Justin Sun Conversation with Witnesses Is Online. @Ned Sold Out The Community - Failed to Disclose.

in #steem5 years ago (edited)

UPDATE: Ned just commented on Twitter:

ned tweet.png

Thanks to @ausbitbank, the recording from the private witness conversation with Justin Sun is now online.

steem tron discussion

The short summary is:

  • @ned failed to disclose to @justinsunsteemit that the Ninja mined stake had been earmarked for community development and was not to be used for witness voting prior to selling it to him. Evidence of this was requested by the TRON team.
  • The TRON team said they were flexible with regards retracting their false and slanderous accusation that the consensus witnesses were malicious 'Hackers' - but failed to provide a guarantee that they would publish a retraction at this time.
  • The TRON team claimed their aim is to profit from the purchase, rather than to participate in governance.
  • The TRON team claimed they want to cancel their witness votes asap.
  • They TRON team intends to put a fork in place to allow the exchanges to power down the stake they powered up in order to vote for witnesses with their clients' tokens. The witnesses generally highlighted that this was not agreeable and that the fallout from the actions taken by these exchanges needs to be handled by the exchanges and should not be accommodated by a hard fork.
  • The TRON team have limited understanding of the fine points of the block chain governance system in general.

It seems that even during the meeting, more STEEM was being sent to the TRON accounts that are voting in their top witnesses in order to maintain their position, despite the community moving to reinstate their own top 20 witnesses via rallying around them with their witness votes.

Meanwhile @ned has made his twitter account private and possibly has some difficult questions to answer.

The full recording is on now on 3speak:

Youtube version is below:

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Quite likely the TRON team promised the exchanges that once they had control they would implement a hard fork to allow them to re-liquify their stake.

For me, and many others, trust is gone. The STEEM community has no obligation to make good on the sale of Steemit nor to facilitate or compensate the exchanges who have acted in bad faith.

The exchanges have been cought out let them take the fall out.

Bittrex didn't. The legends

All support for Bittrex is warranted in this regard but I wouldn't call them legends merely for doing the normal thing that all exchanges should be doing: Not misappropriating customer funds and then claiming it was a 'mistake'.

Agreed for sure.

What I meant was kudos to them for not caving to pressure from Justin Sun if he asked them to power up and vote witnesses in. I know you shouldn't have to congratulate some company on doing the right thing

What he's saying is this is not "the right thing", it is simply what's normal. They didn't go out of their way to do something good. "Not doing something bad" isn't "doing something good".

Indeed. I am still quite shocked that a market leader like Binance has trashed it's reputation for a few shekels in payoff. It was an incredibly poor business decision.

It's a you scratch my back, I scratch yours rich boys club. The exchanges are corrupt but will still prosper (probably) unfortunately. They think the masses will shrug their shoulders and forget about their treachery but I think the peasants are PISSED.

In the grand scheme of everything this is minor for him. And he publicly took blame on him.

The "onwards" hashtag he used in his tweet will be the reality. One can but hope he will audit how things went and design a better decision making process but that's probably slightly too idealistic. But who knows... he and huobi may have learnt from this?!

No, I'm not downplaying his mistake but life is fast-paced for those decision makers. Dan's celebrating DPOS` resilience, Vitalik's probably sniggering at his position on DPOS being validated... just another day in crypto & life goes on.

And he publicly took blame on him.

No, he claimed it was a 'mistake' and they thought it was a normal hard fork update being pushed by the devs. Except that one does not lock up customer funds for a normal hard fork update, so this is a lie.

Fools do business with fools, liars, and thieves.

No one that cares about their money will.

exactly - new video coming up soon regarding this - in my own subtle way of course.
(endcoding as I type)

that I'm psyched for and am surprised after some shenanigans by Ned in the past people are surprised he did this, Cognitive Dissonance is a thing I guess O.o
this is proving a hard lesson in the cryptoverse on how DPOS cuts both ways, yikes

Freedom of the community requires eternal vigilance by all. Fortunately the witnesses had an inkling of this and had the SF. Ned sold his soul for his pound of gold-good riddance.

Indeed. For many trust is gone, and for people who were optimistic - trust is very shaken :/

Agreed, trust is way gone, they are villains.

A sock puppet account if ever I saw one.

Please do better next time.

I listened to the recording. Mr. Sun was very evasive on the important questions but holding him hostage has created huge mistrust.

Calling the version being run .444 is childish and mean. Saying you won’t even meet again until demands are met is not helpful.

Some of our witnesses in the meeting were tactful and held out olive branches. They did great. Others threw fuel on the fire. Not smart.

I’m hopeful but some need to take a deep breath, calm down and be more diplomatic.

There are many thousands of people being represented by the witnesses and many viewpoints and feelings - so it is understandable that the responses from them would be mixed. For me, it's interesting to be able to see a combined expression from a group instead of a, perhaps rehearsed or forced, impression being given by a single individual. I'd say he saw the reflection of his own actions.

Interesting for sure.

Mr. Sun was very evasive on the important questions

He was the same right from the beginning. I really don't understand people that were expecting anything good from him, like getting involved in development and investing in Steem. It was crystal clear that he bought to trade. The whole thing became a nightmare when the funds got frozen and he had to ask for help from the exchanges to get control over them again. It was a buy the rumor sell the news strategy right from the beginning and I said that multiple times on my blog as well. The reality though is that both of them are low character human beings, Ned and Sun. The first one was a bit more clever I guess in negotiations...

You really don’t understand what steemit is to Tron. Trons building an eco system so everything will be under one roof. Dlive for streaming, vibravid similar to YouTube, BitTorrent for file sharing and storage and now steemit for social media. Steemit wouldn’t just be flipped and sold off to make money. It will make Justin money by evolving, more users and growing the platform. This is where the money is. This is why the Tron community is exciting about this.

I guess you don't understand that. Listen to the conference that ha had with the witnesses and see what he confessed and what he actually bought Steemit for. It was clearly a pump and dump action, or buy the rumor sell the news.

Like I said I don’t really know what’s going on because I’m too new but I saw the video and it sounded like Justin had enough with everything that has happened and was ready to sell up and get his investment back.

Agree 100% on the childish .4444 shit - apart from that I am proud about the community and especially that we finally get some support from big guys of other blockchains.

sorry i (genuinely) don’t get what is childish about the number?

I know there’s some ties to death or the devil in numerology but that’s about it...

4 is very unlucky in China, it’s associated with death.

Although not a witness myself, and I can't speak for any, but I believe the symbolism is not lost on the witnesses, nor is it meant as a racist attack.

Rather, it is a protest meant to convey that the witnesses see the path taken by the Tron in using misappropriated customers funds to centralize the network (most likely a bunch of sock puppets running on a single node) as a sort of death of legitimate Steem governance. Apparently the core Steem developers and communications director agreed, as they resigned over it.

Hopefully it is a 'death' from which Steem can recover. We shall see.

Either way I would not overly fixate on the symbolism. The message of disapproval and protest being conveyed is more important.

thanks for the info :)

oh well - forgive me as a German I should stay away - but it is racism in my view (or could be seen as it - at least it is attacking via childish shit) to use such numbers that offend anyone in the Chinese World

I have seen language calling Steemit employee a "monkey" and to vote for a "human," in addition to cries of "Chinese communism" from multiple witnesses. These statements are dog-whistles for ignorant xenophobia and racism.

Cut and paste from google

{The angel number 4444 signifies hard work. It's telling you that all your hard work will soon be paying off. ... If that major achievement is still a work in progress, the angel number 4444 wants you to work harder than ever to make it happen. You have done so much work already to just give up now.}

I'm sticking with this........ for now :)

edit: agree with your summing up

When I saw the 4, my brain associated it with the sport of golf. People yell, "Fore!" It means, "Get out of the way!"

I'm certain the version number could have been 22.9369 and folks would have found ways to find hidden meanings.

Why don't we just go full on mainstream politically correct and get rid of the 22 as well. Like. OMG! Two plus two equals four! Burn the witch!

The year 2024 has been cancelled and the month of April is now banned.

lols. I seem to be allergic to number 7. When they get near me i tend to move house, change wives and even change jobs! Numbers like 777, makes me faint just looking at it. Scares me almost to death it does. :)

oh thanks for popping up. need to get around to reading your blogs. seem to have misplaced everyone... somewhere

I came here and it said you wrote that comment 7 minutes ago. I hope you're okay.


You haven't missed much in the blog department. It didn't seem right to attempt my usual brand while so much was going on. Today I tried out a comedy skit and it seems the community isn't quite ready to start laughing again. Things seem quiet.

Thanks for putting this up. I haven't hit play yet.

They TRON team intends to put a fork in place to allow the exchanges to power down the stake they powered up in order to vote for witnesses with their clients' tokens. The witnesses generally highlighted that this was not agreeable and that the fallout from the actions taken by these exchanges needs to be handled by the exchanges and should not be accommodated by a hard fork.

They stood their ground. I needed to hear that.


I pressed play.

  • Sun said, "Not interested in governance."
  • Sun should therefore stop governing, now.
  • Exchanges will have to wait 13 weeks. Good. The real witnesses lost money. Many on-chain services were shut down here and lost money. This mess has taken center stage, pushing many content producers aside, and they lost money. Everyone lost potential profit because of this. Staff quit their jobs. I can't say I feel sorry for those exchanges. Not one bit. They knew what they were doing and now they can face the consequences. No special treatment.

What more needs to be said? All Justin wanted was his money. He got his money. Now where is ours? Remove the sock puppet account FAKE witnesses and let's just get back to work. Anything else that still needs to be settled which doesn't directly impact everyday operations can be handled in the background.

Exactly, Son

Who you callin' son, boy.

Who you calling boy, son.

Don't call me son, guy!

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I don't see how there could be legal ramifications for not processing transactions? Witnesses are free to process whatever transactions they feel like, and @themarkymark has decided to run node software that ignores incoming transactions from Steemit. He's not really freezing Steemit's funds, he's just ignoring Steemit's requests to process transactions. If @themarkymark wanted to, he could also, say, only process transactions with a memo of "fjoqwfqa".

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Oh, I thought he was signing of as your son. Maybe some long lost family? :)

I don't see any resemblance.

Postscript: A potential win-win way forward
My standard byline below could provide a win-win way forward for Justin Sun and the Steem community.

Just as Steemit Inc came with pre-existing obligations to the community regarding the ninja-mined stake that Justin didn't know about, it also came with a ~$400M legal claim against Facebook and Google for banning Steem advertising, which he also didn't know about.

This legal claim is worth far more than the ninja mined stake and is more than enough compensation for what Justin feels he has lost.

Rather than spending his money trying to take over the Steem blockchain, Justin can sign Steemit Inc up for @jpbliberty's crypto class action and participate in the funding of it. It needs less money ($US 2-3M in total) than he has already spent on Steem and has a huge ROI for his Steemit Inc claim alone.

If Justin supports this, it is a huge win for the Steem community also because every Steemian has a claim in this class action based Steem being worth $6.14 when the Ad Ban was announced and being very directly affected by the ad ban. We have great evidence of this from Steem posts.

We are well advanced with a law firm, top barristers, initial funding and US$350M in claimants signed up.

Signup for the Crypto Class Action against Facebook & Google's Crypto Ad Ban

They TRON team intends to put a fork in place to allow the exchanges to power down the stake they powered up in order to vote for witnesses with their clients' tokens. The witnesses generally highlighted that this was not agreeable and that the fallout from the actions taken by these exchanges needs to be handled by the exchanges and should not be accommodated by a hard fork.

This point is fundamental. They must assume the consequences of their actions without putting the burden of a hard fork upon the community.

My legal analysis. Justin failed to do due diligence on the public blockchain code which contained restrictions on the ninjamine stake. He bought land on the moon and is now trying to convert it to land on Earth by illegal means.
Second, despite his statements of not knowing about the understandings regarding the stake, he IS bound by them. These understanding bound Steemit Inc which owned the stake. He bought the company and thus became bound by its pre-existing obligations.
More details here: https://steempeak.com/steem/@apshamilton/sun-s-folly-will-be-taught-in-future-blockchain-business-schools

We don't know what is in the NDA between Tron and Ned. (@48:25)
I'm not convinced that they don't understand what has transpired and there's more to the backroom deal than they admit to.

Hard to believe that a supposedly savvy businessman like JS wouldn't check every potential pitfall before dropping millions on an investment. Interesting times ahead.

Makes sense to me. Those restrictions were stated in writing in public. @justinsunsteemit could have done due diligence and found them. An intern and a couple pots of coffee would have been all it cost him to do so.

If @ned did not disclose those agreements, he's likely to face some blowback from Sun on the matter.

This just gets more fun all the time. I'm still waiting for the meeting to start on the recording, so I'll understand better soon.

Thanks!

A crook cheating a crook. Hopefully they'll eat each other in court but I'm not holding my breath.

While I strongly empathize with your sentiment, it is the hapless investors whose money is being used as a weapon by both that concern me.

We are the parties that matter, and the Steem community is continually stated to be the reason both sides are acting. This is the heart of the matter.

I'm trying to follow that argument but, I don't think I agree.

Big amounts of the ninjamined stash has been sold in the past to other buyers, yet the encumbrance did not get transferred to those buyers. Why should it be any different when the buyer is Justin? Just because he bought the entirety of the remaining stash?

Since Steemit Inc is a sole proprietorship, let's try to pierce the corporate veil and see how this looks: The ninjamined stash was, effectively, Ned's. He promised the proceeds of any sale would go to Steem's development. Now, Justin came and bought that stash of STEEM (again, as others have before, albeit in smaller quantities), paying good money for it. Ned simply cashes out, grabs the cash and walks away, A.K.A. an "exit scam", which totally violates his past promises.

I do not see how the attached strings would transfer to Justin. He just made a perfectly legal purchase. Ned did not misrepresent the property being sold. Ned is still bound by the promises he made and he must thus dedicate the proceeds of that sale to Steem.

2 answers:

  1. it wasn't just 'any' ninja-mined stash, it was the one which specific promises had been made to the community regarding and which a previous hard-fork had put restrictions on.
  2. Justin didn't (or didn't just) buy the ninjamined stake from Steemit Inc, he bought Steemit Inc itself. This comes with all the prior agreements, debts and claims that the company has. That's basic corporate law.
  1. Ok, but you'll agree that sine die freezing those funds precludes from spending them on development, right?

  2. I see the point, but I notice that Steemit Inc was simply Ned's proxy. Promises made by Ned would bind him directly, and not just the company. I highly doubt corporate liability limitations would apply to adequately shield him away from his promises: The "contract" in question is informal enough and unspecific enough to consider it was agreed by Ned himself, not just by him acting exclusively in representation of Steemit Inc.

I think this aspect comes down to which legal entity actually owned the stake and the accounts. Was it actually ned as an individual, via the proxy of the various steem blockchain accounts? Or was it Steemit inc., headed by Ned, but it's own legal entity. This would be within the contracts that TRON holds, so perhaps we will see this at some point.

What if Ned Scott Ned, whatever his name is, made a secret deal with Justin Sun? Imagine that they made a deal where it appears as if Justin bought it and that is just a cover story in order to move the money and the liability of an American Steem INC company might have in the United States under the laws of the USA and move them secretly to China and other countries as a way to avoid paying taxes and who knows what else. Perhaps, Justin is making some money as a fall guy. It is possible that he agreed beforehand that he would take the blame and look like an idiot. That would be like a win win situation where Ned and Justin both make some money and Ned then gets to lay low and avoid liability for whatever might happen legally to a USA company like Steem Inc. That would be like a new movie called Ocean 15, Dealing With The Sun and Moon lol.

Careful, that sounds like a conspiracy theory.. Don't you know conspiracy theorists are terrorists? lol ;)

Yeah lol. A conspiracy realist.

Following on what @apshamilton wrote, I want to picture this, maybe it's easier to understand. Think at Steemit's "ninja stake" as being land. Or any type of security. The owner of it uses that security to entice partnerships. In public writing, @ned committed to use that stake in a certain way in regard to witnesses, and that compelled them to invest.

It's like on some land he owned, @ned said: let's build a condominium. I'm putting the land, you're building. But, after 3 years and a lot of condominiums, he says: "Ups, I changed my mind, I'm going to give my land away". The guys that gets the land from @ned doesn't want to build condominiums, he wants to build a mall.

The problems are:

  1. @ned deceit towards the builders, they wouldn't have invested if the security wasn't there
  2. Justin Tron necessity to comply with any liabilities that he bought (hence the need of a due diligence, which, in my opinion, was made, the parties just decided to ignore it, miscalculating the response from the remaining parties: witnesses & community).

You can't stress too much that analogy. The property in question is a pile of fungible STEEM, not a specific land lot, and Ned had been already selling part of it those last years to fund expenses.

I would say that Ned had been selling parcels in one place to fund the building of the Steem condominium in some different place. Now Justin has come and bought the remaining parcels, but not differently that the other smaller investors before him.

Ned is still bound by his promises and must dedicate the proceeds of the sale to the Steem condominium. The encumbrance did not transfer to Justin, in the same way as it did not transfer to the other investors when they bought a parcel.

obligations are obligations, regardless of who they obligate and what they are obligations on. This is a clear principle at law.

Interesting Analogy

Thank you for sharing this valuable opinion.

His coup against the community witnesses (replacing the board) was also done illegally by exchanges powering (locking) up their Steem in breach of their fiduciary and ethical duties. It also appears that Justin misled the exchanges by describing what was going on as a hack and security breach rather than the legitimate governance dispute that it really was.

Let's clarify one point - Justin claims Ned never disclosed any encumbrances against that ninja mined stake. The only way we would have absolute proof is to see the Representations and Warranties Ned signed off on from the Purchase Agreement to know the absolute truth of it.

He said he will make money out of it and exit -> Pump and Dump!

Exactly what I predicted from the instant I heard about the "aquisition." To the word.

Justin is a Rat

Just listened to the recording...somebody needs to get some lawyers involved. The whole Tron team and the exchanges are nothing but thugs. Criminals. Folks need prison time for this.

Be interesting to see if financial laws can be used against them but that's such a grey area it seems (Binance is based in Malta and Huobi in Singapore so not sure what the regs are)

Binance.us is a US corporation.

The only problem with calling for financial regulators to look at this, as I see it, is the possiblity that they take one look at the entire Steem platform with relatively large amounts of value flowing all through it, and demand KYC or shut the thing down.

Agreed. I never really liked their attitude. I never liked Tron. I always had a funny feeling concerning how Tron works. Not that I'm not optimistic. I try to be open minded.

Justin and out. ☺️

Justin dodged the question about why exchanges would receive a reduced power down time. The question was asked and Justin jumps in and doesn't provide a direct answer. Sketchy!

@followbtcnews Thank you for jumping in and nailing him on this, explaining the exchange power down feature is purely to give users their money back, WHICH SHOULDN'T HAVE BEEN LOCKED UP IN THE FIRST PLACE.

It's become very clear to me that part of Justin's deal with exchanges to power up and vote his new witnesses was to implement a fork so that they could power back down. THAT HAS BACK FIRED! Now that enough OG witnesses are back in top 20 to block a fork, exchanges and unfortunately their users are out of luck on this one..

When making any purchase, large or small, it is the buyer that needs to be aware, and that needs to do their own due diligence on the viability/usability of that purchase. When you buy a house you hire an inspector, when planing on buying a collectible antique car you hire a professional to verify the provenance of the vehicle. Ned sold steemit, if Justin Sun did not know what he was buying it was his responsibility to understand and to verify what he was buying. It sounds as if he did not even read the Steemit Road Mao, yet he was talking Tron's Roadmap, so I feel he likely did read and saw the uses of the Steemit Stake.

When you power up steem you are told that it takes 13 weeks to power it down. The people that powered steem up knew this, if it was not their steem to power up they should not have powered it up. It would be interesting to see a steem run on those exchanges where the depositors were demanding their funds back.

For the witnesses that read this, I would be against any shortening of the withdrawal time frame as I have been with all the previous post over the course of the last two months talking about it. The Next Hard Fork was supposed to be a stand alone SMT Hard Fork, and nothing else. It should be made perfectly clear during the next meeting that this is what one of the items will be when the Community witnesses re-take up the duties they were voted in to do.

At the end of the day, it is the job of the witnesses to protect the chain, not a front end.

Steemit Road Mao,

That's a funny typo. :)

I think I will eave the typo there. My proof reading skills are like my spelling skills not really up to par.

Please do so. It's a fantastic typo. Love it!

Perfect plan.
The only problem is that exchanges will just disable withdrawals. And later on maybe even delist steem.

They will be hit with a class action lawsuit if they do. @jpbliberty will organise it.

Sounds great. Like the time I tried to sue a company for not paying my paycheck.

He shuttered the company, reopened under a new name the next week and I was out a significant chunk of change with no (legal) recourse. What prevents that?

This can sometimes happen with small businesses with no real assets, but there are laws against it.
Large exchanges with licences and huge asset bases can't practically do this.

Exactly.

Steem (the company) has the power in this situation, I can't be the only one to notice the power struggle with the witnesses that ended with a whole pile of staff 'resigning' a few days later. If nothing else, that shows that the owners have the real power in this dynamic.

People love to go with the Steem is not steemit is not dapps. Except that without the company, the rest just falls apart, it might still exist on servers, just minus everything that gives it value stripped away (overly simplistic, I realize).

Well, what the exchanges did already was illegal.

I am glad I do not know very much about the crypto process of buying and selling. I am learning slowly, mostly learning that you get screwed pretty easy in the crypto world.

Especially the small fish like you and me, hehe.

"The only problem is that exchanges will just disable withdrawals."

I am told this is ongoing presently.

Even Blocktrades, hehe.

What they did, the powering up of the Steem, is illegal.

"It would be interesting to see a steem run on those exchanges where the depositors were demanding their funds back."

I am confident this is ongoing presently.

I am very, very glad this is publicly available. Kudos to @ausbitbank for making that possible, and to you for making me aware of it.

Thanks!

Finished listening. Ya'll are gonna have to do your due diligence here. @justinsunsteemit has alleged @ned did not inform him as to restrictions Stinc put on the Stinc stake. That will be apparent in the sale documents.

As ya'll pointed out, the exchanges seizing their customers's funds and using them to vote bears consequences, and aren't easily dispelled. I suggest the exchanges also effect the non-voting code you have suggested Tron apply to their stake. @justinsunsteemit did effect seizure of governance of the blockchain. Regardless of what he says, that is what he did. If he subsequently does apply that code to his accounts, in addition to the exchanges also doing so, that will prevent this security lapse in the future.

It is with extreme pleasure that I note the community has voted enough witnesses into consensus positions that no HF allowing the immediate power down of the funds the exchanges powered up.

I would be sure to consider what he has done as indicative of his intentions from here on out. His allegations seem poorly to conform to his actions so far. It is also apparent that he has little interest in deploying that founder's stake as it is obligated to be. It may be necessary to seek legal enforcement of the assurances Stinc made regarding that deployment to ensure Tron does meet the obligations that stake came with.

Next time you meet with Tron, you should be represented by counsel. I, again, would be happy to provide competent counsel, in this matter for a nominal fee, such as CZ received for his services stealing Binance's customer's funds. I recall a figure of 1.5M Steem. Lemme know if I can be of help.

I'm happy to be competent counsel on this for free. Just sign up for the Crypto Class Action and get Steemit Inc to also sign up and lets make it a win-win for everyone.

Hmm.. Free vs 1.5 Million STEEM. I'll get out my calculator :)

=)

I should point out I failed to add the appropriate /sarc tag to my comment. IANAL. Not gonna joke about that any more.

I certainly read the /sarc

I am presently certain that Stinc and investors are not aligned as to their interests in the matter at hand, and the Crypto Class Action you cite is a separate matter.

Happy you are on it, but it's not this particular cause of action. Also, IANAL, and my offer to get paid to provide counsel was a joke. I have no interest in 1.5M Steem.

Justin is a liar

His statements do not always conform to his actions.

That's Right

If justin had been more transparent with the community throughout the acquisition or during the AMA, the freeze wouldn't have been necessary. The duly elected witnesses, on behalf of the community, made a democratic decision to temporarily lock the funds until he could provide clarity of what his intentions were.

Then, in complete totalitarian fashion, and neglecting tens of thousands of Steem voters, he used his contacts at Binance and Huobi to do a hostile takeover of the chain. This action goes completely against the principals of decentralization and does indeed prove that Justin is a businessman who cares more about his money and ego than the ethics behind community run blockchains.

Justin: You guys are hackers!
Ned: You guys are thieves!

Justin and Ned together: "our hard earned money!"

haha.. distraction only works when people are unconscious and in denial.

Thanks for posting this @ura-soul.

There are a lot of lines to read between, here...

Seems increasingly obvious that Ned probably disclosed as little as possible about Steemit, Inc. and its promises and obligations in hopes of securing the most lucrative exit he possibly could. How close he has gotten to fraud we may never know... but if you sell a "beautiful house" and don't disclose the massive crack in the foundation, you may end up with your ass in a sling. Unless, of course, you managed to secure an "as is" deal with no reclamation rights...

Justin sounds like someone who's akin to a "house flipper" who's so used to doing his "usual thing" that he got careless about reading the fine print and interpreting it properly. If you've flipped 50 modern tract houses for a profit... and just assume you can do the same with a historical building, YOU (the house flipper) are kind of an idiot. I think Justin had pretty much ZERO clue as to what a blockchain with consensus witnesses and an active community is. But then... Steem is a pretty unique beast in the blockchain space.

I do believe he's completely sincere in the statement "I just wanna make money!" His intentions may have been as simple as "buy Steemit, throw a few $ million at developing features and social marketing, make it all a big deal, watch Steem rise from 15 cents to $5.00, sell out and pocket a couple of hundred million dollars.

"Money people" tend to think like that, and have very little time for the "complications" of dealing with the human factor, except in terms of how it helps them make money.

At the moment he just seems to be backpedaling a lot, and stalling for time... no doubt pondering whether or how he can come up with enough Steem to displace the 7 consensus witnesses that have made their way to the top.

On the UPSIDE of all this mess, the community at large has learned about the importance of voting for witnesses...

You are welcome. As far as Justin goes - it is clear that he uses denial as a tactic, which means he is what we call a 'known liar'.

Justin Sun, founder and CEO of Tron (TRX), has finally admitted he is part of a group of investors that recently acquired Poloniex from the fintech firm Circle. The CEO had denied for weeks his involvement in the transaction, having said via twitter that he was not buying anything.

https://cryptocoin.news/news/justin-sun-founder-of-tron-acquires-poloniex-32044/

So, while 'business' people might just consider this 'the art of the deal' - anyone with a brain must realise quickly that whatever he says must be 'taken with a pinch of salt'.

I do believe he's completely sincere in the statement "I just wanna make money!" His intentions may have been as simple as "buy Steemit, throw a few $ million at developing features and social marketing, make it all a big deal, watch Steem rise from 15 cents to $5.00, sell out and pocket a couple of hundred million dollars.

This. ^^^^ This is what I have predicted from the very beginning. Thank you for articulating it better than I've been able to, @denmarkguy

Understanding the information the Tron team and Justin Sun received from Ned was the main thing I wanted to get out of that meeting, as it helps us understand so much more of the situation they're in.

Glad they've now given that answer as a reference. Whether or not it is true.

Ned is also helping:
ned tweet ninja mine.jpg

SteemVPN supports your decision and v0.22.4444. We have stopped accepting payments in Tron for our VPN service.

It is very important to consider that we do not know what Justin / Tron know because of the NDA.

I think you need to clarify something with your opening statement:

"Justin Claims"

@ned failed to disclose to @justinsunsteemit that the Ninja mined stake had been earmarked for community development and was not to be used for witness voting prior to selling it to him.

Some assume Justin is telling the truth here.
However, he may have received full disclosure and made a decision that the 'informal contract' was superseded by the sale.

We also need to be aware that there is a dispute about the meaning of 'due diligence' but Tron claims to have done due diligence.

Evidence of this was requested by the TRON team.

I think before providing Justin with any information, he needs to back up his statement that Ned failed to reveal this to him. The mention of an NDA means this is a legal issue. Is there actually an NDA? What information cannot be revealed, what is the timeline. Before promising anything, lawyers will be required.

The evidence in questions is all over the blockchain and in videos, spanning years, so it's already public for the most part. Whether or not the evidence amounts to evidence of contractual obligation seems to depend on some factors relating to the sale which I haven't seen yet. I'm not really assuming that anyone is telling the truth tbh.

Since that evidence is plentifully available, and @justinsunsteemit is an accredited investor, it's unreasonable to assume this information was unknown to him, and further that it is irrelevant if it was.

As an accredited investor, he bears full responsibility for due diligence when undertaking authority for his investment decisions.

His actions do give the appearance of him knowing the nature of his actions in advance and trying to just push people around. On the other hand, I find it difficult to relate to someone thinking that such an action would be successful. One thing is for sure, it's a learning opportunity for all involved.

Sadly, I am aware of a long and varied history of people doing unethical and illegal things, but cleverly profiting from them. JP Morgan has repeatedly been caught manipulating the PMs market and paid huge fines. Monsanto allowed it's patented crops to pollinate neighboring farmer's fields - and then sued the farmers for growing their patented crops and seized their farms.

This seems like the kinda thing Sun is doing.

@ura-soul , had no idea of "Eureka", sounds more my vibe. Guess birds of a feather flock together and although I've only been doing this as a hobby and distanced after seeing what I felt was very uncool moves..........namely the DLIVE sell out I ceased being as involved as I had been at one time.
Well anyhow, gonna check out Eureka,
axey

Great, ok! Ureka runs the STEEM blockchain too - though it may not be so stable due to the problems with STEEM at the moment. Ureka has no budget at all, so it's far from where it could be. I made it to support a book I am writing actually, but life distracted me hugely and I haven't yet published it. You will find a wide variety of useful information in there though. <3

I checked it out briefly and it looks way more what I'm into. I have communities I made for fun , no clue if those are gonna be borked either but have my nearly three years of work backed up thank God. Anyhow, the layout is tight and the tshirts are very cool. the subject matter is really what I want out of an ecosystem not whatever is going on now. Thanks
axey

Thank you for the update breakdown. Sounds like a good meeting. 👍

Appreciate the summary brother.

Why am I not surprised this is down to Ned.

This place isn't much good if he who has the most (access to) STEEM has the most power to do whatever they want. Not much different to Facebook really. Even if he returns things to normal, now we know what he can do, any time he likes. Which doesn't seem to bode well for the future.

Negotiations are still set to take place in a few days and there are ways that this can be resolved in a win-win for all. That said, it has always been true that STEEM can be taken over in such a way.

See my post and "Postscript" comment in this thread of how a win-win can be created.

Not if the 3 months power down remain were they are... This is crucial in order to avoid that shit...

I was referring to being taken over by someone simply owning more stake than everyone else - as opposed to exchange collusion.

I never trusted Ned based on his facial expressions.

Body language is telling, yes.

Every 'good' vampire just wants their stake!

That is all I took away from listening to that meeting.
Gah! Squirming, scapegoating and ambiguous duplicity!

STILLUP.png

THIS IS STILL UP ON TWITTER!

stake.jpg

@justinsunsteemit @steemitblog How bad do you want your stake? The steem community wants you to remove your sock puppet witnesses and they will gladly give you your 'stake'...just saying! #steem #steemit #steemrevolt #notyourblockchain

Yes Justin the Vampire.

typical Sun move, same lack of due diligence happened with DLIVE. that will bite them in the ass too.

anyways, thanks for the recording and TLDR!

You all are doing a great job. Keep up the negotiations.

so he admitted that he is scammed and hence acknowledging that the stake is owned by the community! hence any legal persecution should be between ned and @justinsunsteemit, as ned was wrong to sell a stake he does not own... if justin were to sell the stake and ran off with it, then it would be theft as justin knows the stake is not owned by him...
also i never knew @followbtcnews had such a strong alabama accent...

He requested evidence, so has not explicitly agreed to having been scammed at this point.

I love Alabama.. Roll Tide !!

The TRON team claimed they want to cancel their witness votes asap.

It would take minutes to do that. Since they haven’t done so, they’re either lying or clueless about what asap means.

The TRON team intends to put a fork in place to allow the exchanges to power down the stake they powered up in order to vote for witnesses with their clients' tokens.

Our witnesses would have to be naïve to let the TRON team implement a fork.

There’s an old saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again..” ― George W. Bush

I actually support Justin's claim to use his stake as he sees fit. What we need to do is change governance so that stake wouldn't get him super majority if he or anyone else with a large stake decided to use it for voting.

Thx for sharing this meetup, I am proud of our witnesses now :) The more I hear from Justin, the more I think he is a liar and scammer now, first wanted to migrate everything to Tron, now changing the whole narrative, saying just wanted to make money, and now wants to exit and sell all of Steemit Incs stake asap, this guy seems like a liar, also considering how he misused his power and friends at exchanges.

I was really surprised that Sun's team-member/confidant didn't know more about Steem and the workings of the chain. I figured Sun himself would be pretty clueless, but he doesn't have anyone around him who understands it either. Hopefully they get educated before the next meeting so they can actually agree/disagree to real proposals like removing voting authority for those accounts.

It is a common tactic to respond to challenging information by alleging ignorance. I am not convinced @ned did not inform Tron of restrictions on the stake he sold. It will be necessary to see the purchase and sale agreement executed to ascertain the facts of the matter.

As I have pointed out elsewhere, due diligence Tron should have undertaken could have included an intern and a couple pots of coffee to sift through all Stinc posts that in any way referred to use of their stake. If they didn't do that, that's not @ned's fault, nor is it our concern.

Regardless, if you buy a car that goes 50MPH, you can't later go 60 in it. You bought the car that was sold, and Stinc sold stake that was constrained in certain ways that do prevent it from exercising governance, and simply being sold on exchanges for fiat. Insofar as Stinc is prevented from doing so, whether @justinsunsteemit or Tron did their due diligence or not, using that stake to exercise governance creates an actionable cause at law, and anyone harmed by that unlawful exercise of governance should join the class action to seek remedy for that harm.

I know that I have suffered extreme emotional damage as a result. Who's with me?

Ned and Justin most likely made a deal off the record. They both are likely planning to go to the grave with their secrets, their plans, if they can.

Or Justin knew better and is guilty of theft.

Thanks for this. I think it is important for the community to be aware of the facts and of conversations like this. All communication is useful.

Steemians sounded like a bunch of crazy communists from the beginning of the Revolution.

Sun purchased - deal with it.

Normal people believe in private property rights

You appear to be denying the fine points here - when you have assessed all the details without bias you will have a more nuanced understanding and relevant comment.

Steem, Marketcap, 60 M
Tron, Marketcap, 1100 M
EOS, Marketcap, 3300 M

Ned / Steem leaders = Stupid
Sun/ TRON = Smart
Dan, EOS = The Smartest one

Let's say someone sells you a car, and the police confiscates it because it's stolen. Do you then hijack the police force by bribing?

That's pretty much the analogy here.

Yes, there is the analogy, but the wrong one.

This is more like, you pick up a girl, you tell her how special she is, how much you love her... You fcuk her a couple of times and you dump her.
She accuses you for raping and screams MeeTooo!!!!

interesting

It's like they're always saying one thing but doing another in the background.

True. The art of deception is that way.

Thanks for sharing this.
I'll check this video when i'm back home from work.

Thanks for sharing this.
I'll check this video when
I'm back home from work.

                 - bartheek


I'm a bot. I detect haiku.

"The TRON team claimed their aim is to profit from the purchase, rather than to participate in governance." This seems like good news to me.

I am absolutely shook'd that @ned was a scum bag for a change.

Does anybody here trust Justin Bieber Sun?

Very enlightening. Thanks to you and @ausbitbank for making this available. Seems that there was bad faith in a number of areas. Lots of damage done all round. Hope it can be resolved to achieve the win-win suggested.

Hi there,
didn't he say during the call/meeting that his "witnesses" started fixing the pricing feed issue as they speak?

He lies even about these simple (but still important) things. Nothing changed in the pricing feed during the last two days.

He doesn't give a shit (anymore) now that he knows Ned sold him something else than he was told.

A very stupid businessman who does not check what he was told before paying for a company.

But thanks a lot for bringing the conversation online. It was interesting to listen - especially to Sun ... you could really "read between the lines" the difference of what he was saying and he was thinking.

I am curious how he will keep the promise to the exchanges that the funds will be available within some days again. At least I assume he must have made such a promise to get the resources.

STEEM ON!!!
(and don't trust the words of a cornered person)

Thanks for this.

So he basically keeps buying time with meeting promises and now with actual meetings while strikes back...

What a soap opera ;)
And Ned is "gone"....yeah right...

So now what? Justin is going to do what he wants. What are the witnesses going to do to stop it? More talks are unnecessary. Justin made his intentions clear and thats going to destroy the trust and integrity of the blockchain.

I liked the part Jian Yang said " I am business man I'm not want to be interfere with governance I want the profit" 😂 yeah fuck yes!!!

Meanwhile

Positions wanted apply within...

We will see how instrumental all our steem resignations are.. I'm going to go out on a limb and say the small team that had extremely questionable results is not irreplaceable..

Logic says work with Justin to create a profitable enterprise for all, I know, I know, that means some of the "volunteer" witnesses might actually have to clock in and work instead of pretending to do shut but, welcome to the real world!

Jian Yang doesn't care about your decentralized fantasy he want the profit and if you get in the way I assure you that you will be displaced..

Wasn't the preliminary meeting to be held on March 4? So when was this one that is taped agreed on?

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my totally unimportant view of this. we could make a sister chain or he could sign a contract. if he really does not want to be the ruler of the chain he will not have a problem with it. contract that he will not use his stake for voting or witness manipulation. That he will continue development of steem for x time and finish SMT. apology for calling as all Hackers. No more crazy talk about steem coin swap and migration. Also their plan of development. All signed and checked by the lawyers. That would be a hard fork with no hard forks. Thik this would be ok from both sides.

Also important thing. talking to ex steemit employers. Do they want to work with steemit on development. they know the chanin the best.

As for exchanges, i don't know, i would like to see them sweat for a bit, but i think part of that pushing the meeting early was the pressure from exchanges.

Do you know what the key features are of the rogue 0.22.5 version?

It's all about making money, that's it. Looks like he's not going to profit for this investment or is he?

@ned failed to disclose to @justinsunsteemit that the Ninja mined stake had been earmarked for community development and was not to be used for witness voting prior to selling it to him.

ouch

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