I'm trying to follow that argument but, I don't think I agree.
Big amounts of the ninjamined stash has been sold in the past to other buyers, yet the encumbrance did not get transferred to those buyers. Why should it be any different when the buyer is Justin? Just because he bought the entirety of the remaining stash?
Since Steemit Inc is a sole proprietorship, let's try to pierce the corporate veil and see how this looks: The ninjamined stash was, effectively, Ned's. He promised the proceeds of any sale would go to Steem's development. Now, Justin came and bought that stash of STEEM (again, as others have before, albeit in smaller quantities), paying good money for it. Ned simply cashes out, grabs the cash and walks away, A.K.A. an "exit scam", which totally violates his past promises.
I do not see how the attached strings would transfer to Justin. He just made a perfectly legal purchase. Ned did not misrepresent the property being sold. Ned is still bound by the promises he made and he must thus dedicate the proceeds of that sale to Steem.
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Ok, but you'll agree that sine die freezing those funds precludes from spending them on development, right?
I see the point, but I notice that Steemit Inc was simply Ned's proxy. Promises made by Ned would bind him directly, and not just the company. I highly doubt corporate liability limitations would apply to adequately shield him away from his promises: The "contract" in question is informal enough and unspecific enough to consider it was agreed by Ned himself, not just by him acting exclusively in representation of Steemit Inc.
I think this aspect comes down to which legal entity actually owned the stake and the accounts. Was it actually ned as an individual, via the proxy of the various steem blockchain accounts? Or was it Steemit inc., headed by Ned, but it's own legal entity. This would be within the contracts that TRON holds, so perhaps we will see this at some point.
What if Ned Scott Ned, whatever his name is, made a secret deal with Justin Sun? Imagine that they made a deal where it appears as if Justin bought it and that is just a cover story in order to move the money and the liability of an American Steem INC company might have in the United States under the laws of the USA and move them secretly to China and other countries as a way to avoid paying taxes and who knows what else. Perhaps, Justin is making some money as a fall guy. It is possible that he agreed beforehand that he would take the blame and look like an idiot. That would be like a win win situation where Ned and Justin both make some money and Ned then gets to lay low and avoid liability for whatever might happen legally to a USA company like Steem Inc. That would be like a new movie called Ocean 15, Dealing With The Sun and Moon lol.
Careful, that sounds like a conspiracy theory.. Don't you know conspiracy theorists are terrorists? lol ;)
Yeah lol. A conspiracy realist.
Following on what @apshamilton wrote, I want to picture this, maybe it's easier to understand. Think at Steemit's "ninja stake" as being land. Or any type of security. The owner of it uses that security to entice partnerships. In public writing, @ned committed to use that stake in a certain way in regard to witnesses, and that compelled them to invest.
It's like on some land he owned, @ned said: let's build a condominium. I'm putting the land, you're building. But, after 3 years and a lot of condominiums, he says: "Ups, I changed my mind, I'm going to give my land away". The guys that gets the land from @ned doesn't want to build condominiums, he wants to build a mall.
The problems are:
You can't stress too much that analogy. The property in question is a pile of fungible STEEM, not a specific land lot, and Ned had been already selling part of it those last years to fund expenses.
I would say that Ned had been selling parcels in one place to fund the building of the Steem condominium in some different place. Now Justin has come and bought the remaining parcels, but not differently that the other smaller investors before him.
Ned is still bound by his promises and must dedicate the proceeds of the sale to the Steem condominium. The encumbrance did not transfer to Justin, in the same way as it did not transfer to the other investors when they bought a parcel.
obligations are obligations, regardless of who they obligate and what they are obligations on. This is a clear principle at law.