"Softforking" Got Justin Sun Talking. Are We Clear Now?

The acquisition of Steemit by Justin Sun wasn't welcomed with too much heart warming welcomes, but rather repulsion, from most of us, and although many were waiting for clarification from the new CEO, he actually hasn't provided any, in his live chat along Ned, addressing witnesses and other steemians that participated to the show. People were asking relevant questions about the direction of Steem and Steemit, and how Steemit will work for Steem, and specifically how its stake will be used...

...but all that we got was some Steem history and Tron history, a bad English used by Justin Sun to express his ambiguous plans and ideas about Steemit and Steem, while often confusing the both, and the "foxy laugh" of Ned being finally happy about making "a good deal". I didn't knew exactly about the total amount of Steem that Steemit Inc had, through that ninja mine, and what its actual purpose was, but learned about it, after two damn years on this blokchain, and it seems that it was definitely intended for development of the Steem blockchain and Steemit, and not to be delegated to DApps, or get sold for pennies.

Time passed quite quick after the purchase and not too much came out from Justin Sun regarding the direction of Steem and Steemit. There were talks about a hard fork to slice out Steemit's stake right after the news came out, but no actual plan on how that would happen, has seen the light. I guess that most of us were still waiting for clarifications from Sun and witnesses were in the same boiling state. Last night the Steem Consensus Witness Statement: Code Updated came out and it seems that Steemit's stake and influence on the blockchain can be smoothly taken out of the equation.

According to this softfork that has to be approved, and enforced by the top witnesses, it is a reversible action, and it's intended to protect the decentralized integrity of the Steem blockchain. Most of the top witnesses seem to be already running the new code, while others refuse it, and the whole community is of mixed feelings and attitudes, if you ask me. I guess not all of us understand what this fork actually does, what leave's Sun with, and how will it affect Steem on the long run.

image source

From my understanding, of a non technical guy, Justin Sun is being left with what he has bought. A blockchain oriented company and some 70 million liquid Steem, that don't seem to be having any purpose and never have fulfilled the intended ones. He's no longer able to have such a huge influence on witnesses and the blockchain anymore, and after such a poor communication from him, after the acquisition, he should have expected that.

His reaction, or should I say his team's reaction, as I don't see him being able to write such a well compiled blog post, came out 13 hours ago, and as usual got to the trending page and comments started flowing. All he needed was a softfork to "send us" his open letter towards the Steem community, after some of us sent him their open letters, which he obviously ignored. Good boy Sunny, you finally get it. You bought Steemit, not the whole fucking blockchain and the whole community, and you should know that. We're not cattle, to transit us wherever the fuck you want, and as you recently discovered, it is you that can get transited out of the community through a simple update. Man I wish I was more of a tech guy to be able to get into more details about this soft fork...

Anyway, in his last post, Sunny boy found the time to compel a list of future developments for Steem and Steemit, and he even invites the top 50 witnesses, in the above linked post, to a meeting on March 6th, 2020 to discuss properly the future of this blockchain, of Steemit Inc, and the social media platform, together with its DApps, where we spend tons of time everyday, and much more. To not miss any of his points de reference for this meeting and the future collaboration of Steemit and the Tron Foundation I will share an extract from his well written blog post.

We have so much to work to do to make Steemit.com the power that it really can be. And there are many ways we can get it there, from bridging TRX, TRC10’s and TRC20’s into Communities to marketing and growing Steemit.com. From invitations and referrals to simpler and instant signups. From new listings of STEEM on ALL the greatest exchanges to integrations in critical hardware products. From bringing more influencers to the community and creating more content. There is so much I still want to give you from documenting and marketing my vision for steemit.com to connecting with the passionate folks here in this community. Steemit team is also regrouping together in San Francisco this coming week, meeting up with the TRON’s developer community teams to discuss on the executable plans.

Now all of a sudden, everything seems clear, there are well established development directions and Steemit 2.0, or the #NEWSTEEM, seems to be taking shape. Proof that you don't need force, or hardforks, to stop Steem and Steemit ending as a pile of trash. I don't particularly like Justin Sun, and hated the idea of him being the new CEO of Steemit, but if all of that becomes a reality, in terms of developments, marketing and new listings on reputable exchanges, then he's definitely a better CEO than Ned. Definitely not the ideal one, but an improvement, over the previous one.

The way I see it, after the above mentioned meeting, things will finally settle for us, as content creators, stake holders, and witnesses, and the middle way has to be found. Otherwise, if Sun will play the bad boy role and fight against the witnesses proposal regarding the preservation of the integrity of the Steem blockchain, as a decentralized one, and try to force it towards that shitty transition that he dreamed of, he'll end up with 70 million liquid Steem, we'll be left out, but repercussions on the Steem price will certainly follow. An act of revenge, by delisting Steem out of the major exchanges, could cost Sun millions, and would leave us with simply internet money, totally worthless, and no party wins anything IMO, but that could happen as well, if we get to war.

Getting to the table and talk instead, for choosing the best way to make Steem great...finally, seems the most appealing option for both camps, the way I see it. That should have been the approach of Justin Sun from the beginning and he could have avoided all this ambiguous situation. I guess he had to learn it the hard/soft way. I was very disappointed and didn't saw too much future for Steem anymore, a few days ago, but now seeing that communication and consensus is possible, it feels slightly better. I guess after the meetup with the top witnesses and the Tron Foundation we will have a clear future for Steem and Steemit, and hopes seem to have worked after all.

I have said countless times that Steem was my blogging guru, offered me a great platform to spend my time on, and facilitated the opportunity to meet some really nice folks, and it would have been a pity, for the new acquisition of Steemit by Justin Sun to take all of that to trash. I really hope things will sort out well for all of us, and wish you all a great day and happy steeming. Thumbs up for the ones initiating the softfork and good luck Justin!

Thanks for attention,
Adrian