There is an entirely different way to supplement the voting pool while implementing restrictions for self voting and vote selling. If the voting pool is reduced, there would little to no incentive to use the platform. After all it is slow, clunky and has a very small population with respect to other social platforms. Better rewards with incentives to do good or restrictions for bad actors could be implemented. But where would we get the extra revenue to do this?
Here is the idea:
Start a centralized exchange to complete with the likes of Binance, UpBit, Coinbase, Poloniex etc. yet have STEEM and SBD as the common trading pairs. If Steemit Inc were to create and run it, they can generate massive revenue to supplement their Software Engineers. Excess revenue can go toward supplementing the voting pool or towards rewarding good actors and good witnesses. There is no problem getting support and usership as All major exchanges can’t resync their nodes in a timely manor. People would use the new centralized exchange as they can’t use Binance or Poloniex. By the way both Binance and Poloniex STEEM wallets have down for a month. This isn’t the first time for Binance either. Their Steem wallets have been down for a full month before. Poloniex Steem wallets have been down for 6 months in recent past.
But get this, an exchange with all the major cryptocurrencies traded with STEEM and SBD can be created by anyone with the right technical knowledge. It doesn’t require Steemit Inc to do it. Whales could even pool their resources to fund startup costs They won’t need to self vote as the exchange will be so much more profitable.