OK a lot to take in here and I'm sure I'll be coming back to this over the coming days/weeks...

derivatives (which internalize a great deal of "leverage" or "gearing" for you Brits) can make market manipulation easier, not harder.

I wanted to ask you about the above, is this what is happening with Bitcoin at the mo? It seems it is caught in a $1000 pocket, every time it goes up to around $7500 or so, it then falls back down to around $6500.

BUT ONLY if Steemit performs as it was designed ... which, at present, it is not.

Unfortunately I think that it will never work as it was meant to, there were too many unconsidered variables that were thrown into the mix. Look at accounts like Haejin who have bought their way to power and are unstoppable.

I like your comment about the witnesses fiddling while Rome burns, I wrote a similarly titled article around 18 months ago, whereby I lambasted another meaningless hardfork when there were serious user issues that had been ignored.

Now though I just sigh and don't bother getting angry, because ultimately Steemit is stuck between being an incorporated company and an open source project.

It has all the financial implications and (no doubt) structural ones of a proper company. However it seems to operate like an open source project whereby things tend to take years to happen.

I've got that pdf you linked, it's too late to read now, but I'm sure I'll be back with questions!

Cg