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| comment | | "parent_author":"",<br>"parent_permlink":"witness-category",<br>"author":"someguy123",<br>"permlink":"seriously-what-is-a-witness-why-should-i-care-how-do-i-become-one-answer",<br>"title":"Seriously,<br> what is a witness? Why should I care? How do I become one? (Answer)",<br>"body":"Some people are still confused as to what a witness is. There's a lot of mixed information on Steemit as to what a witness does,<br> and how much they earn.\n\nI'm here to clear this up with a thorough post,<br> with simple explanations where possible.\n\n## What is a witness?\n\n**A witness plays a crucial part in how the STEEM network functions. Some people might not be aware of this,<br> but Steemit is just a fancy web interface on top of a large network called STEEM,<br> which operates remotely similar to Bitcoin.**\n\nSimple Definition:\n\n>A STEEM witness is a person whom operates a **witness server** (which produces blocks),<br> and publishes a price feed of STEEM\/USD to the network.\n\nWitnesses have many tasks. **The first and foremost is to produce blocks (thus process transactions)**,<br> the second most important is to produce a price feed,<br> which is how STEEM Dollars are always worth 1 US Dollar in STEEM (using the 7 day exchange).\n\nYou may have heard of the term **51% attack** before. Unlike Bitcoin,<br> miners don't matter much to the STEEM network,<br> instead,<br> that is a witnesses job: \n\n**A hard fork happens when 67% of the top witnesses are all running a certain version of STEEM**,<br> which means the top 19 witnesses can pick and choose whether to agree with a fork or not. (e.g. Hard Fork 13 and 14 were both postponed for a week,<br> and re-designed because witnesses refused to update)\n\nTl;Dr\n\n - They're the main producer of blocks (not miners)\n - They maintain a price feed,<br> which is how SBD functions\n - They play the role of consensus (decide whether to hard fork or not)\n - Many witnesses,<br> such as myself,<br> @riverhead,<br> @roadscape @jesta and @arhag work on important things to help the STEEM network function and grow\n - Some witnesses don't produce any content,<br> or work on anything STEEM related,<br> e.g. @gtg - however,<br> they are sometimes highly focused witnesses,<br> who are very reliable (gtg has only missed 2 blocks after running for months)\n\n## Why should I care?\n\nA witness is paid proportionally to how high they are in the witness ranks,<br> excluding the top 19 witnesses (who get 1 block every ~63 seconds).\n\nBut how do they get to those ranks? **They get voted in,<br> by people like YOU**. It's just like an election,<br> **if you don't vote,<br> other people may vote in witnesses who are malicious or simply unreliable.**\n\n@thecryptofiend has came up with a questionnaire for witnesses,<br> which may help people decide on who to vote for: https:\/\/steemit.com\/steemit\/@thecryptofiend\/witness-questionnaire-a-solution-for-voter-confusion\n\n![ (https:\/\/i.imgur.com\/Ldf0VnV.png)\n<center>Witness voting page<\/center>\n\nYou can see the witness ranks,<br> and vote for witnesses at https:\/\/steemit.com\/~witnesses\n\n## How are blocks created\/scheduled?\n\nIt's not a very even mixture as you would hope. Blocks are produced in \"rounds\",<br> which are 21 blocks long,<br> and blocks are created every 3 seconds.\n\nDuring each 21 block round,<br> the blocks are distributed as such:\n\n - 19 blocks go to the top 19 voted witnesses (who are slightly shuffled to avoid witnesses purposely skipping blocks)\n - 1 block goes to a Proof-of-Work miner,<br> who becomes a witness for just 1 block.\n - 1 semi-random witness outside of the top 19,<br> which is influenced by their ranking\n\nYou can read more about the witness scheduling (it's very complicated!) in this article by Steemit CTO @dantheman :\n\nhttps:\/\/steemit.com\/steem\/@dantheman\/steem-witness-scheduling-algorithm\n\n## How often do they get blocks (how much do they earn)?\n\nAs mentioned in the previous section,<br> witnesses are paid proportional to their rank in the system. A witness at rank 30 can produce as many as 4 blocks\/hour,<br> compared to a witness at rank 50,<br> which may produce less than 1 block\/hour.\n\n**A STEEM block is worth 1 STEEM Power (not STEEM,<br> or SBD),<br> which means all rewards for miners\/witnesses are trickle-paid for 2 years.**\n\n![ (https:\/\/i.imgur.com\/OaOiNlf.png)\n<center>[@someguy123 on SteemDB (https:\/\/steemdb.com\/@someguy123)<\/center>\n\nIn my current position,<br> 39,<br> I create between 2 to 3 blocks per hour. `(2 * 24) * 31 = 1488` - that's approximately 1,<br>500 STEEM Power per month at rank 39.\n\n### But what about the top 19? What do they get?\n\nThe top 19 witnesses get 1 block each,<br> per 21 block round. This means they get approximately 1 block per 63 seconds.\n\nPer day they get roughly 1400 SP\n\n```(60 * 60 * 24) \/ 63 = 1,<br>371.42```\n\nPer month they get roughly 42,<br>500 SP\n\n```(60 * 60 * 24 * 31) \/ 63 = 42,<br>514.28```\n\nAnd per year they get roughly 510,<br>000 SP\n\n```(60 * 60 * 24 * 31 * 12) \/ 63 = 510,<br>171.42```\n\n## Can anyone become a witness?\n\nThe short answer is: Yes.\n\nBecoming a witness requires several things:\n\n - A powerful (and reliable) server to run a witness server on\n - A second powerful server,<br> with good bandwidth - to operate a Steem Seed (similar to a Bitcoin full node,<br> distributes blocks)\n - Creating a **signing key**,<br> and then broadcasting your intent to become a witness from `cli_wallet`\n - An accurate price feed of STEEM\/USD which is updated *at least* once per day\n - Trust from the community that you would be a good candidate for a witness\n\nSome of these steps are optional (e.g. the seed,<br> the price feed),<br> however,<br> they're all very strongly recommended if you want to succeed as a witness.\n\n------\n\nI will be posting an in-depth tutorial on setting up a witness soon,<br> as many of the existing articles lack important details. Until then,<br> if you want to set up a witness,<br> I recommend joining `#witness` on [STEEMIT.CHAT (https:\/\/steemit.chat) and asking for up to date guidance.\n\n------\n\n\n---\n\nDo you like what I'm doing for STEEM\/Steemit?\n----\n[Vote for me to be a witness (https:\/\/steemit.com\/~witnesses) - every vote counts. \n----\nDon't forget to follow me for more like this.\n----",<br>"json_metadata":" \"tags\":[\"witness-category\",<br>\"steem\",<br>\"steem-help\",<br>\"steemit\" ,<br>\"users\":[\"riverhead\",<br>\"roadscape\",<br>\"jesta\",<br>\"arhag\",<br>\"gtg\",<br>\"thecryptofiend\",<br>\"dantheman\" ,<br>\"image\":[\"https:\/\/i.imgur.com\/Ldf0VnV.png\",<br>\"https:\/\/i.imgur.com\/OaOiNlf.png\" ,<br>\"links\":[\"https:\/\/steemit.com\/steemit\/@thecryptofiend\/witness-questionnaire-a-solution-for-voter-confusion\",<br>\"https:\/\/steemit.com\/~witnesses\",<br>\"https:\/\/steemit.com\/steem\/@dantheman\/steem-witness-scheduling-algorithm\",<br>\"https:\/\/steemdb.com\/@someguy123\",<br>\"https:\/\/steemit.chat\" " | | vote | "voter":"someguy123",
"author":"someguy123",
"permlink":"seriously-what-is-a-witness-why-should-i-care-how-do-i-become-one-answer",
"weight":10000 |
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