Following weeks of conflict between the Steem (STEEM) community and Justin Sun, the community-led Hive hard fork was successful. On March 20, Hive hard forked the Steem network, airdropping HIVE tokens to STEEM holders 1:1, excluding the founder’s reward. The founder’s reward comprises 20% of the total STEEM supply. The tokens were acquired by Tron’s founder, Justin Sun, when he purchased Steemit Inc — the largest front-end interface for the decentralized blogging platform — on Feb. 14. A quick search through Twitter shows that many content creators are already posting on Hive. Steempeak rebrands to Peakd Many of the Hive …

In the latest development in the Steem (STEEM) saga, Justin Sun has come under fire for censoring posts on the platform related to the community-driven ‘Hive’ hard fork. On March 19, cryptocurrency influencer Girl Gone Crypto Tweeted a clip to say that her “neutral explainer video” about the March 20 fork had been removed from the Steemit platform: “I made a really neutral explainer video just kind of walking through the announcement, and what’s happening, and what people can expect, and that post was just removed from Steemit.com. What’s really ironic about this is that centralization issues and censorship concerns …

Crypto exchanges have become the most powerful stakeholders in the crypto ecosystem. Currently, just 12 crypto exchanges hold around 2.5 million Bitcoin (BTC) in their wallets, worth around $15 billion. That’s 13.8% of all Bitcoin mined to date — or, 16%–17% of all Bitcoin in circulation, considering lost Bitcoin (as of March 19). Exchanges are also some of the largest holders of altcoins, which recently led to a controversy when some of the biggest crypto exchanges used large stockpiles of Steem tokens to take over Steemit. Just like Steem, Tron’s consensus is also delegated proof-of-stake, and its biggest representative is …

Major cryptocurrency exchanges Binance and Huobi have announced support for the Steem (STEEM) community’s hard fork to create the new Hive network. On March 18, Binance and Huobi published announcements revealing their support for the Steem hard fork that is scheduled for March 20. The decisions appear to quash allegations from earlier in the month that the exchanges were coordinating with Justin Sun in his apparent attempted takeover of the Steem network. Binance and Huobi support Hive hard fork Both exchanges will take snapshots of STEEM account balances at 2 PM UTC, and both exchanges will suspend STEEM deposits and …

The Steem (STEEM) community announced its intention to create a new platform in the wake of the controversy with Justin Sun. According to a blog post published on March 18, the new platform, named Hive, will launch on March 20. The new platform will initially be launched as an exact code fork of the Steem blockchain, but it will not directly copy the current blockchain’s state. Steem users will receive their balances through a 1:1 airdrop taken from a snapshot of the blockchain at 10 AM EST on March 20. There is a major caveat, however, as the airdrop will …

Over the last few days, the centralization versus decentralization row has erupted in earnest. In case you missed it, the activities of Tron founder Justin Sun following his takeover of blogging site Steemit have been pivotal to the controversies. Let’s briefly recap. Earlier in February, it emerged that Sun was further expanding his crypto-empire with the acquisition of Steemit, which runs on the Steem blockchain. Steem was developed by Daniel Larimer, who also introduced the delegated proof-of-stake governance model, or dPoS, to the blockchain sphere. Larimer later went on to build EOS, which also runs on dPoS. Related: Steemit Managing …

So, how high is Bitcoin about to go? Analyst Willy Woo thinks it’s going to hit $135,000. It’s a “common-sense prediction” he told RT’s Keiser Report. Tim Draper is betting even higher. The venture capitalist has moved his money out of the stock market (too “frothy”) and put it into Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies (a “safe haven.”) He expects BTC to reach $250,000 in 2022 or the start of 2023. It’s no wonder that so many Bitcoin whales continue to hodl. According to one study, only 41.6 percent of BTC supply moved over the last twelve months. Some 42 percent …

Binance CEO Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao is distancing himself from Tron founder Justin Sun over what has been described by some as a ‘hostile takeover’ of the Steem blockchain. Sun claimed that these reports were “misleading” and that “We wanted to protect the sanctity of private property & the interests of all from malicious hackers.” Allegations that the two founders colluded created a social media frenzy in which both Sun and Zhao were repeatedly accused of putting their own interests ahead of their users’. What happened with Binance, Justin Sun and Steem? Justin Sun’s Tron Foundation acquired the Steemit platform in …

The scandal surrounding the Steem blockchain continues to unfold. After juggernaut exchanges Binance, Huobi and Poloniex were heavily criticized by community members for allegedly mobilizing customer deposits to take over the network, two of those firms announced they were backing off. Meanwhile, Tron CEO Justin Sun, who has recently acquired Steemit — the startup behind the major blockchain-based blogging and social networking platform — has referred to the disgruntled voters who tried to reclaim control as “hackers” who have been “successfully defeated.” However, as the latest developments show, Sun intends to withdraw all of the orchestrated votes “ASAP,” while the …

The Steem blockchain reportedly experienced a troubling episode recently, whereby the blockchain’s entire governance system was disturbed. Tron founder Justin Sun, new owner of the Steemit social network based on the Steem token, appears to have successfully executed a takeover of Steem by leveraging not only tokens directly controlled, but also tokens held on several major exchanges, in order to vote out the previous delegates (Steem uses a delegated proof-of-stake system) and install new ones. This means that customers of these exchanges likely had their funds used without their consent in this blockchain power struggle. While it was an unfortunate …

Four former witnesses have been voted back onto the council of 20 nodes that underpin the Steem blockchain. Their reinstitution follows the withdrawal of votes from major exchanges Binance and Huobi in support of what has been described in an attempted takeover of the network. In a statement issued by Huobi on March 3, the exchange admitted that it had mobilized its customers’ STEEM holdings to vote in favor of ousting the blockchain’s previous validators in favor of Tron founder and recent purchaser of Steemit Inc, Justin Sun: “From time to time, Huobi stakes user holdings to help block malicious …

On March 3, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao announced that the exchange had removed its votes that contributed to a sudden shift of control over the Steem blockchain. Earlier today, leading exchanges Binance, Huobi, and Poloniex came under fire for allegedly mobilizing customer deposits to vote in what has been described as a hostile takeover of popular crypto blogging platform Steemit. Steemit’s native blockchain Steem uses a proof-of-stake protocol — where a small number of “witnesses” are voted on to secure its network. Votes are allocated according to the number of tokens that an individual holds in their wallet. Steem’s witnesses …