![image.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/hpiynhbhq/image/upload/v1509020272/zwsvq6ag4nhpthkfuuwp.png)


### Reward Pool Abuse: The curse of steem blockchain

Steem is an inflationary cryptocurrency. That means new steem is being created continuously which is distributed among Authors, Curators, Miners and Steem Power holders. This new steem basically represents the reward pool.

Any activity that leads to draining of reward pool without enriching steem blockchain represents a case of award pool abuse. This abuse is so widespread that even users with high reputation have been at times found engaged in this type of behavior.

###  How it is being dealt with now?

Many vigilantes have sprung up to prevent this rampant abuse of steem reward pool. Prominent among them are @sherlockholmes and  @steemcleaners. They have exposed many cases where bot accounts operate to upvote and comment in such a way that they maximize their rewards without producing any real content. Voting on own posts and comments is another popular way of abusing the ecosystem.

Since steem blockchain has no way of preventing bot accounts, there has been no conclusive exercise to prevent this abuse till date.

### Proposed Framework for dealing with this issue

#### Steem Blockchain as a Nation. 

![image.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/hpiynhbhq/image/upload/v1509020853/ycmj0s83qoce7f2oucbh.png)

Steem blockchain is not a simple blockchain like bitcoin. It has its own economy and factors of production. The *content* is the produced good for which its authors and curators get *wages*. Steem is *money*. New steem that is created through acts of voting and mining (though DPOS) is the *shared capital*. The act of voting is an *economic activity* wherein the actors (users) decide the allocation of shared capital. 

Steem blockchain is a nation inhabited by its citizens the *steemians*. The failure of steemit.com in preventing leakage of steem reward pool is in trusting that everyone who has invested in steem power has a long-term stake in steem platform. Alas ! this is not the case. 

If everyone was inherently good and caring, we would not need governments and would enjoy the fruits of mother earth's abundance through sharing.

Decentralization makes good economic sense as it empowers individuals instead of empowering a company. But leaving the blockchain to its fate may prove counterproductive.

In steem blockchain, like in real world, we have bad actors who try to find loopholes in the best ecosystems ever created and play it for their own gain at the cost of overall health of the ecosystem.

Hence, we need *good governance* in steem blockchain that can only be achieved through a responsible government. A government that community as a whole elects and removes based on their performance.

#### Witness as Responsible Community Leaders with independent portfolios.

![image.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/hpiynhbhq/image/upload/v1509020590/trhurzqppp8l6s3zcreb.png)

Steem blockchain uses a consensus mechanism called Delegated Proof of Stake (DPOS). These witnesses are elected through *witness approval votes* based on *steem power weight*. These witnesses are trusted members of steem community and tasked with the important function of generating blocks that contain transactions on steem blockchain. 

The witnesses need to play a much more proactive role in the *good governance* of steem ecosystem to prevent abuse of *reward pool* which is our *shared capital*. They need to take individual responsibility and perform the functions that the ministers perform in a responsible democracy. The portfolio that witnesses must look after when adapted for steem blockchain are:

1. Finance: Witness responsible for finance portfolio will look for ways to improve the performance of steem as a currency. He will look for external funding through advertisements and liaison proactively with industry to make *steemit.com* a lucrative market for them.

2. Security: Witness responsible for this portfolio will look to curb leakages in steem reward pool by actively employing bots and whales for flagging such bad actors. He will look to evolve a policy for dealing with such bad actors which may include counseling, flagging, raising awareness and trying to rehabilitate or if needed eliminate such bad actors.

3. Administration: Witness responsible for the portfolio will liaison with Steemit Inc and other administrators of other platforms and bring to their notice the concern of steem community.

4. Development of other steem platforms: Witness responsible for portfolio will actively liaison with whales for delegation of steem power to creators of these platforms and actively seek funds for them in the form of SBD donations or steem power delegations

5. Content improvement: Witness responsible for this portfolio will liaison with top curators and spread awareness campaigns on content improvement and conduct special online workshops with top professionals of blogging industry.

#### Why will witnesses agree to perform these functions?
To continue getting elected and get more popular. Since most of the witnesses themselves have a stake in the performance of the steem ecosystem, they may out of their good sense choose to perform these functions.

#### How will they decide what functions to perform?

A system of rotation may be used wherein the witnesses will get the responsibilities periodically.


#### Tell me how you feel about this governance structure?

Do you think this governance structure is required for long term health of steem blockchain? I believe such a governance structure would ensure that bad actors don't get away with looting steem reward pool and playing the system for their own gain. I feel such an ecosystem could skyrocket the development of steem ecosystem.

The witnesses are custodians of steemian's faith, its high time they are entrusted with more responsibility than just producing blocks.

If you like the idea, do upvote and resteem so that it reaches the *witnesses* and *core developers*.



<br /><hr/><em>Open Source Contribution posted via https://utopian.io</em><hr/>