STEEM Hard Fork, Hive, Launches Successfully; Is The Battle With Justin Sun Over?

The Hive is here, no, not Beyoncé’s fans but the new Steem blockchain hard fork.

On March 20, 2020 at 5 PM EAT, the long awaited for hard fork of the STEEM blockchain launched setting a new precedence across delegated proof of stake (DPoS) networks. The fork is specifically aiming at withdrawing Justin Sun’s control over the blockchain and developing new governance controls on the system. As expected, TRON’s and Justin Sun’s biggest competitor, Vitalik Buterin, founder of Ethereum weighed in on the “Battle for STEEM”.

Hive.io hard fork completed successfully

The Sun vs STEEM community beef has long been brewing since the TRON Foundation CEO purchased Steemit Inc., the largest decentralized app on STEEM. During the purchase, Sun acquired close to 20% of the total STEEM tokens, dubbed the “ninja-minted stake” raising concerns across the community.

In a bid to ‘protect’ the blockchain – presumably from Sun’s control – the community initiated a soft fork to which Sun responded by teaming up with top exchanges (Binance, Huobi and self-owned Poloniex) to stop the vote. The former exchanges have since apologized for using their customers’ funds in the vote and withdrawn them.

This saw both sides reach an impasse which prompted one of the top witnesses (like miners on bitcoin), Blocktrades, to initiate a hard fork – which by the time this article is published will be completed.

Vitalik offers support for the hard fork

One of the biggest supporters of the current ongoing hardfork is none other than Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum’s co-founder and a constant nemesis to Justin Sun. In a tweet on Thusday, Vitalik showed his support for the Hive blockchain calling the move a “potential positive watershed moment in the history of blockchain.”

This seems like a potential positive watershed moment in the history of blockchain governance. If Hive (the fork) overtakes Steem it would be a strong demonstration that the community is in charge and cannot be bought.

See also: https://t.co/v2KaORlcp2

/me watches closely https://t.co/eXwHajKJrg

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) March 19, 2020

Justin sun was quick to respond to Vitalik on his comments comparing the current HIVE – STEEM hard fork to Ethereum’s hard fork with Ethereum Classic. In a banter tweet Justin wrote,

“I am watching closely if @eth_classic overtakes @ethereum it would be a strong demonstration that decentralization and immutable quality of the blockchain really matters. ?”

Is the battle with Justin over?

Despite the hard fork, it seems the battle for supremacy for STEEM control is just taking off as the community remains split in two. While a number of community members moved to the new fork, including the second largest dApp on STEEM, Steampeak.

However, there remains parts of the community who view the current happenings on STEEM as a “move to violate the private sanctity of personal property.” Micah Zolta, one in the opposition of the hard fork, stated,

“While I certainly don’t agree with everything Justin Sun does, this idea that “well, we’ll just use this mechanism to take money away from bad guys” is exactly how civil forfeiture started and now it is a tool of existing governance systems used for robbing people.”

As the battle heats on, Coingape will be on hand to follow through one of the most exciting governance battles on blockchain this year.