Tron takeover promises new life for Steemit
Tron founder Justin Sun has taken a majority stake in Steemit, the blockchain-based social media platform where users can get paid for creating content.
The deal, which was announced in a press release on Valentine’s Day, will pass control of Steemit away from founder Ned Scott, who has worked on the platform for the past four years.
Since blockchain mania peaked in early 2018, the number of weekly posts on the platform has been falling. But a new owner could help breathe fresh life into Steemit, says Scott.
“From launching the platform in 2016 on a shoestring budget with an idealistic team to today, I’ve enjoyed the development of the platform and the growth of its user base," said Scott in a statement. "Now I’m excited to see a strategic partner attempt to bring it to new heights.”
A tragedy of the commons?
News of the deal raised eyebrows in the Steemit community, with content creators questioning the future of articles and videos on the platform, and developers wondering what will become of apps built on the Steem blockchain.
Sun’s proposal to swap STEEM tokens to the Tron blockchain caused even more concern, with some Steemians suggesting the deal is a "tragedy of the commons," and proposing to split the Steem community in two with a blockchain fork.
Most of this discussion rallied around a post from user liberosist, who strongly criticized the decision to migrate STEEM tokens to TRON without consulting the community first.
"To align with the interests of the Steem community and keep the core value of decentralization you’ll have to cancel the swap," wrote liberosist. "Definitely build interop bridges with Tron and in the long term even integrate Steem with Tron, but please make this a gradual thing that happens over the years. Not a sudden token swap."
To help keep the community on side, Sun and Scott reversed the decision to migrate STEEM token to the TRON blockchain and shared more details of the deal in a live stream.
After a rough ride with previous Tron deals, Sun is likely hoping for a smooth purchase.
The acquisition of BitTorrent last year faced delays after hiccups with the payment being released, and in BNC’s Crypto Conversation podcast, BitTorrent founder Bram Cohen was scathing in his critique of Tron.
Finally, the development of Tron’s Poloniex investment was almost derailed by a disastrous social media scuffle with DigiByte.
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