If i'm reading this right - this sucks! My understanding was that initially they were planning to use an SMT on the Steem blockchain but now it looks like they are planning to fork their own version of the chain instead.
If everyone does that rather than using SMTs it will really hurt the value of Steem and the potential for the future.
That was my initial thought too but, as I said above, it looks like they mention SMTs without mentioning them by name. I didnt think the protocol was released yet...but perhaps it was.
As for the forking, if we learned anything from bitcoin it is that endless forking doesnt work....people become numb to them....
Nah, they can do it because they have money behind it which allowed them to acquire tech people interested in collaborating with them (being witness). Plus, in their niche, they have profile and a huge Rolodex.
Most people couldn’t find sufficient witnesses to actually implement a full-scale DPOS.
AFAIK the first action is a presale in January tho. No roll-out yet. As such this summary could still lead to an actual SMT (as well as them going solo). Both seem still possible, although the highlighted bits seem to point at a snapshot & [under the radar] fork.