Hey @elear - so first of all I would certainly support @utopian-io as a witness when/if you set up a server for it.
But it seems like the motivation for running a Utopian witness server (at least as described in this post) is to get more STEEM to fund Utopian. I generally don't think that making money / STEEM - even to fund an awesome project like Utopian which deserves all the funding it can get - is the right reason to be a witness.
I think that Utopian should run a witness server because it depends on the Steem platform to exist and therefore it should have a say in how the platform works and in the future development of the platform.
So I think it's a great idea for you/utopian to become a witness for the reason above, but I really want to avoid the idea that becoming a witness is just a way to make money.
Also, even though I suspect you could get into the top 20 witnesses in short order, I don't think that will make anywhere close to enough money to fund everything Utopian can and will be doing.
I very much look forward to the Utopian SMT and ICO which will hopefully bring in many millions of STEEM and get Utopian the funding it deserves.
I totally agree @yabapmatt and that's what I wanted to give as a message when I said "witness driven by the community, for the community". I will expand the thought. Sure Utopian needs also to run an ICO but we need to act in a short term and do whatever is possible to grow the power of the account, simply because there are already quite a few ICOs happening in a few days, willing to do the very same thing Utopian is doing. Utopian needs to go on the outside world and be known asap or these ICOs could throw us in the dark, if you get my point. While the witness could not fund the entire project, could still give Utopian some more ground to speed up the project growth.
Have you considered doing an ICO using a BitShares or Ethereum token and then transferring that to a Utopian SMT once those are done? Similar to what EOS is doing? I agree that you need more funding short-term but as I said I'm not sure running a witness server is going to really provide the funding you need.
I did @yabapmatt but without being able to create accounts directly from Utopian really makes little sense to start an ICO. I am trying to convince @ned to help us on that but I am a solitary wolf and I will do whatever I can to grow the power of Utopian with or without the help of Steemit. My main mission now is to fund the creation of the accounts and I am doing that by:
We need to be able to create accounts ASAP or Utopian may not survive when the other ICOs that will probably make millions by selling the tokens.
@elear what ICO's do you mean?
This is one @therealwolf fundrequest.io
ah ok - well. The site is not something I'd call an artwork. In contrast - utopian looks amazing and when the new landingpage is designed .. will be even more amazing.
But I understand your worry - as you have invested so much energy and time already and you want your project to succeed.
You named it @therealwolf http://join.utopian.io :D
I see - I guess I was saying open an ICO first to the Steem community and see how much you can raise there. Hopefully then you might have enough to open the ICO up a little bigger and make accounts for the new investors, and then it could potentially/hopefully snowball from there.
I would definitely invest some STEEM into a Utopian pre-ICO at least!