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Today, I made a up a full work day of time, and it was very expensive. I was meant to be training for the day in another city for my own company, but due to a stomach flu sweeping through, the sessions were cancelled last minute. Since I have two jobs, it meant I could still do a day's work, although the salary difference is quite substantial between the two. Oh well. 

https://i.imgur.com/1bDoiSt.jpg

I have heard once or twice now that the softfork has "affected the price" of Steem, and this is something that I have always been somewhat miffed by when people who should know better mention it. Haven't they looked at the prices of other alts - or Bitcoin??

*EVERYTHING IS DOWN*

In my experience and opinion, the price of most cryptos at nearly any given time has *nothing to do* with what is actually happening on that particular blockchain. For the most part, the markets are near pure speculation and driven by automated trading that cycle through projects to create and extract as much value as they can. 

Perhaps it is some kind of hubris, where we tend to think ourselves more influential over the price with our actions, than we actually are. I do think that eventually though, the speculation will start to stabilize and actual project information will affect the price and market sentiment - we are a fair way off from that though. 

The other thing that is pretty obvious is, no matter what decisions get made, it will never be the right one for everyone. The interesting thing about this point is that while no one actually wants to make the decisions, no one is happy with the decisions that do get made for them. 

The softfork is a good example of this where perhaps it should have been formalized much earlier in the lifecycle of the blockchain, but it wasn't. Now that it was, people will be unhappy with the decision. Some will of course say that the witnesses did it in order to protect their own asses, but if that stake was used to replace witnesses, move STEEM to STEEM-TRX and drive the value of what everyone holds to zero, the entire community would be up in an uproar and say "why didn't the witnesses act earlier?"

It seems that a lot of people are somewhat blinded by the individual who is Justin Sun, in the same way that people seem to think that Donald Trump has their best interests at heart in the US - "I'm an excellent business man, everyone says so". 

>show me your tax returns. 

Not that I care about US or any other politics, it is just an example. Based on the evidence, it would appear that Justin Sun doesn't mind using genesis stake to secure his interests - why would it be different on Steem, a blockchain that he doesn't necessarily have much emotional investment in? 

Again, this could all backfire, but I think that what everyone really needs to think about is that as far as Steem holders are concerned, if the price goes up for one, it goes up for all. Same downward. Those with the most to lose financially from this backfiring are the people who hold the most, they are also the ones who will lose the most from a move to Tron, they are also the ones who will gain the most from things working out and STEEM going to the moon. This is having Skin in the game, however *percentage-wise,* it is the same gains and losses for everyone involved.

There are risks in every decision made as it changes direction, each is a fork - whether on chain or in life. Some people chose to opt-in on Steem and many have chosen to opt-out over the time the chain has been operating, but each has made that call themselves. 

What I find interesting is that while people complain about what the witnesses did, people who are fallible but are also elected by *the stake* on the platform. If Justin Sun would have taken the worst case position, it would have been *forced* on all users uniformly mercilessly. A dictation that all must follow. 

Isn't that the kind of decision that we are trying to avoid through the development of blockchain, crypto and the communities that support them? Isn't the idea that the community actually takes ownership and responsibility for themselves and makes decisions in a trustless environment? 

When someone says "trust me", my guard goes up and that is kind of what we would have had to do in regards to the stake that was bought by Justin Sun. I do not know what he would have done with it, but even used benevolently, makes it a *ruling force* nonetheless.

Decisions need to be made and if they aren't made by us, they will be made for us. 


Taraz
[ a Steem original ]

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