Steem - Get to Know the Witnesses (Part 1)
Witnesses secure the Steem Blockchain. It's an important role and each and every account holder gets 30 Witness votes. These votes elect the Witnesses that get trusted with the job.
Image pixabay.com
I have realised I am not using my 30 votes so over the next few days I will perform some analysis of the existing Witnesses to help me decide on who to vote for.
I welcome some discussion during this process and I hope it raises awareness of who we are electing to manage the Steem Blockchain.
There may be different philosophical reasons in the community for choosing witnesses and this analysis (and my choices) are not intended to judge right or wrong but I wish to inform the community what the different witnesses have written about, what they stand for and how active they are in the community.
Furthermore this discussion is not intended to be technical in nature but will instead look at some Graphics and Stats to help us get to know our witnesses, especially the top 20.
Why do we need to vote for witnesses?
...
DelegatedProofOfStake (DPOS)
Steem is a Blockchain, a type of database that stores information. This information is added to the database by Witnesses. Other Blockchains (like Bitcoin) add information in a slightly different way, instead of trusting a group of people to add blocks, miners add blocks by winning a race to be the first to solve a complex math problem.
Voting
You can vote for up to 30 witnesses in two ways:
- Individual voting
You set up to 30 votes in your account, your votes remains voting for that until you change it - Proxy voting
You set your account to follow the votes of another account
Some Stats
A list of the top 100 witnesses is available at https://steemd.com/witnesses. Top here refers to the ones with the most votes.
The following graphs shows the top 100 Witnesses with their order across the bottom, and the duration since their witness account was created on the y axis.
- The shaded region on the left shows the top 20 Witnesses. These participate in every round of block production along with one backup witness drawn from the rest.
- Witnesses are ranked by stake weighted vote from the community.
There are two interesting groups emerging. The first group is the top left of the picture make up 18 of the top 20 witnesses. The group on the bottom right make up the group of new witnesses.
How close is the race?
The next graph shows the approval for each of the top 100 witnesses.
Join me tomorrow as I continue my analysis...
Individual Profiles
If you can't wait @JerryBanfield provided a great resource a few months back where he profiled the top 20 witnesses at the time.
- https://steemit.com/witness/@jerrybanfield/meet-steem-s-top-10-witnesses
- https://steemit.com/witness-category/@jerrybanfield/meet-steem-s-top-20-witnesses
Thank you for reading this. I write on Steemit about Blockchain, Cryptocurrency and Travel.
Do you agree with top 20 witnesses stays same most of the time even though there are idle witnesses for like months?
For me, as guardians of the Steem Blockchain, witnesses should be active at some level, or bring something to the table.
What is clear from the first graph in this post is the majority of the top 20 gatekeepers at the moment all started out in the early days of Steem, which says to me they are likely all very technical. That is vital for running software such as a witness node but as Steem grows (maybe already) I would suggest we will benefit with a mix of skill sets deciding on the future of the platform. e.g. experts in economics, finance, marketing, governance, policy, ...
Some of these fields are established fields (with issues) but that doesn't mean we can't learn from them and debate the best parts.
In response to your question I would like to note that I am pleasantly surprised that the top 20 witnesses looks quite different than the last time I looked, which was some time ago. That being said I would like to see more competition among the witnesses for votes and more awareness in the community about how important it is to vote.
Thank you for bringing the imperative of witness voting to the fore. I had done a lot of works in the past that is directed at raising witness voting engagement rate of the community, especially among the new members, and currently host witness voting as well as education based contest. Steem blockchain cannot function effectively without witnesses. That's the gist.
Thanks for sharing this
@eurogee of @euronation community & The Host, Show Us Your Witnesses Weekly Contest
I'll check it out thanks.
Really agree, very meaningful
the issues I do not understand very much, I try to learn something from your analysis.
tomorrow will follow this konuyu .. thanks :)
Cool thanks I hope it's useful to you.
your wishes are very good, wish you success in all things and achieved what you want my friend really liked your post.
Is there a reason why the number is limited to 20? Is it more vulnerable to 51% attack?
It's difficult to compare DPOS to Proof of Work consensus.
I am no expert and I believe there are alternative views on this point.
If ever I have to vote, I'll vote for you :D
Your posts are informative and I pass on them to those who have been waiting on the sidelines since long to Join steemit.
Wow thanks so much. I would love to be a witness one day.
@eroche Why “one day”, and not right now? Thanks for sharing the detail of voting power and its importance of selecting the right witnesses to support our community grow. I think I read somewhere that only 5% of active members have casted their votes. There is vast opportunity for new witnesses to enter and captured this untapped voting pool. The majority of the population are newbies (myself included) and they need leadership, guidance, and support. As long as the witness is genuine and truly wants to help the Steemit commmunity grow, there is potential success to become a witness and rise on the list. I would vote for you when you run. Keep up the good work.
Let alone for 30 votes .. every post I can only 15 votes with a value of $ 0.15
@eroche
I didn't realise I had 30 votes. I'll look forward to hearing how to use them and your assessment of the witnesses. :)
Hi! Thanks for the great info! I’m teaching myself how to use this platform, your blog looks incredibly helpful! 🧠