[NEWS] Did Binance just help Justin Sun take over the Steem network?

[seagates]

Justin is doing dirty game

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[bbc.reporter]

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.

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.

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

[smooth]

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.

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.

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

#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

How weak a proof of stake system is versus the exchanges that do not hold a stake of the coin themselves

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.

[jerrison]

If your cryptocoin is a proof of stake or delegated proof of stake coin, I reckon that you should withdraw them from the exchanges immediately. You do not want your favorite exchange to become your own tormentor hehe.

Also, the Steemit community's softfork to protect itself was acted hastily and got another softfork act that was also hastily given by the threat hehehehehe.



Have centralized exchanges used customer funds to help Tron CEO Justin Sun regain control over the Steem blockchain network?

That appears to be the case, according to crypto industry observers, Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ethereum, and the CEO of one of biggest exchanges on the planet, Binance—who confirmed his exchange’s involvement in a tweet.

Sun recently bought Steemit.com, essentially a decentralized Reddit that runs on the Steem blockchain. With the purchase, he also got access to a large amount of pre-mined Steem. But eight days ago, the community voted in favor of a soft-fork that would prevent Sun from accessing these tokens until he provided more detail about his plans for Steemit.

“So Justin reacts by getting more Steem from his friends to regain control over the platform he just purchased,” a developer who’s worked on apps on Steemit, Jason Stallings of BlockArcade, told Decrypt. “We're at the start of the Steem/Tron war of 2020,” he said.

“They tried to wrestle control from Justin and he outplayed them by utilizing his influence just the same as he will for the platform going forward,” Alexander Klein, a blockchain developer and Steemit contributor, told Decrypt.

Read in full https://decrypt.co/21108/did-binance-just-help-take-over-steem-network-justin-sun

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.

[cahbagus555]

I guess I always supported a free market and if Justin Sun (which I dislike very much) managed to take control of steemit, maybe he deserves to control it at the end as well? I am not saying he should do bad things just because he can but if steemit is not strong enough to fight off an attack at this level, how could it really hope to be a decent coin in the future as well.

Even if Justin sun completely removes himself from steemit and sells it and just leaves, how could be sure from now on to the future that nobody else will try something like that. Steemit had a chance to show it is resistant and it failed so right now whatever happens it is an coin that is untrustworthy for me.

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?

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

[bbc.reporter]

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.

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.

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

#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

How weak a proof of stake system is versus the exchanges that do not hold a stake of the coin themselves

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.

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?

[smooth]

@bbc.reporter

Good questions.

Before this situation occured, there was no issue before and after the sale of Steemit

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.

[TheGreatPython]

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.

[btc_angela]

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.

[bbc.reporter]

@smooth. Thank you! I would assume that Justin Sun and his team are the parties at fault in the situation because it appears that he did not do any research about Steemit and the history behind the premined coins he is buying. Also, if he did his research it was very stupid of him to try to force his own plans on the Steem community without consensus.

I reckon Ned Scott might have tried to use Justin to do what he cannot do. Control Steem.

[smooth]

@bbc.reporter

Yeah, it is hard to tell what is really going on there. Both shady and slippery characters for sure, so public statements are not worth much (anything) and we don't have much else to go on, at this point, unless a whistle blower comes forward or something, but that seems rare in crypto. In reality we may never know.

[bbc.reporter]

@smooth. I speculate Justin's quietness about this matter is a sign of danger coming. He might be talking to his lawyers to begin a lawsuit versus the witnesses.

Whoever might win the case would certainly take the cryptospace on a significant turn for better or worse.

[smooth]

@smooth. I speculate Justin's quietness about this matter is a sign of danger coming. He might be talking to his lawyers to begin a lawsuit versus the witnesses.

Whoever might win the case would certainly take the cryptospace on a significant turn for better or worse.

I have no view on what Justin might be doing nor what some silly legal system might do.

Ethically, in my own view, witnesses have the right to include or not include whatever transactions they want into a block, and also to run whatever software they want on their own computers. I don't see where anyone has undertaken any obligation to do otherwise. But, like I said, legal systems can be silly.

[layer1gfx]

i am still wondering what binance is planning there with HIVE, it is rather neutral now, saying they might list it but then they might not.
the distribution of the fork happened but i wish we could trade or withdraw it now.

[bbc.reporter]

@layer1gfx. Changpeng Zhao is Justin's best friend in the cryptospace. He will not list Hive on Binace, I reckon. Also, not 1 of the exchanges that has business relationships with Justin will not list them also.

In any case, I predict more Hive holders will dump Hive and return to Steem after this war. Justin is not yet finished.



Tensions between Steem (STEEM) and the Hive (HIVE) community continue to escalate, with Steem executing a soft fork to freeze up to 20 accounts owned by the network’s former witnesses.

The frozen accounts hold 17.6 million STEEM, worth approximately $3.2 million and equating to nearly 5% of Steem’s total supply.

On April 4, the soft fork was proposed in a Steemit post authored by the new account "softfork2288."
In response to the purported “uncertain threat that the leaders and main influencers of [Hive] represented to the Steem Blockchain,” the fork sanctioned roughly “no more than 20 accounts “ that meet three criteria:

“Accounts that ran the version 0.23 during the Hardfork on Steem and were still in the Top 20 rank, shortly before the Hardfork. Accounts that proxied or directly voted to more than 10 witnesses running the version 0.23 on the Steem Blockchain during the hardfork with high influence. Accounts directly associated with operating these accounts.”

Read in full https://cointelegraph.com/news/steem-soft-forks-to-freeze-176m-tokens-held-by-former-witnesses

[suryapro]

I think this is the right way done by Justin Sun. but what is unfortunate is why steemit users actually block and pull the sets they have. could this not be a boon for steemit users ?? so they chose to do this

[bbc.reporter]

I am shaking my head. I reckon the leaders of the Steem and Hive platforms have only been successful in corrupting their own coins.

@smooth. What would be your suggestion for the leaders of the 2 platforms?



Steem, a popular blockchain and social blogging platform, will undergo a hard fork on Wednesday to shut down accounts that object to TRON’s leadership, seizing about $5 million in STEEM in the process.

This hard fork will arguably censor several blockchain accounts that are sympathetic to Hive—a blockchain that many users moved to after TRON‘s CEO, Justin Sun, bought-out Steem’s development company Steemit Inc in February.

Steemit, however, argues that Hive is a hostile fork and that many of its users are causing trouble. It claims that many users are sending spam transactions, posting recycled content to disrupt the rewards system, and attacking and doxxing users.

Source https://cryptobriefing.com/tron-will-seize-5-million-steem-from-dissident-tokenholders/

[cabron]

I guess I always supported a free market and if Justin Sun (which I dislike very much) managed to take control of steemit, maybe he deserves to control it at the end as well? I am not saying he should do bad things just because he can but if steemit is not strong enough to fight off an attack at this level, how could it really hope to be a decent coin in the future as well.

Even if Justin sun completely removes himself from steemit and sells it and just leaves, how could be sure from now on to the future that nobody else will try something like that. Steemit had a chance to show it is resistant and it failed so right now whatever happens it is an coin that is untrustworthy for me.

Its always going to be a threat when anyone can do it with a huge amount of steem particularly exchanges that will conspire to take control over such project. That new fork hive could even be controlled if they are not going to change things from now on. And of course SUN also got the chance. They supported the fork too. All of Dan's work turned bad in the end.

[bbc.reporter]

News update 1.

On a shocking twist, Justin Sun has tweeted that he was not involved personally in this hard fork. He supports the Steem witnesses who are voting for the hard fork to seize the coins of the hostiles, however.



Since the article was published, Sun tweeted, "First of all, both Steemit Inc. and I are not involved in this hard fork. However, I do have sympathy for current Steem witnesses and can see where they are coming from. The Hive witnesses took their assets away from them by force, causing huge losses to them."

"I am not involved in this decision in any way, but as a member of the Steem community, I am entitled to my own opinions. Since Hive took the assets from the Steem witnesses, vitalik & the misleading media have been 100% supportive of it," he added.

Source https://decrypt.co/29416/steem-network-to-seize-5-million-from-its-own-users



News update 2.



Justin Sun calls the cops over ‘stolen’ Steem funds

Source https://decrypt.co/29564/justin-sun-stolen-steem-funds

[smooth]

@smooth. What would be your suggestion for the leaders of the 2 platforms?

My suggestion would be to ignore Steem as a failed project that is now a centralized sham of a blockchain little different from Onecoin or other such scams.

If you think that Hive is sufficiently different as to escape that fate then it might have merit otherwise the same thing applies.