Generally speaking, I’ve found it best to just ignore posts by Steemit Inc and the new Steem witnesses, as they often are just contradictions of their own past statements and claims, and thus need no active dispute.
But they did make one false claim about BlockTrades which I’ve decided to address directly, as they’ve not only made it on steemit.com, but also recently repeated it in a cointelegraph article:
https://cointelegraph.com/news/former-steem-witness-i-received-direct-threats-from-a-hive-user
What’s the claim?
The original claim was made in a Korean-language post on steemit, but I found a translation of the claim in a steemitblog post:
”By the end of 2019, blocktrade had received 25 million Steem in the past three years from Steemit Inc. in the name of development costs.“
In the cointelegraph article, this claim has transmuted to:
“More than $35 million dollars worth of STEEM tokens were transferred to Blocktrades at the time. “
While the original posting of this claim at least makes it clear that the STEEM transfers from Steemit to BlockTrades took place over 3 years, an ordinary reader of the claim in the cointelegraph article would believe that all the Steem was made in one transfer, based on the placement of the phrase “at the time” and the surrounding statements in the article.
What’s the truth?
Neither claim is accurate.
Steemit did indeed make many Steem transfers over several years to BlockTrades. These were public payments mostly made by the steemit2 account, and many people were aware of the payments as this was one of the largest accounts on the blockchain and it was known to be owned by Steemit Inc.
But I believe it was also well-known that these payments were not for development costs.
These payments were normal trades of Steem for BTC and ETH, similar in nature to trades that our customers routinely make to exchange one cryptocurrency for another cryptocurrency. Due to the large size of these payments, they were arranged as OTC trades, rather than using our web site. It’s also worth noting that Steemit made similar arrangements with other exchangers as well, so this doesn’t represent the totality of their cryptocurrency trades.
As these trades were a private business arrangement with Steemit Inc, it’s been my policy in the past not to discuss these trades publicly (for most of its lifetime, Steemit was often obsessed with secrecy about its operation, in my opinion). But as Steemit Inc has itself decided to repeat a claim that it knows to be factually incorrect, I decided to set the record straight.
Perhaps the saddest thing in this whole story is that Steem would have turned out quite differently if these had been payments for development work. Given the amount of work we’ve been able to do on Hive at a vastly smaller cost, it’s hard for me to even imagine the sheer amount of improvements we could have made if this kind of money had been devoted to improving Steem.
This was always obvious to me.
I think it was probably obvious to many people who were on Steem for a long time, but I think in this case we've got a group of people who are willfully looking for ways to distort reality.
And someone with no Steem background might actually believe such a claim, if I didn't actively dispute it. I've had actual experience with this type of issue before: a long time ago a post was made on Steem that implied financial misconduct by me, which I pretty much ignored at the time, because it was essentially nonsense. But it later came up when a public company wanted to acquire us, and they found that article about us while doing a google search. I was able to explain the situation to the satisfaction of the potential buyer, but it changed my mind a bit on when it's ok to let a false claim about business matters go unchallenged.
I think quite a few people with knowledge of trading in general would think OTC.
Unless you were responsible for the majority of Steemit's development and administrative costs, huge transfers being payments doesn't make sense. Steemit never implied or said you did the majority of work.
It is definitely a good choice to clarify the truth and dispel rumors when the truth is not condemning you and rumors are damaging. Besides half the claims coming from these guys are nonsense. There are also a lot of other people who know the truth
It becomes exceedingly obvious when we look at what happened with the fork. Most Steemit employees quit and none of them said anything bad about you. Pretty much every witness, with the exception of a few, moved over, too.
In any case, I hope the best for you and Hive. I hope you guys also get your Steem back soon. That was never mentioned as a reason for trying to steal it.
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After all these years getting familiar with Steem, that place has become an unrecognizable cesspool of greed and pathetic. Quite incredible considering the potential it once had.
Thank you for all the work you have done that has benefited so many of us. I have used BlockTrades while on Steemit and you helped me many times with ideas, advice and important answers to my "How in the world can I do ____?" questions. You're now a huge help here on Hive. Thank you! We stand with you!
100% agree.
@blocktrades has been instrumental in STEEM's success and is ABSOLUTELY vital now for HIVE's further improvement. TY and HIVE.ON!
Yes! You are so right @frankbacon
Don't worry the truth comes out late or early, feel at peace with a clear conscience. Although we must work to suppress and suppress that defamation and lie. Regards.
If she's that rich why don't you fucking join her? And why the fuck your hive wallet is so poor? Walk the walk dumbass?
Best reply ever lol 😂
The kneecappening is still paying dividends to those that hated the set up.
I wonder if we arrange a 'raiding party' to do some milking? lol
Hold my beer,...
I'm still there, but I am shadow banned.
I still use the society's account.
Why did you downvote this post, https://hive.blog/hive-148441/@donatello/dancing-to-je-so-pazzo-by-pino-daniele-dancing-for-relaxation ?
Lots of OTC trades? To interested buyers or just quick dumps that appear to not affect the market price?
Some trades were to interested buyers, but most were trades directly with us. In the latter case, we often sold it slowly on various exchanges, to prevent driving the price down, or arranged for a later OTC trade with a third party.
Can't blame them for wanting to make money, but meh...seemed like a lot of misdirected resources.
I agree with you.
A huge hug 🤗 and a little bit of !BEER 🍻 from @amico!
Un caro abbraccio 🤗 e un po' di BEER 🍻 da @amico!
I cannot use blocktrades from Seattle, WA. So I talked to blocktrades to help me and gave me https://ionomy.com/en/ site to withdraw from Steemit. I really appreciated for blocktrades help. Thanks again but why did you down voted me? Don't you want me to be here? https://hive.blog/hive-196917/@westport/67gdhk
The downvote wasn't personal, and I'm happy to have you here.
The downvoting is done automatically by a voting bot that I was asked to setup to counter the huge random votes from an account called ranchorelaxo (and another associated account called haejin). These accounts were previously abusively voting on Steem and now he's trying the same tricks on Hive.
Yeah man, they are a little petty over there. There’s definitely what seems to be a game of ‘telephone’ going on where things get changed as the conversation continues.
Amusing how secret Steemit was considering that we are supposed to be publicly doing things, that basis of blockchain lol
Steemit Inc seem intent on spreading lies and silencing anyone who tries to counter them on their platform. My account is one of many to be censored so that it appears to have no posts or comments when there were thousands of each. At least they did not steal my funds as well. This is why I have removed practically all my Steem and spent most of it on buying more Hive.
Meanwhile they tolerate massive vote buying and collusion by a few accounts to take the majority of rewards whilst pretending that the greater community matters to them. It seems like a dash for cash before the price crashes. The 4 week power down will allow their friends to cash out quickly.
I gave a lot to Steem over several years, but that all got trashed in a matter of weeks. Very sad to see.
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Fake news all around us.
Thanks for the clarification. I am of the opinion that actions are better than words, and you have demonstrated a lot to our community.
What makes me really sad is this one:
We have "lost" some valuable time, but we're still here and I hope for a long time!
Cheers!
Well written and thanks for the info pal!
I feel you, sometimes it feels good not answer the allegation against us but we are obliged to because sometimes people are naive in the situations. You are always great effort for being one the best developer here on #Hive. Cheers man! 🍯❤
I believe in you friend @blocktrades
The norm is to say anything to cover their own miscreations.
The truth, as here will always be revealed and the hurt is indeed that the funds were not allocated to improvements.
But then again, this takes place all over the world and often money allocated to improvements disappear into thin air.
That's also why honest charities are struggling, as even scam charities are dipping in the funds.
Thank you for the honesty here, which will no doubt be denied!
I hope nobody cares about cointelegraph’s shitposts.
Now that you got that off your chest sit back and enjoy Hive and a !BEER
View or trade
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BEER.Twenty more dollars of steem to power down and the monkeys off my back.
Algunas cosas simplemente son mejores como resultan… pero es buena la aclaración.
Steemit Inc is spreading lies after the JS/Tron hostile take over.
Thanks for posting to clarify. It must be frustrating to be on the wrong end of FUD. Setting the record straight is always a good move in that case, even if it never quite feels like it's enough on its own. Hopefully this clarification will be as widely read, if not more so, than the inaccurate pieces that you are seeking to put straight.
Good to counter such chaff as it is thrown out there with sufficient vagueness to attempt to sow seeds of doubt in people's minds.
They are so bitter it's laughable. When will the lies and misinformation end I wonder?. The article itself attempts to be balanced but by recording the simple facts shows steem for exactly what they are, charlatans and shady ones at that.
Don't know what to say. Well the best to do is wait and watch for the trouble water to settle and become clear for us to see it bottom.
I'm new to the platform, but I think what you say is true, you have my support!
I know you are sincere and I appreciate the clarification, plus my unconditional support because I know your work in the community is impeccable. Greetings
thanks for clearing it up
Ooof!
Well said. Justin still does not realize after so much pinch.
Mostly it's best to stay silent on false claims and inflammatory statements made by the uninitiated however in this case best to state the facts logically and calmly, as you have, and then move on.
I'll admit to not knowing a lot about things on steem from a back-end perspective although it's clear that something that had so much potential has been twisted into a vehicle driven by greedy, selfish and hubris-loaded individuals. I'm glad to be away and moving forward.
I've always wondered if they didn't have funds for further development and marketing campaigns but eh, turns out they did have but didn't use it to better their platform and only delivering promises.
The combination of a public blockchain and secretive dealings would appear to be a recipe for later disaster. Everything points to Steemit Inc being woefully mismanaged up to, including and after the fire sale to Sun.
Peppa Pig had a premonition of what Steem would become.
You are too big of a downvote for my post. I know you are trying to stop haejin. but it is very good if the downvote value you give is equivalent to the votes given by haejin. Because the downvote you provided is too large, I did not get anything from what I wrote.
I've weakened the downvote now.
thank you very much blocktrades. I am very happy. Once again, thank you so much.
I don't understand the negative vote in my publication: https://hive.blog/hive-156509/@brunonacif/xiv
I have a bot setup to counter ranchorelaxo's random voting (not my idea, but many people asked me to do so).
But I didn't write the bot, and it could use some improvement. So sometimes it overvotes, as it doesn't properly account for changes in voting power I think.
Generally speaking, in such cases I go back and manually adjust the downvote. In this case, since I liked your post, I've just removed it entirely.
Oh! Ok. I don't understand much of those things... Thank you very much!!!
The truth will always reveal itself. I'm pretty sure nobody that matters believes anything he says.
I'm sad for what was and is no longer, but, glad that they pulled us out alive. For this, I will always be grateful. Thank you for laying out the truth and now, we can all move on and make this place flourish. That would be the best punishment.
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I love Blocktrades. That's how I found out about Hive, I logged into my Steemit wallet and clicking Sell didn't take me to Blocktrades anymore!
At past, steemit and blocktrades are two in one soul but now hive and blocktrades are two in one soul. Many of us left steemit following our beloved blocktrades.
wow it's an interesting post. regards
Los felicito por afrontar este tema a través de esta publicación.
Uds. tienen una reputación bien ganada, y cualquier intento por perjudicarlos debe ser cortado de raíz.
aliriera
its so sad and i feel for steemit. at least we know the truth. I believe so much in hive. I hope to see hive grow.. thank you for the things you do for hive...
Nice post
Excelente post amigo
@lukestokes
Now that it has been confirmed these were in fact exchange trades, perhaps you can update your statistics reports on how much was being sent to exchanges and by whom. It paints a pretty clear picture of the largest share of the "cashing out" that was going on.
I mean, I guess only to the extent that anyone cares, but I did make this observation several times in the past, but I guess it wasn't included because, theoretically, it have been something else. Most of us were pretty sure that it wasn't though.
My reports did include blocktrades as an exchange as well as summary numbers which both included and excluded Steemit and Steemit related accounts. The only tricky part were transfers involving the Alpha account that weren’t always clear.
Sorry if I’m not understanding what you mean.
I think he's referring to the alpha transactions. Pretty much all of them were sales of Steem for bitcoin/eth, except for the payment for the steem proposal system. You can see a lot of them here: https://hiveblocks.com/@steemit2
Oh, you should also include their transfers to gsr.io
I did count gsr as an exchange which would be a withdrawal like any other exchange. The reports were never designed to track exactly how much Steemit was dumping (they used randomly named accounts as contractors as well, from what I remember).