With the debates going on between ETH and EOS and the Bitcoin hardfork drama, now seems like a good time to think about how well Steemit's Delegated Proof of Stake governance system works as far as user participation.
@eeks asked an interesting question earlier today:
What % of Steem holders, by number, have ever voted for a witness?
I had to find an answer.
If you're not sure what a witness vote is, or why it's important, please see this post from a couple months ago: Steemit is Free, But Your Witness Vote Determines its Future.
I couldn't wait to finish work today, read to the kids, and get them in bed so I could start hacking on this question. I decided to only include accounts which have been active (meaning they published at least one comment or post). I'm also just looking at witness votes as of today, not taking into account if someone once voted for a witness but isn't anymore.
Based on the code I came up with to analyze the blockchain, here are the answers I got:
Inactive Accounts: 178,339
Active Accounts with a Voting Proxy: 652
Active Accounts with at Least One Witness Vote: 7,233
Active Accounts with No Witness Votes: 105,076
So there you have it. Out of over 100k active accounts, only around 8k are currently voting for a witness.
We Have 7.5% Witness Voting Engagement.
That's how much participation this governance system of DPOS truly has as of today, July 31st, 2017. I think it could be be better, but I also think it's the best system for blockchain governance yet created. You can't vote out a massive POW mining farm, but here we can vote out witnesses. I just put this code together this afternoon, so it's possible I messed something up. If you see something wrong or you'd like to see the code, please let me know in the comments.
Have You Voted for a Witness?
If you haven't voted yet, please consider setting @lukestokes as your proxy voter. Otherwise, go vote for some Steemit Witnesses you've interacted with and respect to do what's in the best interest of the network. I hope that includes my witness, @lukestokes.mhth.
Also, as an added bonus, here are the top 100 accounts by VESTed shares who are currently not voting for any witnesses and don't have a proxy set. If you know any of them, maybe ask nicely if they might consider sending a vote my way. :)
I've excluded 12 accounts that I think belong to Steemit employees. Seems to me it's a good thing for them not to be involved in the governance decisions of the Steem blockchain considering they control the Steemit account.
| Account | Vests | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | ranchorelaxo | 2673733493 |
| 2 | proskynneo | 2373715060 |
| 3 | recursive | 825386926 |
| 4 | newsflash | 727275397 |
| 5 | creator | 476774626 |
| 6 | skan | 434185626 |
| 7 | livingfree | 364402390 |
| 8 | virus707 | 272160060 |
| 9 | sigizzang | 257347550 |
| 10 | damarth | 236011480 |
| 11 | extrospect | 227949287 |
| 12 | otisbrown | 224641357 |
| 13 | ctrl-alt-nwo | 217232009 |
| 14 | modprobe | 216413276 |
| 15 | famunger | 209530527 |
| 16 | trevonjb | 203764309 |
| 17 | bayrene | 187111227 |
| 18 | faddy | 180946157 |
| 19 | cylonmaker2053 | 178188460 |
| 20 | surfyogi | 169154402 |
| 21 | topinvestor2021 | 158887912 |
| 22 | ramires | 158217200 |
| 23 | bramd | 155944655 |
| 24 | wans | 140185396 |
| 25 | toxic | 135771556 |
| 26 | dimimp | 130551482 |
| 27 | urbanoid | 125276495 |
| 28 | musicholic | 120968261 |
| 29 | enable | 115506130 |
| 30 | sandrino | 109995641 |
| 31 | candyman | 108080835 |
| 32 | peacephilpanda | 106190123 |
| 33 | greatpath | 100705804 |
| 34 | crypto-p | 99407451 |
| 35 | underdog600 | 98915172 |
| 36 | zurvanic | 98820346 |
| 37 | noaommerrr | 97887374 |
| 38 | joeyd | 96498688 |
| 39 | mrwalt | 95212368 |
| 40 | rhanna10km | 94348959 |
| 41 | eric818 | 94086523 |
| 42 | steemitblog | 93540695 |
| 43 | speda | 90728353 |
| 44 | sjmstem | 89079944 |
| 45 | skt | 84622347 |
| 46 | kimjungmin | 83171375 |
| 47 | timotirado | 80585337 |
| 48 | kb720k | 78468205 |
| 49 | alex | 75824112 |
| 50 | leon-fu | 73410353 |
| 51 | somebody | 69973768 |
| 52 | randomthoughts | 68367812 |
| 53 | hedge-x | 68211433 |
| 54 | mynewsteemit | 67980659 |
| 55 | ugos | 67445779 |
| 56 | spectral | 64254506 |
| 57 | triplej | 63296570 |
| 58 | originate | 62083308 |
| 59 | sizzlingmonkeys | 62008917 |
| 60 | theoretical | 61258065 |
| 61 | cornerstone | 58810529 |
| 62 | cjh | 58621087 |
| 63 | joele | 58384109 |
| 64 | wmougayar | 55544517 |
| 65 | ramblin-bob | 55415633 |
| 66 | davidp | 54406609 |
| 67 | a48 | 53893030 |
| 68 | benhoneywell | 53846674 |
| 69 | megaspore | 53320915 |
| 70 | jacobcards | 52763377 |
| 71 | kwak | 52668771 |
| 72 | steemydino | 52311525 |
| 73 | danlupi | 51918013 |
| 74 | awgbibb | 51830993 |
| 75 | libertyteeth | 51822920 |
| 76 | creadordelfuturo | 50408528 |
| 77 | xiaohui | 48138183 |
| 78 | dana-edwards | 46686840 |
| 79 | neilstrauss | 46301182 |
| 80 | grognak | 45315199 |
| 81 | morten | 44576706 |
| 82 | joeblack1 | 44220634 |
| 83 | alexbeyman | 43112913 |
| 84 | domino | 42928395 |
| 85 | bitacer | 41605383 |
| 86 | goldmatters | 41550124 |
| 87 | corbettreport | 41211236 |
| 88 | mining4bacon | 41046950 |
| 89 | felix.mg1 | 40927773 |
| 90 | clarkgold | 40915894 |
| 91 | doudou252666 | 40258372 |
| 92 | sword | 40097159 |
| 93 | bleepcoin | 39800446 |
| 94 | sephiroth | 39683922 |
| 95 | rl90 | 39479421 |
| 96 | kurtcorthout | 39464479 |
| 97 | samu-paha | 39274707 |
| 98 | margarita-chavez | 38608602 |
| 99 | katecloud | 37978769 |
| 100 | abuzarkalam | 37964202 |
If people find this useful, I may make it a regular weekly or monthly report to remind everyone to vote for witnesses and further distribute the governance process here on Steemit. Let me know what you think in the comments.
