Topic: [NEWS] Did Binance just help Justin Sun take over the Steem network? - page 2. (Read 1088 times)

It only goes to show that Justin is not to be trusted, CZ already made a U-turn, even saying that he has no personal relationship with Justin, ouch.

So there's no take over here, Justin has been exposed, every one is trying to distance themselves because they don't want to look like an idiot and Justin could be the next CSW, so much hatred from this community because of his bitch move.

It is actually very sad for Justin that he didn't get to do what he wanted to once again. Warren Buffet didn't want him, his own team didn't want him, exchanges had troubles with him and now he got steem but lost it as well. Dude is basically a reverse magnet where he destroys everything he comes in contact with and everyone around him runs away from him as well.

Maybe he is not as bad of a dude as he lets off people think but he has to at least make some sort of effort to make sure his enthusiasm for tron is actually founded on something solid and not just because its "his coin". The way it is built right now, we just see a rich dude who made his own currency because he wanted to and plays with it thanks to all others who buy from it and does whatever he wants with others money.

@bbc.reporter

Good questions.


There was a similar issue a year or so ago when Steemit announced major layoffs, the CEO of Steemit was acting in a very evasive and sketchy way, and public statements about the use of the stake did not match what people were seeing on the blockchain. In effect, one can say that there was already concern about an exit scam being in the process of occurring. A fork to protect the ninja-mined stake aka dev fund was discussed among witnesses and stakeholders (the PR in #3 above was part of this), and there were even some direct talks between witnesses, stakeholders, and Steemit. Ultimately, a fork did not go ahead at that time, and Steemit made some other commitments and process changes which, tentatively at least, satisfied the community.

So, yes, this matter was in play before the sale even, and the lack of true on-chain governance and control over the ninja-mined stake, how it was used, and the community considering forks to address that issue is something that has lingered for a long time, and not something new to Justin.

After the sale, there was no immediate anticipation of an exit scam per se, but there were numerous statements from Justin about replacing the Steem blockchain (described as proprietary, which is not true) and migrating all users to Tron. There was a page put up on Poloniex (which Justin owns, or is part of a group that owns) telling Steem users how to exchange their Steem for Tron-based tokens.

During this period of about a week, many attempts were made by witnesses and major stakeholders both publicly and privately to communicate with Justin and other Tron leadership to discuss these plans and the lack of support for them in the Steem community. All of those attempts were either ignored or explicitly rejected.

Also during this period, an "AMA" video session was conducted during which, out of several dozen community questions submitted (and acknowledged by Steemit management), only one or two were answered before ending the session with a statement to the effect of "now that we have answered all of the questions (!), let's wrap things up".

As part of the same session, it was stated that the migration and token swap plan was put on hold. However, communications and PR from Justin and Tron continued to promote the upcoming migration and token swap, and the Poloniex page remained up. Further attempts to engage and ask that these efforts be put on hold were ignored or rejected.

So the witnesses and major stakeholders decided to move ahead with the temporary soft fork and freeze the stake in place until what was seen as serious threat to the blockchain could be more effectively addressed. These threats could theoretically include an exit scam as well as using the stake (which although committed to be non-voting, in practice represents about 70% of votes) to take control of the blockchain and even shut it down, forcing a migration.

To revisit one more point from my previous reply, and referenced in your reply above ("not just blocked from governance"), it is not technically possible to block stake from governance without also blocking it from moving. Once the stake is moved, it can be placed into sock puppet accounts and used to take over full control from there, at which point it is no longer possible to stop it from voting for governance. So to prevent it from being used for governance also requires stopping it from moving. This need not be permanent (and, as implemented, was not) but only long enough for governance issues to be resolved.

Finally, to clarify another point, this was not witnesses acting alone, as witnesses don't have any real power on their own (voting changes are instant, so any or all witnesses can be voted out and replaced). It was witnesses working with the support of major stakeholders. Following the activation of the soft fork, stakeholders not part of that discussion could still vote out the witnesses supporting the fork and vote in witnesses opposed to it (there were both in the top 50 ranks), but, in fact, the full complement of stakeholders increased support for the pro-fork witnesses and decreased support for the anti-fork witnesses, and this continued to be the case for several days. So it can be said that stakeholders overwhelmingly supported the step, making it a true exercise of governance and not a "witness plot".

So to answer your question, I would not say that an exit scam was anticipated, though it was certainly possible. However, there were ample reasons to assess that the stake could be used to threaten the blockchain. To guard against that requires stopping it from voting as well as stopping it from moving. Preventing an exit scam was an additional benefit, but not really the primary intent.

Thank you for this reply.

Before this situation occured, there was no issue before and after the sale of Steemit to Justin until the witnesses became scared and attacked first. Would you consider that they were correct on overanticipating the exit scam because of Justin's reputation as a scammer?

Agree, with ownership changing, I think the direction of the business could change and maybe it could be better. Justin is a smart businessman looking for opportunities and after acquiring one of the exchangers, Justin can use his influence and seek profits

i see no evil i what the steem witnesses have done by asking Justin what plans he had for steem, the soft-fork is just to render him powerless and less in control of their operations and that will make him unveil the plan he has for steem, but Justin's alliance with binance somehow, does go to prove that he has little or no future plans for steem and that is exactly what the witnesses were trying to avoid. No matter what the outcome is I believe the witnesses on Steem did what was necessary.

#1-2. There are many posts and comments on Steem about this (including some from me, see below), I don't really want to rehash it all. Except as you say many claim it is a sort of dev fund (which I personally agree with for many reasons and IMO there is more than ample evidence to support this). Witnesses and supporting stakeholders implemented a soft fork to temporarily prevent transfers from the account so it couldn't be drained in what would be, if you view it as a dev fund, an exit scam. Also, the only way to prevent voting is also to prevent transfers otherwise the coins can be moved to another account and voted there. The exact same issues have arisen prior to Justin's buyout of Steemit Inc (see below), so this is nothing new and not personal to Justin.

#3 is wrong. First that PR on a non-official repo is over a year old (addressing much the same issues as #1-2, at a time when the community had lost faith in Steemit Inc and its former managements handling of development, which is further evidence that the issues pre-dated Justin's acquisition of Steemit and he should have been aware of it). Second, as a 100% factual matter (which can be verified by anyone who understands the code), it does not completely destroy any coins and in fact would be a similar temporary soft  fork if it had ever been implemented (which it was not). Flat out, whoever claimed it would 'completely destroy' coins either does not understand code (nor consult people who do) or is deliberately lying about it.

#4 is wrong. That commit would have blocked exchange accounts from voting (which all major exchanges have publically stated they would not do anyway, until they "accidentally" or otherwise ended up locking up and voting with customer funds to help Justin override on-chain governance and take over the network), and would not affect transfers. It has not been implemented. Any coder can make any commit they want and one should not read more into it until and unless it is deployed on the network, which this one has not. FWIW even if implemented this would not be secure for the same reasons as described in #1-2 above (coins can be moved to a new account and used to vote there) and for that reason I would consider it ineffective and not support it regardless of the merits.

I've replied to many Steem posts and comments addressing these matters. You can find some of that here: https://steempeak.com/@smooth/comments

From previous reply

Agree. It is a form of attack where 'stake' does not equal economic ownership therefore all the usual arguments about the costs of acquiring stake and the costs of (at least potentially) reducing the value of your holdings by attacking the network do not apply. There are many variants of this including the BST attack that Monero's ArticMine has described numerous times before.

I do not know. However, yes he and Ned Scott might be trying to be naughty and know if they can get away on doing it hehehe.

In any case, this issue has grown more. It appears both sides of this war might be telling lies.



Q1: Justin Sun claims that some witness froze his 65m coins, not just blocked from governance, but not even allowed to transfers. This has happened on Feb 22. Is it true?

Q2: Justin thinks the company has the right to use those coins, but some in the community seems to think there was a promise that those coins would never be used. What’s the history/story here? I have not seen any evidence of promise not to use those coins.

Q3: There seem to be an attempt to completely destroy those 65m coins. Just a pull request, not voted yet. https://github.com/steemdev/steem/pull/1

Is this a good/right thing to do?

Q4: What does concern me is, there seem to be an attempt to freeze Binance (and other exchange) user funds as well, or at a minimum block them from voting. https://github.com/SteemDevs/steem/blob/0.22.6/libraries/protocol/hardfork.d/0_22.hf

Is this true?

Source https://twitter.com/cz_binance/status/1236373818068930561

Justin is doing dirty game

interesting to hear that. how about due diligence? did justin not do his homework and DYOR on the project before buying it?
i don't think he is such an inexperienced business man.

It appears the real scammer on this issue is really Ned Scott, the former ceo of the Steemit foundation. He sold all the premined steemcoins to Justin without telling him the history and the verbal agreement of those coins have on the community. Those coins were never for the intention of voting. They are for marketing and development.

Also, the votes to freeze Justin's coins were only to freeze it only from voting. There were not stolen or locked.

Meaning his friend is Binance who are holding those against Tron Justin Sun? Ive read on the Binance official twitter that they have not against this protest from steemians as he is not on the that point to oppose too.

To be honest, I like steemit and becoming one of the projects under tron blockchain or somehow affiliated could be of conflict as their both posses difference. Why the hell he also acquiring it on the first place?

why do you say that?is it because of justin sun who just bought it that you say the coin cannot be trusted.
that's a bit of irony because you associate project performance with the owner.
although under the new leadership then not all systems will change dramatically there may be an update from justin to make it better, who knows?

Agreed! However, the Steem witnesses made the first attack by voting on a softfork that would freeze the coins in the wallets owned by Justin Sun. Justin responded by asking his friends on the exchanges to use the coins under their control to vote against the witnesses' softfork.

Is that right? Why would the witnesses vote to freeze someone's coins?

In any case, this makes it appear that proof of stake cryptocoins should be avoided.a

Steem is a blockchain with already many dapps thriving over it, making steem another tron token will make all dapps die. Steemit was sold, not Steem.

I am actually wondering why alot of peeps are against tron take over, but it is what it is.
To ME, what matters is the existence of steemit as one of the best blog pages for crypto currency blogs.

The steemit interface has improved, with new features needing you to subscribe to channels too.
But why are majority against it ?

Can someone explain to me the details of what happened afterwards? I am not really great with blockchain takeovers and now there are places who are saying they are removing their "votes" and so forth, what does that really mean? Plus isn't it somehow illegal for exchanges to use their customers money to do something?

Just simply imagined, freebitco.in offers 4% for all bitcoins staying on their website for example, what happens if an exchange decides to keep their "cold storage" as just freebitco.in savings account and get more money from them? I know that is unsustainable but the idea stands, no exchange should be allowed to touch customers assets without their permission if you ask me. No matter what the reason is or no matter what the result will be.

Interesting..
I think this is what should have done before the takeover of Steemit. I wonder if the takeover was hastily done, no involvement of the community, no communication, no agreement with the community etc? Well, I guess lessons have been learned. A truely decentralized platform shouldn't be that easy to takeover without the input of all/most stakeholders.

the nerve that they used their customers coins in the first place... i wonder what they were thinking? 
sure they can pull a "sorry, changed my mind" like politicians when they get caught with something naughty.
and taking over a whole community looks like politics to me...

Huobi and Binance have removed their votes after some pressure from Steemit's community hehehe. However, the occurrence made it appear how weak a proof of stake system is versus the exchanges that do not hold a stake of the coin themselves.