I've been powering down, but for purely tactical reasons. I'm fully committed to this fight with my time and my SP. So are the vast majority of the real witnesses as well, in my opinion.
While I wish that our supporters could extend more trust to us, and give us the benefit of the doubt that we are working for them and not against them, I know that crypto is a place of vast distrust (often deserved in many cryptocurrencies). So at this point, I will stop my powerdown, which is undoubtedly the largest powerdown of any of the witnesses, maybe even all of them combined.
Please take this as a sign of good faith, and stop unvoting witnesses based on their powerdowns. Showing disunity of purpose at this time is incredibly dangerous to the fight we are in. As long as we remain unified, we will win this fight. It is only by dividing us that Justin Sun has a chance.
A good reason to power down to liquid Steem right now (especially someone as big as @blocktrades and considering what they do for the Steem Community) would be to create tactical pressure on the delinquent exchanges who aided Justin Sun in highjacking (temporarily) the Steem Blockchain.
I can see that having liquid Steem could become very useful in countering certain activities on certain exchanges... it could also be an excellent way to level up on Steem holdings if arbitrage were the goal. This would mean more access to the ability to purchase Steem from the @blocktrades service for all of us.
Trust, right now, is an invaluable resource... and it’s in short supply right now... but I undoubtedly trust @blocktrades intentions. The integrity they have demonstrated and the services they have provided me over the last year prompted to to vote them as a witness.
Posted using Partiko iOS
I see that @blocktrades is NOT powering down.... they get my 100% vote.
Awesome! I think that @blocktrades (and many other witness's) deserve our votes/trust.
As for off Blockchain requirements for liquid Steem... Here's an article I read
(it's trending right now) after I wrote my comment to you. It confirms my suspicions as to Justin Sun's under current actions:
https://staging.busy.org/@mindtrap/review-your-witness-votes-now-remove-your-votes-from-the-following-witnesses-who-have-shut-down-their-servers-and-help-steem
It's all about how Justin Sun is buying up our Steem Assets on Bittrex. It's another solid reason we need the community to STOP selling ALL Steem and begin powering up ourselves.
This is all about buy in. If Justin Sun see's the advantage in buying Steem and powering it up for his purposes... Then this Blockchain truly does have real world value and we should all do the same in order to foil his agenda of centralization.
The power truly is in our hands...
https://steemd.com/tx/263bc648f0c8bab3df6253bf160b802054229e67
You get my 100% Vote. You are Also one of the few Witnesses that has ever given me an upvote.
You get my 100% Vote. You're one of the few politicians that has ever given me a kickback.
Thanks for telling us your intentions. I have faith in our real Witnesses. You do a great job! Thanks for being so comitted to the Steem Community!