Meet Steem's Top 10 Witnesses!

Witnesses create the Steem blockchain and our witness votes decide who gets to produce each block at https://steemit.com/~witnesses. Every 3 seconds, we are trusting a witness to produce the next block with all the transactions. The top 20 witnesses each produce one block every 63 seconds worth 0.18 Steem Power per block in earnings. The top 100 witnesses from 21 to 100 rotate to produce 1 block every 63 seconds ranging from every few minutes at rank 21 to once every day or two at rank 90 in exchange for 0.8 Steem Power per block.

Questions
Which witnesses should we vote for? How do we get to know existing witnesses better? What are the top 50 witnesses contributing in addition to maintaining the witness servers? Where is a more in depth list where we can easily get to know the witnesses in addition to https://steemd.com/witnesses and https://steemdb.com/witnesses? I hope this post and the matching video starts to answer these questions! While this post will look at the top 10 witnesses, future posts will go at least through the top 50 witnesses with 10 done at a time!

Thank you very much to @lexiconical for doing the research to make this post possible! Almost all of the text in the "Meet Steem's Top 10 Witnesses!" section of this post is directly from @lexiconical's research and is his writing. The text before and after this section along with the video is my contribution. We decided to do this after I had the idea and asked if he would help with the research. I am giving @lexiconical all the SBD from this post in exchange for his contribution which saved me hours of research and allowed me to directly present it here in this post as well as in the matching video! Note that because of voting adjustments in the last three hours of me editing this post, all of the ranks are slightly off in my post compared to actual rankings. Our posts going forward will account for this by not making any duplicate reports.

Meet Steem's Top 10 Witnesses!
Option 1: 38 minute in depth YouTube video!

Option 2: ~ 10 minute read in this post!

1 - @gtg
Gtg, or “Gandalf The Grey”, has risen from the ranks of humble stand-by witnesses, to become the current top witness. His expertise in IT security makes him a reliable seed for the #1 witness spot.

He has been involved both in improving the Steemit website’s securities via programming, and helping to educate others on network and witness security via his blog. He composed one of the earliest Steemit guides on witness node security and protection from DDOS attacks:

Much of his time remains devoted to helping users with security, as his transfer history quickly shows with messages like this: “You have leaked your private owner/active key to the public putting your account at risk. Your active key was changed to prevent further damage, however your owner key was changed already. “

In the past, Gandalf has given out delegations to new users for free to help increase minnow engagement on the platform. He has been around most of Steemit’s life, and continued to blog during periods when his witness updates produced as much as $988 and as little as 41 cents.

Gandalf helped to secure a 10% airfaire discount for all the users planning a trip to Steemfest.

Gandalf holds 154,000 SP and is not powering down.

Gtg’s Current Witness Update:https://steemit.com/witness-category/@gtg/4addfq-gtg-witness-log
Gtg’s Original Witness Thread: https://steemit.com/witness-category/@gtg/witness-gtg
Gtg’s Witness Security Thread: https://steemit.com/witness-category/@gtg/heavy-duty-witness-node-infrastructure

2 - @jesta
Jesta is a talented developer on the Graphene blockchain (Steem/Steemit).

Jesta is the developer behind some of Steemit’s favorite tools, including the popular ChainBB (the interface for viewing Steem more like a forum) and the ubiquitous tool Steemdb. He has also contributed a number of experimental scripts and other projects, such as a Steempython based “fake-smart contract” script that allows for ICO-like events on the Steemit blockchain.

Jesta is also responsible for the phenomenal and cleverly-named desktop wallet for Steem, Vessel. Vessel can import private keys, encrypt passwords, claim rewards, send to any account or exchange, manage power downs and set witness proxies. Vessel also allows you to easily view and manage current active delegations via GUI, a function that to my knowledge does not exist elsewhere.

Jesta is also a witness on the Peerplays project, to which he ported his database tool and called it Peerplaysdb.

Jesta holds 30,000 SP, and is powering down.

Jesta’s Current Witness Update: https://steemit.com/witness-category/@jesta/jesta-witness-update-march-through-may
Jesta’s Original Witness Thread: https://steemit.com/witness-category/@jesta/witness-thread-jesta
ChainBB FAQ: https://steemit.com/chainbb/@jesta/chainbb-frequently-asked-questions-faq
Steem DB Apps: https://steemit.com/steem-project/@jesta/steemdb-profiles-for-appsplatforms
Peerplays Witness Thread: https://steemit.com/peerplays-witness-update/@jesta/peerplays-blockchain-launched-and-throwing-my-hat-in-to-the-witness-list
“ICO” Experimental Script: https://steemit.com/steem-dev/@jesta/an-experimental-script-for-running-ico-like-events-on-steem

3 - @timcliff
Timcliff is an active developer on the Steemit platform, doing a lot of behind-the-scenes work to help keep Steemit’s code accurate and updated. He has helped update the vote-slider code to account for delegated SP, updated the Blocktrades “Buy” link to fill in the currently logged in Steemit’s user’s account, and has also created code to reduce the vote-slider threshold to 125 SP (though the community has not yet implemented it.)

Timcliff is also active in keeping the Steemit documentation up to date, which helps to make onboarding new users as friendly as possible. He has rewritten the general Steemit FAQ, the cover image FAQ, and the Steemit welcome page.

Timcliff posts the “Reports from the Witnesses” series, wherein he amalgamates weekly updates from all of the witnesses (even beyond rank #100) who submit them. This serves as a great weekly digest for witness updates, particularly for those witnesses with less visibility looking to climb up the ranks. New witnesses should consider submitting weekly updates to this series.

Timcliff holds 38,000 SP and is currently powering down.

Timcliff’s Current Witness Update: https://steemit.com/witness-category/@timcliff/the-reports-from-the-witnesses-2017-08-27
Timcliff’s Original Witness Thread: https://steemit.com/witness-category/@timcliff/timcliff-s-updated-witness-application
Most Recent “Reports from the Witnesses”: https://steemit.com/witness-category/@timcliff/the-reports-from-the-witnesses-2017-08-27

4 - @Good-karma
Good-karma is the highly talented developer behind some of Steemit’s most critical supplementary tools. The most important of these is probably Esteem, the mobile (Android/iPhone) and desktop app through which many regular users interact with Steemit daily. Without his unceasing efforts, Steemit would not have a robust mobile app offering which, in this day and age, would be practically suicidal for an aspiring social media platform.

Esteem is bringing a lot of features to the mobile Steemit experience that even the web interface has to get from outside locations, such as Steemdb. In the most recent update, Good-karma announced the activity manager which will not only add Facebook-like timeline features to the Esteem app, but will also “game-ify” engagement by rewarding the most active users on the mobile platform!

Good-karma has also developed the SteemPoll, SteemMonitor, and Steemfest apps.

Good-karma is a Peerplays witness, and a stand-by witness for Bitshares at #57.

Good-karma holds 108,000 SP and is powering down.

Good-karma’s Current Witness Update: https://steemit.com/witness-category/@good-karma/good-karma-witness-update-25th-august-2017-fda4af0e46c47
Good-karma’s Original Witness Thread: N/A
Esteem Most Recent Update: https://steemit.com/esteem/@good-karma/esteem-activity-manager-upcoming-491f172c2b667

5 - @RoelandP
RoelandP’s best-known contribution to the Steemit platform is probably the original Steemfest, which took place in Amsterdam in 2016. After 3 months of organization, the original Steemfest managed to draw 206 attendees from 31 nationalities across the world.

A talented event organizer, RoelandP made sure all the details of the original Steemfest were in order. This included everything from uploading media like photos and videos, organized livestream sessions, and managing payouts from the travel reimbursement fund to defray attendee travel costs.

RoelandP is also the creator and maintainer of the Steem Appcenter, a thorough repository linking to 150 supplemental apps that run on the Steem blockchain.

A regular promoter of Steemit and the Steem blockchain, RoelandP has even given a presentation on the merits of Steem at the Oracle corporate headquarters in Amsterdam!

RoelandP has made good on his promise 11 months ago to “Bring future Steemfests across the world“, as Steemfest #2 in Lisbon looks to be an amazing 5-day event. I am truly jealous I won’t get to attend!

RoelandP is a full Bitshare witness, #13. His node has a shockingly low missed block rate of only 14, which is less than 3% as high as the second best witness in the top #23, (openledger-dc).

RoelandP holds 185,000 SP and is powering down.

RoelandP’s Current Witness Update: https://steemit.com/witness-category/@roelandp/6trgaz-witness-update-roelandp
RoelandP’s Original Witness Thread: https://steemit.com/witness-category/@roelandp/witness-roelandp
SteemFest #2 Website: https://steemfest.com/
Steemtools: http://steemtools.com/
Bitshares Witness Stats: https://cryptofresh.com/witnesses?r=roelandp
RoelandP’s Oracle Thread: https://steemit.com/steemit/@roelandp/recap-my-steem-presentation-at-oracle-yes-the-database-company-p-for-the-dutch-telecom-society-group
Steemfest #1 Post-Thread: https://steemit.com/steemfest/@roelandp/thanks-you-thank-you-thank-you-thank-you-thank-you

6 - @Pfunk
Pfunk is one of the oldest users on Steemit, and as he notes in his original witness post, he acquired much of his stake via mining.

Much of Pfunk’s efforts on the Steemit platform revolve around fighting abuse. Pfunk donates weekly to the Steemcleaners initiative. Pfunk is also active in curating and curbing abuse directly, via the abuse channels in Steemit chat and flagging directly. He is a fixture of the Steemit.chat channels.

Pfunk is a sponsor of the Steemit Open Mic initiative, which aims to recognize musicians on Steemit and support them with rewards. Pfunk also likes to post photography and has used Steemit rewards on camera equipment in the past.

Pfunk is also a Peerplays witness.

Pfunk holds 35,000 SP and is NOT powering down.

Pfunk’s Current Witness Thread: https://steemit.com/witness-category/@pfunk/pfunk-hf17-18-witness-update
Pfunk’s Original Witness Thread: https://steemit.com/witness-category/@pfunk/pfunk-s-witness-post
Open Mic: https://steemit.com/openmic/@pfunk/hey-did-you-know-there-s-a-weekly-steem-open-mic-contest

7 - @Pharesim
Pharesim is a developer, mostly in web-related languages such as “PHP and JS, but also Python, Java and Go.” He has also developed piston scripts for witness usages and voting bot scripts on Steemit.

Pharesim’s highest profile project is SteemDice, which is operated under @steemdice1. Steemdice is a “provably fair”, simple dice rolling game that allows you to gamble Steem or SBD with a narrow house edge.

Pharesim is one of the key developers begins the PEVO project, which he describes as: “a decentralized long-term digital archive for scholarly publishing.“

Pharesim holds 576,000 SP and is currently powering down.

Pharesim’s Current Witness Thread: https://steemit.com/witness-category/@pharesim/rejecting-hf17-and-a-few-thoughts
Pharesim’s Original Witness Thread: https://steemit.com/witness-category/@pharesim/witness-post
Steemdice Project Page: https://steemit.com/@steemdice1
PEVO Project: https://pevo.science/

8 - @Riverhead
Riverhead is probably best known as being a key developer and server manager for the Steemit.chat service, a key piece of secondary infrastructure for many Steemit communities. In particular, certain community-serving channels such as the “Abuse” channel operate only thanks to the hard work behind the scenes at Steemit.chat.

Riverhead has also generously donated 10000 SBD to the Steemfest 2 initiative as a sponsor.

In his spare time, Riverhead has contributed the python code for a few small bots around the Steemit ecosystem, including an internal market bot and a price-pegging bot bot Bittrex/Coinbase spread on SBD.

Riverhead is also a Bitshares standby witness, at #36.

Riverhead is holding 694,000 SP and is NOT powering down, demonstrating substantial faith in Steemit long-term.

Riverhead’s Current Witness Thread: https://steemit.com/rocketchat/@riverhead/witness-riverhead-update-week-of-august-1st-2016
Riverhead’s Original Witness Thread: https://steemit.com/witness-category/@riverhead/witness-proposal-riverhead
Steemit.Chat Update: https://steemit.com/steemitchat/@riverhead/where-s-steemit-chat
Steemfest Sponsorship: https://steemit.com/steemfest/@riverhead/steemfest-sponsorship-giving-back
Market Bot: https://steemit.com/trading/@riverhead/rudimentary-internal-market-bot
Pegging Bot: https://steemit.com/trading/@riverhead/simple-pegging-bot-bittrex-coinbase

9 - @Someguy123
Someguy123 is a well-known developer (top 3% at Bitrated) of third-party applications for both Litecoin and Steem. His skills include python, javascript and PHP, as well as system administration.

He has been personally vouched for by Charlie Lee, also known as the creator of Litecoin. He’s developed a number of projects, including Lite Vault, Explorer, Steem Center, and the AnonSteem service which allows another vector for registering new users onto the Steemit platform.

His Litecoin Block Explorer reportedly has up to 99% up-time. He maintains a live uptime tracker at: https://status.someguy123.com/

Someguy123 has also developed the “Steem-in-a-box” toolkit, a package designed to help anyone quickly and easily deploy a witness and seed node for Steem. He was instrumental in spreading the word about the “low-bandwidth” issue many users experienced around July, 2017, particularly minnows and others users in the Minnow Support Project.

Someguy123 holds 31,000 SP, and is NOT powering down. He leases via @minnowbooster.

Someguy123’s Current Witness Thread: https://steemit.com/witness-category/@someguy123/all-witnesses-important-update-v0-19-1rc1-steem-in-a-box-is-updated
Someguy123’s Original Witness Thread: https://steemit.com/witness-category/@someguy123/someguy123-witness-thread
Litecoin Founder’s Vouch: https://www.bitrated.com/Someguy123
Steem-in-a-box: https://steemit.com/witness-category/@someguy123/steem-in-a-box-updated-for-v0-19-2
Bandwidth Issue: https://steemit.com/witness-category/@someguy123/dear-witnesses-please-increase-your-block-size

10 - @Roadscape
Roadscape is (as of 11/16) a front-end developer working for Steemit, Inc. Most of his day-to-day work revolves around adding new user-interface features and fixing bugs of all types.

Roadscape’s best known tool is Steemd, the first user-interface for exploring the Steem blockchain. You all probably know it better as “that place I refresh every day to see my voting power.”

Among Roadscape’s early projects was a social network on top of the Bitshares network called “Cryptofresh.” Though late made redundant by Steem, it was an excellent proof of concept.

Roadscape is a Bitshares Standby Witness (#30).

Roadscape holds 935,000 SP and is NOT powering down, demonstrating substantial faith in Steemit long-term and was kind enough to be the very first witness in the top 10 to vote for @jerrybanfield as a witness!

Roadscape’s Current Witness Thread: N/A
Roadscape’s Original Witness Thread: https://steemit.com/witness-category/@roadscape/witness-roadscape
Roadscape Interview: https://steemit.com/witnessfiles/@nextgen622/the-witness-files-issue-10-with-roadscape-a-developer-at-steemit-inc

Time to vote!
Given what we shared about the top 10 witnesses here, would you please join us in making witness votes at https://steemit.com/~witnesses because our witness votes are the most important votes we make? Each of us can vote up to 30 times which can take a consistent effort to ensure we have active witness votes. If choosing 30 witnesses sounds exhausting, the easy solution is to set a proxy at the bottom of the page to make all our votes for us. I am honored that 50+ of us with 186 MV in voting power in total are trusting me to make witness votes as a proxy. A proxy can be changed at any time and is all inclusive meaning if we want to make our own votes, we have to either do all of them ourselves or set a proxy. I put a lot of thought into who I vote for as a witness and update my votes at least once each week as do many other witness voters here.

Set JerryBanfield proxy

Thank you for reading!
@lexiconical and I hope you enjoyed this post which we worked together to produce! In the next post in this series, @lexiconical and I hope to present the top 11 to 20 witnesses in the same way we have done here! The witness votes adjust every day meaning even as I write this, the rankings moved enough to mean technically we presented 10 of the top 20 witnesses where @anyx was left out because of rising into the top 10 while @pfunk was included despite dropping from 6 to 20 in the few hours we were finalizing edits on this post! We will adapt to make sure we cover @anyx in future posts and avoid duplicating any witnesses twice!

Love,
Jerry Banfield

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PS: Witness votes are the most important votes we make on Steem because one vote for a witness lasts indefinitely! Would you please make a vote for jerrybanfield as a witness or set jerrybanfield as a proxy to handle all witness votes at https://steemit.com/~witnesses because when we make our votes, we feel in control of our future together? Thank you to the 569 accounts voting for me as a witness, the 187.3m VESTS assigned from users trusting me to make all witness votes by setting me as proxy, and @followbtcnews for making these .gif images!
Vote Jerry Banfield Steem Witness
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Set JerryBanfield proxy