Blocktrades is one of our more mysterious witnesses, at least in terms of his on-platform behavior, and the information you get depends on who you ask.
Blocktrades is a “market-making” website founded in 2015 by Dan Notestein. Effectively, it is an exchange that you can send one cryptocurrency to, and receive an instantaneous (network speed permitting) output of another cryptocurrency for a small fee. Think of it as a digital currency exchanger where you don’t have to hold a balance to exchange.
The most well-known community function of Blocktrades is for buying Steem. Blocktrades serves as probably the most user-friendly way to buy Steem directly - all you need is the ability to send one of the supported currencies, like Bitcoin, Litecoin or Etheruem. I have personally used the service numerous times and it’s a great option for purchasing Steem if you wish to bypass an exchange.
Though there is a “fee” (or exchange arbitrage) for changing via Blocktrades, I found that it was very fair. The discount achievable doing your own arbitrage by registering and verifying at an exchange like Bittrex (or, God help you, Poloniex), setting orders to catch a dip, than transferring out is not that large. Add in the risk of losing your Bitcoin or Steem from exchange hack or fat fingering a transfer somewhere (a particular risk for the less tech savvy,) and Blocktrades starts to look like the best value proposition for a lot of Steemians.
Because, at the end of the day, it's by far the fastest and easiest option at present. Given the importance of "fiat" on- and off-ramps to Steemit, and the quality of the Blocktrades' service, they have secured my witness vote.
Blocktrades has been involved in a wide variety of market-making activities in the past, including the brokering of accounts with large mined stakes. The community did not have any issues with this, and the appropriate public declarations were made. It is somewhat of a non-story, but it is included for the sake of completeness.
According to a witness and member of SteemCleaners, “Blocktrades does not care about abuse.” Given that they did not elaborate in their comment, it is tough to draw any conclusions. Of course, what constitutes abuse is within the eye of the beholder to a great extent. I was unable to find any examples of Blocktrades supporting abuse, or commenting on it. Aside from a single comment on a post, I could not back up the statement I quoted above. In fact, Blocktrades’ comment history is mostly full of answers to security and technical help questions.
On the other hand, Blocktrades has advocated for the ability to change votes in the past, rather than the default behavior where changed voting power is simply lost with no clear indication of such in the UI. Blocktrades may simply prefer not to waste voting power, rather than remove it when it is misplaced.
Blocktrades’ voting standards and motivations remain a mystery to the unconnected observer, which in this particular case, includes yours truly. According to a comment by Blocktrades, “I don't directly do much voting, it's handled by another person on our team. Otherwise we would get buried by voting requests I guess :-)”
I can say for certain that I have generously been the recipient of a Blocktrades vote, and it is very large (over $60 on a previous witness post!) Regardless of the motivations, I can only say thank you to Blocktrades and hope that I continue to maintain the quality that warrants such a generous vote!
Blocktrades holds a massive 3.65 Million SP and is NOT powering down, demonstrating substantial faith in Steemit long-term. Blocktrades is one of the largest holders of Steem, overall, and at present has one of the largest upvotes of any account at over $300!
Blocktrades’ Current Witness Update: @blocktrades/witness-report-for-blocktrades-for-last-week-of-august
Blocktrades Steem Support: @blocktrades/-blocktrades-adds-support-for-directly-buyingselling-steem
Blocktrades Exchange Service: https://blocktrades.us/
Vote-Changing: @blocktrades/is-vote-changing-an-important-feature-for-steem
Steem Account Sales (Old): @blocktrades/limited-time-sale-high-steem-power-accounts-for-serious-investors-only
Please see the acknowledgement post here.
If you have any additions or errata for this post, please let me know! I will see that they are voted to the top of the comments, and will make the appropriate edits (if possible).
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...and a 4800+ user Discord Chat Server! (click me)
Sources: @Blocktrades
Copyright: @Blocktrades, Geico