[ANN] [STEEM] Introducing Steem, Looking for Witnesses / Miners

[bytemaster]

I assume Steem will largly be based on graphene...

Has a sharedrop (on bts) been discussed before?

The following parts of Steem reuse code from BitShares which was released under public domain shortly after Graphene was announced.

libraries/net - P2P network code is 100% the same
libraries/db - general purpose, blockchain agnostic, in-memory database

The following parts of Steem have been completely written from scratch:

libraries/chain
      - all operations used by the blockchain (transfer, etc)
      - all objects kept in memory
libraries/wallet
programs/cli_wallet

The following parts of Steem have been heavily adapted from BTS:
     - limit order operation and matching
   
The question of a share drop has been discussed internally and so far has been avoided for regulatory, support, and complexity reasons.

The current license of Steem prohibits unauthorized chains derived from the same code. 

Ned will respond with a more detailed response and policy. I just wanted to provide some 'facts' and not state any position one way or another on the decision to share drop or not.

[santaclause102]

I assume Steem will largly be based on graphene...

Has a sharedrop (on bts) been discussed before?

[Empirical1.2]

Interesting...

Some additional (long) thoughts on the project:

The SBD (which seems to be a USD pegged asset with a possible interest rate bonus on top) is interesting...

Now the question is will bytemaster's strategy work, or will it cause the Bitcoin community to treat this DAC like a pariah and stubbornly refuse to use it while yelling out words like "instamine." I can't wait to find out.

Is this already mostly coded?

If so can it be forked onto BTS or a separate DAC with an allocation strategy that greatly favours BTS holders?

The BTS SuperDAC was created with the intention of forking competitors where possible/valuable and this seems like such a scenario given it's based on BTS compatible code?

BTS is already a valuable Top 10 DAC with a large networked community  & an understanding of Graphene, while STEEM has been launched in a way that intentionally violated most crypto cultural regulations so it's value and ability to gain traction will be minimized.

[Troglodactyl]

./steemd —miner='["accountname","${WIFPRIVATEKEY}"]' —witness='"accountname"' —seed-node="52.38.66.234:2001" —mining-threads=2

who can explain how to get accountname  and WIFPRIVATEKEY?

 

The account name you just make up.  Pick something unique that no one else would use.  The WIFPRIVATEKEY you can get conveniently by running the STEEM or BitShares cli_wallet and using the suggest_brain_key command.

[twitter]

./steemd —miner='["accountname","${WIFPRIVATEKEY}"]' —witness='"accountname"' —seed-node="52.38.66.234:2001" —mining-threads=2

who can explain how to get accountname  and WIFPRIVATEKEY?

 

[Tuck Fheman]

bter stated they'd honor

Using "Bter" and "honor" in the same sentence always draws a smirk from me.

[rnglab]

Very interesting..

Sparkle has come a long way

bter stated they'd honor their memory (coins) if we manage to pipe their steem into the dex.
they also said "pow ftw".

: P

☯

[donkeypong]

Hey all, just came across this thread here.   

I was asked by the team to provide a little info about myself in order to be voted a witness. 
As many have, I joined the crypto world after the sudden increase in price and publicity a few years back now.  The latest project I've worked on in the crypto space is Synergy Cloud, a web based trading bot (similar to other basic bots out there) that allows users to trade across a few exchanges in reward for burning Synergy Coin.  I'm also very involved in the Coinbar project and spend a lot of time looking for new cryptos to get involved in and doing some trading here and there.     Professionally, I'm a project manager working for a large e-commerce company mainly focusing on machine learning.  I've got a good amount of hardware at my disposal and will continue to support the STEEM project. 

I look forward to getting to know some of you guys and moving forward with STEEM!

Welcome. I haven't understood a thing about this project yet (except that maybe STEEM won't get dumped as much as BitShares does), but it's good to see some innovation and more good people getting involved.

[tonyk]

so...
sbd stands for steem backed dollars

and steem stands for/comes from esteem/reputation not beam of light.?

[abit]

Having said that I can obviously see it has value, when will it be on an exchange? Have you considered creating an IOU for some of it on BTS for the time being?

See https://cryptofresh.com/a/STEEM

[Empirical1.2]

Perhaps something like a decentralized alternative to threaded discussion forums, e.g. Reddit self posts (though limited to STEEMIT_MAX_COMMENT_DEPTH == 6 nested comments, which I guess is a reasonable number),
except with the distinguishing feature of economic rewards for good comments ("What do you mean internet karma points don't have to be worthless?" ).
Though perhaps that could backfire as well: redditors take karma too seriously as it is even though it currently provide no economic value whatsoever. But it would be fun to see how economic incentives modify social behavior online.

From Ned Scott's Linked in

Steemit is a social media platform where everyone gets paid for creating and curating content.

Synereo is a similar concept  http://www.synereo.com/

Synereo is a fully decentralized and distributed social platform owned by the people who use it.
Your attention is scarce, precious and powerful.It’s time for it to work for you.

Synereo is vastly different and was evaluated along with other competitors prior to building Steem.

The SBD (which seems to be a USD pegged asset with a possible interest rate bonus on top) is interesting. There is a DEX on the network with just a single market STEEM/SBD (plus there are subsidies to liquidity providers which is great addition), but yet it seems pretty clear that SBD is not BitUSD/Smartcoins. Specifically, there is no SBD borrow with collateral mechanism available. It is possible to convert SBD to STEEM but the blockchain just destroys the SBD and prints enough new STEEM to satisfy the conversion at an exchange rate (after a 7 day delay) at the given median price feed provided by the witnesses. Thus, I think it is safe to say that all STEEM holders are effectively forced to take the "short position" against the SBD. By holding STEEM they are betting that its price should outperform the USD plus blockchain-declared interest rate.

Well you may have a BitUSD with an interest rate bonus and a mechanism for simple conversions which is exactly what I've been pushing for with my BitUSD Yield & Simple SmartCoin threads.  I can also see the value of using a social media platform for creating network effect & bootstrapping said USD.  So I think it has some potential.

Tipping with BitUSD will be huge in terms of the network effect it could help generate.

We have a product that BTC doesn't have, Currency Stable Smartcoins. (Still need more liquidity) We just need to find a way to showcase them to the hundreds of thousands of people that could benefit them. Cue tipping and cue social media.

The main potential issue at this stage is the method of launch & how it will be received which I've already given my opinion on earlier. (You may be thinking again that given it's a USD product and a separate platform you may be able to leapfrog the crypto community somewhat so their opinion is moot, but I'm fairly confident that's not the case.) I'm also not sure this couldn't be replicated on BTS in some way.

Having said that I can obviously see it has value, when will it be on an exchange? Have you considered creating an IOU for some of it on BTS for the time being?

[nextgencrypto]

Hey all, just came across this thread here.   

I was asked by the team to provide a little info about myself in order to be voted a witness. 
As many have, I joined the crypto world after the sudden increase in price and publicity a few years back now.  The latest project I've worked on in the crypto space is Synergy Cloud, a web based trading bot (similar to other basic bots out there) that allows users to trade across a few exchanges in reward for burning Synergy Coin.  I'm also very involved in the Coinbar project and spend a lot of time looking for new cryptos to get involved in and doing some trading here and there.    Professionally, I'm a project manager working for a large e-commerce company mainly focusing on machine learning.  I've got a good amount of hardware at my disposal and will continue to support the STEEM project.  

I look forward to getting to know some of you guys and moving forward with STEEM!

[bytemaster]

It could be that the transaction was broadcast too late to be included by the producer.   There is a race condition where if you broadcast it, but the producer doesn't receive it in time and so it is "stale" and not included in the blockchain.

Thanks for the explanation. Does "in time" mean that a POW based on the hash of block n is only accepted if it is included in block n+1?
That would severely (and unnecessarily IMO) punish miners on a "high"-latency connection. For example, with a (perfectly normal) latency of 300ms a miner can effectively only mine from t+0.3s until t+2.7s, which is a 20% reduction of efficiency!
Moreover, this means that the currently active witnesses automatically have a higher than average chance to have their own POWs included in the chain in time.
Even worse, it means that the currently active witnesses can deliberately drop POWs from other miners, thereby increasing their own effective hashrate!

IMO there's no reason to not accept POWs that are based on the hash of one of the latest 21 blocks (for example).

I considered all of these issues.  The consensus algorithm is subject to a 33% attack, whereby someone with 33% of the hashpower can gain 50% of effective hash power by ignoring POW by competitors. This is why block producers get paid for including POW of competitors, to minimize the incentive to exclude them. 

The POW-only consensus system is a short-term concern and designed mostly for distributing coins and giving time for witnesses to be elected.

Low latency is a critical issue on any blockchain with 3 second blocks. Someone who is unable to mine with low latency impacts everyone else when they finally get scheduled to produce blocks.

We have effectively made latency part of the POW algorithm which means forcing miners to invest in low-latency VPS. It also reduces potential for mining pools and hinders botnets.   Botnets would have to distribute the private key to all machines and many of the compromised computers are on slow internet connections. 

Just consider it a different kind of resource like CPU, GPU, DISK, etc. 

[Empirical1.2]

Perhaps something like a decentralized alternative to threaded discussion forums, e.g. Reddit self posts (though limited to STEEMIT_MAX_COMMENT_DEPTH == 6 nested comments, which I guess is a reasonable number),
except with the distinguishing feature of economic rewards for good comments ("What do you mean internet karma points don't have to be worthless?" ).
Though perhaps that could backfire as well: redditors take karma too seriously as it is even though it currently provide no economic value whatsoever. But it would be fun to see how economic incentives modify social behavior online.

From Ned Scott's Linked in

Steemit is a social media platform where everyone gets paid for creating and curating content.

Synereo is a similar concept  http://www.synereo.com/

Synereo is a fully decentralized and distributed social platform owned by the people who use it.
Your attention is scarce, precious and powerful.It’s time for it to work for you.

[hadrian]

Perhaps something like a decentralized alternative to threaded discussion forums, e.g. Reddit self posts (though limited to STEEMIT_MAX_COMMENT_DEPTH == 6 nested comments, which I guess is a reasonable number),
except with the distinguishing feature of economic rewards for good comments ("What do you mean internet karma points don't have to be worthless?" ).
Though perhaps that could backfire as well: redditors take karma too seriously as it is even though it currently provide no economic value whatsoever. But it would be fun to see how economic incentives modify social behavior online.

From Ned Scott's Linked in

Steemit is a social media platform where everyone gets paid for creating and curating content.