I had the opportunity to interview a "member of the club" of Steemit devs and whales. He agreed to it being published, as long as he'd stay anonymous. Here's what we've learned!

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**What's the deal with Bitshares? What does it have to do with Steemit?**

(...)

We were the ones who largely have kept Bitshares living and growing to a point where other Decentralized Autonomous C____'s (DACs) could be built.

C = Community, Corporation, Conglomerate, Country, ...etc.
DAC was created before DAO
here is a bit of history for you :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mP82XmUNgNM
Dan is actually probably in the top 3 most brilliant devs in this space.
Vitalik is smart, but he is not top 3...and if he is---he is 3rd.  At least of the ones I know.
and i know many of them...lol

Vitalik had lots of big money behind him, but Dan was kind of outcasted when he started shedding light on the problems with Ethereum.
Very few people listened to him.

(...)

Now that Bitshares is a live Decentralized Exchange (DEX), where other tokens are traded though...people are more interested.
Now that Dan built Steem people are starting to realize what Bitshares is about...

**So, Steem is a subproject? Bitshares is the actual product?**

No...all of them are. Bitshares is just the flagship project using the Graphene toolkit. Which makes sense they made it a DEX (where the "stock" (aka coins) of various DACs are traded).

**What about the 80% premine?**

Wasnt really a premine. It was on bitcointalk the day of launch... just that most people these days don't care about "crapcoins". That and there was a problem with having to fork early on. Many miners just quit. Then complain "oh it is premined" because they figure out they should have KEPT mining... LOL

**Miners quit because they forked their mining away.**

Yeah, I am not sure if they did or not on that one. I got in after the fork.

I will say one thing though: usually when Dan Larimer is involved....there are many haters. He has been talking for literally very close to the beginning of bitcoin about how many problems it has to overcome. And tells them they need to change it. But they refuse.

**Apparently his dad is a know scammer?**

LOL, no. I am glad you throw it out there... You just have to pardon me laughing these days. I've stuck around to help Dan and his father 100% because i know their intentions. And even in the face of Dan creating what is known to be one of the mothers of all crypto mass adoption tools...they STILL are FUDding him and his dad...lol. And by extension, it seems, everyone who has gotten Dan to where he is.

**However, there are strange things with steem.**

Oh well in terms of decentralization it is not as decentralized as bitshares. But if you know the history of Bitshares you will know why. Bitshares is one of the most decentralized tokens in the space. Because of this, exchanges who are centralized and saw bitshares DEX as competition...started using the Bitshares of their users (which each count for a vote in the Bitshares ecosystem) to vote down ALL proposals to improve Bitshares. Bitshares has separations of power built in.

But because it was so decentralized....Dan wasn't even getting paid for a long time for his work. He even paid to work for a while because he couldn't get enough voting from key community members to pay for development. So we all paid out the ass to help over time.

So he instead this time created another way with more centralization in the early stages so decisions can be clearly made and he doesn't become trapped again by potential competition. So it is kind of a way to see how Dan made Steem to help us out of our little problem with Centralized Exchanges voting down all workers.

**It's always the whales that get votes for every fart they write.**

Yep, it is. Right now it is. Eventually the whales will fight eachother, just watch. Dome will cash out...others will gain a following and use their steempower. Others will cheat and increase steempower.

I hope to be the one who gains a following and uses the steempower to help fund projects for both Bitshares and Steem and all other DACs that need it.

**At this moment, it feels like whales only upvote other whales' posts. There's a "secret" slack for insiders, the website is kept closed-source...**

Decentralization is becoming a dangerous mantra because rather than use it in the places it fits well, we assume we can just force it into places where it can't fit. But trust me, I stayed at Bitshares because it has separations of power and I believe will go much higher than Steem (when people figure it out).

It is natural for companies to start out more centralized even if they use a blockchain :) I mean look at eth for instance...do you think it is really decentralized? Allll of the development is paid for by people working for a company called "Consensys". Same with bitcoin to a very large extent too if you think about it. With blockstream and the core devs being paid largely by that company...

And to be honest...most of the people who are Steem whales...just a little secret for you---most of them paid out of pocket to work on the toolkit that created it...for *years*...

**Conclusion?**


I will tell you a secret...lots of people who hold Steem are going to slowly sell Steem and build stuff for Bitshares.  Soooo that is a reallllly good place to consider buying in these days.

(...)

One thing i can tell you is that lots of money earned in Steem....is going to go right back into Bitshares. Which means more and more shit is going to get built that increases the value of Bitshares.

I wish so much that Bitshares and its separations of power worked to the degree we had hoped.  I think once tools are made to help voters...we will be better off in the end. Voting ease is a huge factor still holding Bitshares back.

People just don't want to vote...even if it is on amazing projects by GOOD people...

**Thanks for your insights.**