Makes a lot of sense, I think. While it seems obvious at first, I'm a little confused about the request for the money, however.
Given that it's an open-source project, where blocktrades stands to benefit greatly from the improvement (both through, hopefully increased steem value, and reduced overhead costs) and is currently already a Top20 witness with a responsibility to maintain or otherwise assist in upgrading the blockchain-- I feel like the appropriate steps would be to gauge sentiment, and then proceed forward regardless of Steemit being onboard or not.
Wouldn't blocktrades benefit from the reduced overhead costs as well? Doesn't blocktrades already benefit substantially by being one of the go-to "Third Party Exchances" linked to directly on Steemit? I seem to recall discussion from numerous parties about how developing the blockchain SHOULD be a core requirement of a witness.
Don't get me wrong -- I think this should almost certainly be the path forward.