Welcome to the fourth day of the May 30 days writing challenge. If you don't know what this challenge is about, please have a look at the introductory post. Also, at the end of each article I will post the links to all the posts in the challenge (if you're joining the challenge, I encourage you to do the same). Also, if you join, don't forget to tag your post with #challenge30days and also leave a comment with the link of your post, so I can evaluate if you're one of the 3 lucky Steemians that will get a full upvote from me.

I'm very happy with how this challenge went so far and it seems that having pre-arranged topics is working way better than just going with the flow. Before diving into today's topic, I would like to congratulate each and every one of you who joined: even if you won't see some immediate results (like higher payouts), the mere activity of writing each and every day for 30 days in a row will make you a better writer. Also, by interacting with other people for this time window, you will definitely hone some much needed social skills.

Now, let's get back to the topic of the day.

What Are The Top 5 Most Relevant Witnesses On Steemit? Why?

That's a very delicate topic, I agree. Not only because it's ultimately about personal preferences, which don't have to be explained (that's why they are personal, after all), but also because the entire concept of witnesses is very, very new and it's still developing.

But I will still try my hand at it, even if my choices may seem surprising to you.

But, before giving you my selection, please have a look at this article if you're new to Steemit and don't know what a witness is and why you should always vote for witnesses.

@jesta

I think the contribution of @jesta to this ecosystem is by far the most consistent, albeit the least popular of all. He is behind some of the most interesting spin-offs on top of the Steemit blockchain, and yet, very few people know about him. For instance, he is the creator of http://steemdb.com, the maker of the Vessel wallet (the only cross-platform stand-alone STEEM wallet that I know of, so far) and he was behind the now defunct http://chainbb.com. If you look at the witnesses list on steemd.com, you will see @jesta most of the time on the first position.

Now you know why.

@smooth.witness

I got familiar with @smooth around a year ago, when I started to frequent the steemit.chat rooms. He seemed like the most balanced voice around and one of the most knowledgeable persons in the rooms. We had a major misunderstanding a little over a year ago, but that doesn't minimize in any way his contribution to this project. Oh, and in case you don't know, @smooth is one of the biggest liquidity providers on the internal market (sometimes, when you sell on the internal market, you will see the order is filled by @smooth.team, or something like that).

I consider him relevant because he is part of the "checks and balances" that are keeping this system from tilting too dangerously.

@yabapmatt

I don't know personally @yabapmatt, but we did exchange comments quite a few times. He came across like a very knowledgeable person and also very dedicated. I consider him relevant because he fills the profile of an independent, technical savvy witness, who can always step in to solve a problem and keep his nodes up without missing nodes. It's worth noting that there are at least 5-6 witnesses in top 50 with the same profile, but, for some reason, I chose @yabapmatt as being the most relevant.

@curie

This was the first curation guild I bumped into, back when I joined Steemit. If you are a consistent author, you've been helped more than once by this curation trail and you know it. I consider this type of witness, one that can do clever and balanced curation, indispensable for this project. As you know, @curie specializes only on newcomers, helping them getting around the platform, but I can easily see specialized curation trails (think of it like a much more "human" voting bot) on various topics.

@utopian-io

This is probably one of the most recent successful projects in the Steemit ecosystem. Basically, @utopian-io rewards Open Source contributions, and does this in a very professional way, with a team of editors, well defined roles and so on and so forth. Yes, there are still a lot of things to be done in order to make Utopian a great project, but even in this stage, I consider this witness type - a consistent content-related service - very relevant to the Steemit community.

Ok, now it's your turn. Please make sure to link your post in the comments, so I can check it out.

Previous Posts In The Challenge

May 30 Days Writing Challenge - Day Four: What Are The Top 5 Most Relevant Witnesses On Steemit? Why?