In the past month we've seen much more interest in Witness positions on Steemit. The top 20 Witnesses have great responsibilities to protect the network as described here so they are in positions that require a lot of trust and skill. Witnesses also need to make strategic decisions about price feeds that are important to maintain the Steem dollar peg as well as decide on a variety of other parameters and features for sustaining and growing the ecosystem. Most importantly Witnesses need to be on call for emergency situations such as hard forks and resolve issues to limit downtime when problems occur. When things are going smoothly there is probably not a lot of busywork involved, but any time there are problems Witnesses may be in for some sleepless nights. Those that have experience with similar graphene blockchains like Bitshares & Muse can probably attest to that.
Having Witnesses that understand the blockchain code and that can troubleshoot blockchain issues is critical when there are significant changes. When a new feature is implemented bugs can stall and disrupt the blockchain so those who can help resolve these issues quickly are extremely valuable. Probably a handful of Witnesses who have deep knowledge of the code are needed to help in this area.
Witness Pay and Use of Funds
Steemit witness nodes have much higher pay than other similar blockchain systems such as Bitshares or Muse. For Bitshares a witness gets paid roughly $150/month and while that may be much too low, Steemit witnesses are currently paid roughly $7,500/month in Steem power. Many witnesses are starting to use pay for other projects that support the community and ecosystem. For example half of @liondani's witness pay is going to fund SteemFest. @jesta is using funds to support GreyMass, a gaming platform project. Yet others like @cryptodrive have applied as a witness to support Billboard projects. @charlieshrem supports steempower.org and other projects. @complexring recently announced the Steemstay startup project. There are numerous other projects and proposals as well. It may be that more and more Witnesses will divert a significant portion of the pay, perhaps 20-80% to fund various projects & businesses. There are a lot of community outreach projects and businesses that could help the Steem ecosystem grow and the best way to fund them is using Witness pay. Witness pay can be a more consistent form of income for active community members compared to author rewards.
Witness Teams & Organizations
Since there are a limited number of top Witness positions and there is a good number of community members with solid server administration skills and blockchain knowledge I expect more Witnesses to team up with businesses and other community members and the role of the Witness position will expand to help fund many more Steem projects and businesses. Active community members could form teams with those running Witness nodes to fund their projects.
Furthermore beyond maintaining performant technical infrastructure, Witnesses are responsible for determining blockchain parameters and feature upgrades so they hold a lot of power over the future direction of the ecosystem. Witnesses represent the will of the stakeholders. Hence members who have businesses & community projects that have more at stake are more incentivized to be on Witness Teams to help provide insights on the direction of new features and make sure their interests are heard.
Conclusion:
So what do you think about the idea of larger Witness Teams and organizations competing to be among the top 19 Witness nodes in the network to fund community and businesses to grow the Steemit ecosystem?
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