Witnesses create our Steem blockchain in real time based on votes at https://steemit.com/~witnesses. In blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum we might call this mining. On Steem, we use Delegated Proof of Stake or DPoS which means the creation of our blocks is chosen by our votes which are weighed by the Steem power we hold.
One big advantage of this system has been our ability to stick together through 19 hardforks because the top 20 witnesses make the decisions on forks. Another is saving on the huge and unnecessary electricity costs created by Proof of Work or POW mining on cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Costs and Earnings?
While being a top miner on Bitcoin and Ethereum might make a fortune compared to being at the top of the Steem witness list, the costs required to run the witness servers on Steem are a fraction of that necessary for mining Bitcoin, Ethereum, and many other cryptocurrencies!
I have 3 servers for my witness including a primary witness server, backup witness server, and a seed node capable of handing a top 20 witness load indefinitely with the following specifications from @privex hosting which is about $500 a month.
64GB DDR4 RAM
2x Intel Xeon E5-2630 V3
2x 240GB SSDs
1Gbit/s connection
Our top 20 witnesses earn about 260 Steem power a day in rewards from witnessing which today is worth over $1,000 a day. Witnesses below the top 20 are considered "backup" witnesses that rotate in with the top 20 every 63 seconds because our blocks are 3 seconds apart. At rank 21 to 30 the earnings are about 40 to 60 Steem power a day equal currently to around $200 a day. At rank 94 and below the earnings are 3 Steem power a day or less.
While many of our witnesses earn enough to cover expenses, those under rank 80 are not earning enough to cover expenses if we expect our backups to be prepared to go into the starting rotation at a moments notice and we consider a full power down constantly would be needed to convert the earnings from Steem to Steem power. Here is a way we can change that!
Offering 100 Steem to Witnesses Below Rank 80!
Any witness at rank 80 or below can now follow the steps below to receive a payment of 100 Steem worth about $440 today from @budgets to help cover the server hosting costs for this month. Based on the success of this first round of funding, additional rounds may become available with higher requirements.
- Maintain an active witness server for at least a month with a consistently updated price feed on the newest version of Steem while earning at least 10 votes for witness as seen at https://steemian.info/witnesses.
- Request the 100 Steem by publishing a post with the first tag "budget" along with the tags "witness" "witness-category" and "witness-update." This post will explain the contributions made as a witness, thoughts on the development of Steem, server specifications, plans for the future, etc. @timcliff wrote a Guide to Being a Good Witness that was helpful for me to see that nearly anything we contribute to the growth of Steem can be considered part of our service as a witness.
- When I see the post on the budgets tag, I will send 100 Steem from the @budgets account which currently has about 2,500 Steem ready to send and $1200 more SBD to buy Steem as needed.
Who is Eligible Now?
These 29 witnesses can make a post and get the 100 Steem.
@rival
@sc-steemit
@bitrocker2020
@privex
@steemitboard
@demotruk
@fubar-bdhr
@swelker101
@felixxx
@suggeelson
@yehey
@block-buster
@anarcho-andrei
@silversteem
@imacryptorick
@ura-soul
@skenan
@gmuxx
@jatinhota
@jamzed
@guiltyparties
@pcste
@cryptwo
@gridcoin.science
@dropahead
@evildido
@windforce
@kennybll
@bsameep
Eligible with Updates!
The following witnesses need to make updates in order to be eligible. As soon as the updates are made and communicated in the post, I am ready to send the Steem.
@rcarter.witness outdated price feed, no witness link.
@hagie outdated price feed.
@silversteem outdated price feed, registration, and high blocks missed.
@bue outdated price feed.
@cloh76.witness outdated price feed.
@castellano outdated price feed.
@masteryoda running 19.1
@precise outdated price feed.
@cryptohazard outdated price feed.
@beerbot outdated price feed.
@stuwhisson outdated price feed.
@drorion no price feed.
@globalvanguard running 19.0 on outdated price feed.
Why?
Some of us will argue that there is no need for backup witnesses below 50 let alone to bother with helping make sure we have over 100. Others of us might suggest the @budgets account and budget proposal system were made to fund our growth on Steem and not to pay witnesses.
As Steem continues to grow, we may need a lot more backup witnesses than we think . This may not be obvious until just before, during, or after a disaster which might take half or more of the witnesses offline at once while potentially keeping many offline for hours, days, and maybe even weeks. It could be a fork dispute, a global conflict, a natural disaster, and/or an epic hack. Whatever it is, we benefit greatly from having a deep witness list prepared to run a top 20 load.
For growing Steem, helping reward those already trying the hardest to contribute is likely to be a great return on our investment. Witnesses generally are some of our most active and enthusiastic members. When we help with funding the hardware, we may also be providing some positive feedback that we appreciate the service as a witness and value the contributions above the rewards directly provided by the blockchain.
I personally have been motivated to help this way because I want to support the newer witnesses and have run out of votes. There are many more witnesses I want to help to earn more blocks and I only have 30 votes. I will do another post about collaborating more effectively on witness voting for all of us. Long story short my suggestion for newer witnesses especially and potentially for all witnesses is to find and encourage users not voting for even one witness to choose a witness proxy voter.
Witness Voting and Proxies!
Our witness voting participation is very low with about 95% of accounts not even voting for one witness let alone using 30 votes. Setting a proxy at https://steemit.com/~witnesses is the ideal solution for most of us because setting a proxy effectively copies the witness votes of the user we choose along with any updates.
I am grateful for the responsibility to make votes on behalf of hundreds of us that have set me as a proxy on about 750,000 Steem power. Thank you especially to the top 5 @glitterfart, @onealfa, @kiporen212, @nikez452, and @craig-grant. I try to make witness votes that do the most good. I use all of my witness rewards along with all of my Steem power to fund additional growth projects like this through @budgets and my voting bot because I am grateful I have enough already to live a simple and comfortable life.
Thank You for Reading!
I appreciate the chance to be of service here and hope we have a wonderful day today!
Love,
Jerry Banfield
Steem network is growing faster with time. Facebook competition coming soon!
Definetly. it will be true .
The steemit will be perfect by day and because he give big opportunity for us ((( resteem )))) upvote
True talk
Yes this may be why Facebook is looking into creating its own coin. FB has such a huge lead in this space its going to take a series of epic moves to over take their dominance. As a new user I can see the learning curve on this platform is huge and although I enjoy taking this on I don't think my grandma or even the causal user will take it on and this could be a hinder this platform from mass adoption. Is there a simple version of this thats just for the people that like to post and just casually use the service? Any advise would be greatly appreciated. Thanks new fam!
Man, I can't wait to have accumulated enough upvotes to increase my steem power so I can help the steem network grow. I swear, even if steem hits $100 each I will not be powering down. I want to get to the point where if I upvote someone it can actually make their day...I am looking for a job now to pay for my life so that I do not ever have to sell any crypto and HODL for many more years to come.
goodluck :)
wow great person with great heart..
May GOD fullfill your wishes
hi i voted u ,you do the same back please....hope to have a great relation with u..thanks
Exactly. The power to swoop in on a post or comment to make somebody's day will be really incredible !
Great stuff @jerrybanfield - I was only just made aware of this offer.. I have made a witness update post with the relevant tags in it - I'd appreciate if you'd check it out and consider it an application for the STEEM help. Cheers.
Thanks for all the information Jerry. I'd be completely in the dark with the specifics of how Steem works without your posts and videos. :-)
I've had some major disagreements with you over the time I've been here, and I have taken issue with the way you've conducted some of your business. However, I will never fail to give you credit where credit is due, and this is absolutely one of those times. You have made a killing on here, and whatever I or anyone else may think of the way you've acquired that wealth, you've consistently put it back into the platform and into helping people.
As one of the witnesses listed in this post, I sincerely thank you for this. This is an enormous help. I've made my post, and I hope you get a chance to read through it when you have the time.
Andy thank you very much for posting this because reading how you got here through the disagreements and see the commitment to helping others motivates me to keep doing more of the same!
Hope delegation will be soon built in in Steem, than we can share easilly !
Success! Somone finials sees the light of
day. Not only is this a great idea it holds the future of Steem. Do not put all of your eggs in one basket. The system needs redundancy! @jerrybanfield. “Make it so number 1.”
upvote & resteem ... follow@lurehound
There must be a also criteria to select witness based on different locations, putting a max limit from particular country or region... by this you can have node distributed evenly across the globe and can overcome any disaster.
Hi @ jerrybanfield i am new just start steemit before a month and i first time use your bot for upvoting my post.i choose your bot because i come to know about steemit because of your one youtube video that is why i trust you and choose you as a bot for my post but what i notices 1st time when you give me to vote it was 1.96 and gradually after some hour it is decreasing and from yesterday to till now it decreased from 1.96 to 1.37 why this happening to your boating vote while others vote remain same.kindly explain me the reason of decreasing vote after upvoting
Thank You @jerrybanfield for all you do in being of Service to myself and STEEMIT. That is why I trusted you with my PROXY many months ago. You are the BEST One Day at a Time...................
Thanks @jerrybanfield for the infos...
One offtopic question...
Is there any standalone Forum software yet, that is based on the Steem blockchain other than ChainBB ?
The problem with ChainBB is, that he is not selling the software to let other webmasters install it on their own Domains...
So is there any plugin coming for the normal Forum Softwares, like Simplemachines, PHPBB, Xenforo, WPForo or Elkarte or simular ?
If anybody knows this please let me know.
Many thanks.
Regards, Stefan.
Chainbb is working on custom domains. And the software is open source, you can just start your own if need be.
Please upvote my post i am a newbie
https://steemit.com/slavery/@sweetinnovation/say-no-to-slavery
@jerrybanfield how can somebody be a back up witness? Is this like mining?
To become a witness, you need a basic knowledge of Linux operating system so you can manage your own witness server. Of course you can hire someone to manage the server for you but that's beat the purpose of the community voting for you as their witness.
Funds to pay for monthly cost of managing server.
32GB RAM with 100SSD harddisk recommended minimum server requirement will cost at least $70 /month.
I've created a step-by-step procedures on how to setup a witness server. I hope this will give you an idea.
https://yehey.org/witness-update/@yehey/howto-setup-witness-node-by-yehey-updated-tutorial-guide
Updated docs here https://que.com/howto-setup-witness-node-by-yehey/
And how to update the price feed.
https://yehey.org/witness-update/@yehey/update-your-witness-price-feed
Read those documents and you will get an idea if you really want to be a witness.
Cheers.
Thanks @yehey
Thanks for your deed towards the steem community. I truly appreciate your efforts to make steem #1 Blockchain and social media mate.
good going buddy
You are really a great guy, its from you I first heard of steemit and immediately I joined. Today am enjoying it and have introduce a lot of people. Thanks man for your wonderful post, keep it up please. Thanks again.
The only problem I have is cheetah that keeps giving me negative vote.
Can I be a witness?
Please upvote my post i am a newbie
https://steemit.com/slavery/@sweetinnovation/say-no-to-slavery
Thanks for the great update on what it takes to host a machine for witnessing. As you say, this is the equivalent of mining, can this ever be advantageous without being so active here on Steemit?
Can you add me please ? @Jerrybanfield
thank you @jerrybanfield , you have to share the story of esteem, your story very nice and beautiful, I really liked it
I agree, having a great platform as steemit.com as a new age media (I called it) with any ranking system or league the top members, in steemit.com case are Witness's are the top players and they hold a type of role, for the existing members and new comers. As the community get's larger so should the witness instead of being top 100 there should be a top 500 then 1,000, when the community get's larger.
I agree that the below 80 should be awarded 100 steem in which the community is gaining more attraction and new comers are coming to the community, the influence expands, so people's interest are different when coming to the community, you have things like dsound, utopia etc. that are doing great things within steemit.com.
Eventually, this thing (Semmit.com) we all are on is gonna get bigger and better the witness and the influencers should as well.
Thanks for the explanation.
This is great @jerrybanfield ... Thanks for the initiative to recognize witnesses beyond the 80s 😀 . I was just about to do my update when I saw ur post. Will surely update it . Cheers buddy
I love it but how long will it take, before you get paid?.
Here's $20 for supporting Steemit
Just click the link to Join Monetize Coin
https://monetizecoin.com/?ref=5a566f9c2e4cd
Nice sir
When you repeat the same comment on multiple post you sound like a bot! If it walks like a bot, squawks like a bot, it may be flagged for being a bot!
Your Reputation Could be a Tasty Snack with the Wrong Comment!
This is very important thing to share with us & this platform is growing faster day by day.
@jerrybanfield you've done me wrong and now my wife is outside shitting into a coffee can.
I will show you no mercy!
https://steemit.com/blog/@legendary-writer/why-did-my-intro-only-make-usd4-00-where-are-the-thousands-that-jerry-banfield-promised
lol thanks for the picture of your wife shitting in a coffee can!
Oh, so you think this is a joke!
In that video, you said I would make thousands if joined Steemit and I did so I could afford to buy her a used toilet seat, but did I get my thousands?
No!
Instead my wife got lockjaw from squatting on that coffee can and last night she was airlifted to some fancy hospital hundreds of miles away!
Ugh...
You did me wrong and I hope your toilet seat breaks so you will know my pain!
This is an excellent initiative & very much needed as its quite impossible to climb up the ladder even if we can maintain the uptime and quality as good as anyone else. Appreciate your efforts.
very worried about the decline
Follow me @iqbalmuhammad
thanks for the post lot of informative
impressive post
Great initiative to help the smaller witnesses such as myself. As per your requirements, however, I have not been a witness for a month yet so will unfortunately not be able to apply.
You are welcome to apply with less time because I created the one month mostly for anyone seeing this going forward and deciding to start up a witness. You had your witness online beforehand and are eligible!
Oh awesome. Will do, thanks.
@jerrybanfield
What is needed to be eligible?
Awesome news!
I've been tinkering with my witness for a while now and basically got it turned up this week, working price feeds!
The most difficult part of the requirements for me right now is going to be Step #1 - getting the 10 votes. I need about 4 more votes to be considered. My witness name is "glowhost-matt" if anyone reading this could be so kind to help me out with a vote, I'd be most thankful.
Your correction is almost better from other.You always uploads interesting and important post sir sir.I also Upvote and resteem your post sir.Upvote and resteem done.
Wow ! That's beautiful strategy to uplift them and serve as a source of encouragement .thanks for this wonderful idea.
Thanks for the update information, amazing post and sharing
i give a witness vote to @jerrybanfield
wow you are a wonderful person, very meticulous in every way. Thanks for the explanation
thisbis very informative , this will be a big help , thanks for sharing @jerrybanfield 👍👏
Thats very interesting! Thank you for sharing the information with us :)
its very good
how to be a witness?
Thank you. (Resteemed)!!
I had no idea what voting for a witness meant so I didn’t vote. I am ranked at 38 and will vote. Please follow. 😊
@jeerybanfield I really like your service i am your subscriber on youtube and huge fan of you analysis i really appreciate the time effort you are putting in it .I learn a lot from you i jist wana say thank you you for all that valuable information
wish you good luck with you future :)
Shahzaib Munawar.
You are doing great things for Steem community. Thank you and congratulations to all..
Thank you so much Jerry.. so think about everyone!!
I just posted.. man you made my day!!
https://steemit.com/budget/@rival/my-witness-update-for-the-jerrybanfield-fund
You’re welcome funding sent!
one word "amazing" jerry. and even the younger generation started ;-) i hope you would check out my daughters Isa (12) post. She loves steemit since she had her account.. https://steemit.com/food/@creatisa/creatisa-baking-delicious-rose-cookies-check-this-out
¿Puedo interactuar en español en esta página? Me gustan mucho sus contenidos pero solo mediante el traductor automático puedo leer.
Looks amazing man my VP is done please vote later 👍
QI have 6 witnesses already and I am still choosing the names as witnesses. And because of this posts Now I have names alreasy
what are the requirements to become a witness?
Thanks for this explanatory post. I'm brand new to Steemit and just trying to figure it out.