There were so many discussions about who (@ned? @justinsunsteemit? The exchanges? The 'old' witnesses?) is to blame why for the serious problems STEEM is facing these days. However, today, instead of talking about the past, I am thinking about (and asking you) how to proceed in future?

Can there be a 'winner' or should we come to a compromise?

Source: pixabay.

I know that it's not really popular these days to suggest making compromises, but in my opinion accepting some seems to be the best available option.

Let me explain, why:

Currently eight of the top twenty witness ranks belong to 'old community' witnesses while the rest was implemented from Justin Sun. In this stalemate situation neither side can make any progress or changes without the agreement of at least some witnesses of the other side.
Because of Justin Sun's financial resources I guess that in the long term - if at all - it's rather him than his opponents who might 'win' that 'witness war'.
However, in case that the original witnesses created a 'new STEEM' by executing a fork, I wouldn't expect the exchanges to list it, with the result that the value of this new coin in USD would be very low (near zero).
Another problem is that the former Steemit, Inc. stake wouldn't be available anymore for funding development of the blockchain and DApps. On the other side also the left-behind 'Tron-Steem' wouldn't succeed because of its damaged reputation and loss of a big part of the community.
Concerning Justin Sun it may be true that he didn't educate himself enough about STEEM before he bought Steemit, Inc. It is also true that he/his publicity department made contradictive statements via Twitter ('token swap' or not etc.), which he didn't revoke in a really resolute way. However, I still believe that as a businessman he intends to increase the value of all his assets including Steemit, Inc., and thus it's on 'us', the community, to explain him some things (for example why a very short power down period caused serious damage and would be a huge security risk, and many more) to reach an acceptable compromise between his aims as a large stake holder and the wish of big parts of the community to maintain decentralization and freedom.

SCT chat indicates that compromises are possible!

Actually, from what I read in the SCT chat yesterday, I don't think compromises aren't possible at all.

I know that @justinsunsteemit was (and still is) talking about a very short power down timescale of one to three day(s), but I think that, since anyway the exchanges already started to power down, he agrees with a somewhat longer power down period between one and four week(s) ... and in my eyes four weeks would be an acceptable compromise.
In SCT there was the following dialogue:

@jayplayco

Ok, it is understood that 1 week or 4 weeks would be both an option for you with a preference for rather 1 week.

@Justin Sun

yes

I know he doesn't prefer that, but also @justinsunsteemit has to make any compromises if he wants to keep STEEM united.
Also concerning the downvotes I understood the Korean community in a way that they actually don't want to remove downvotes completely, but 'only' demand the requirement to explain one's downvotes.

In the mentioned chat @glory7 told me:

@jaki01 that's why SCT initially posted SPS proposal that asks when you downvote, you must state the reason (or choose the reason from pre-set selections)

In case @justinsunsteemit conforms to that, isn't there the possibility of a compromise again? Downvoting spam and plagiarism, as well as other kind of abuse would still be possible.

Apart from that, I personally would support a reduction of the number of witness votes per account which made it more difficult in future for a single party to control the whole blockchain.

What about the Steemit stake?

Finally, a compromise must also be found concerning the former Steemit, Inc. stake. It is obvious that from his point of view, @justinsunsteemit will only remove the recently implemented witnesses, if on the other side he can do with his acquired stake whatever he wants. Of course you can call for more, but it just won't work.
Maybe a compromise could be to agree, not to use it for witness voting and also support the development of STEEM with at least a part of this amount in future.
I know there would be a risk for a further decreasing STEEM price if Sun tried to sell everything on the market, but what would be his advantage from doing so? Why should he buy a lot of STEEM just to sell them for a very low price? An as high as possible STEEM price should be also on behalf of Justin Sun.

From my perspective, any kind of compromise seems to be the only realistic option to be able to proceed at all. I still see great potential in the combination of the financial means plus the promotional skills of Justin Sun and the great STEEM blockchain community.

Do you agree? And in case you don't agree, how do you see the future of STEEM, what do you suggest as the best measure(s) to solve the stalemate problem?

insiders