own investment, tax, legal and accounting advisors before engaging in any transaction. All content published by Visionary Financial is not an endorsement whatsoever. Visionary Financial was not compensated to submit this article Please also visit our Privacy policy; disclaimer; and terms and conditions page for further information.
