Must unite to shield against the night,
In unity, they'll keep their kingdom's light.
Meaning of a Witness
On the Hive blockchain, a Witness is an individual with a Hive account who plays a crucial role in the network's consensus mechanism and governance by setting up a Witness node. Witnesses are responsible for producing blocks and confirming transactions, similar to miners in proof-of-work blockchains like Bitcoin. However, Hive uses a Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) consensus algorithm, check out my earlier post to learn more about consensus mechanisms.
The importance of the role played by witnesses in the Hive Blockchain cannot be overemphasized, from keeping the Blockchain safe to ensuring scalability and implementating new rules into the Blockchain to ensure continuous improvement and all-round development. Below are just some of the critical functions they perform:
Block Production: Witnesses take turns producing blocks on the Hive blockchain. The top witnesses, determined by community voting, have the authority to produce blocks. These blocks contain a record of transactions and their corresponding timestamps, in order to maintain the blockchain's chronological order.
Validating Transactions : Witnesses validate and confirm transactions such as posts, funds transfer, votes, etc; ensuring they meet the network's consensus rules.
Governance: Witnesses also play a role in the governance of the Hive blockchain. They can propose and vote on changes to the network's rules, such as protocol upgrades or changes to the reward distribution system.
Others: according to hiveblocks, some of the other functions of witnesses are
To manage a reliable block producing node, implement a failover system, maintain a public seed node, tune blockchain operating parameters, publish correct price feeds, author/discuss improvement proposals, review code changes, and to be active. Some contribute to core repositories. Some fund the development of other apps and infrastructure projects.
You will agree with me that these are huge responsibilities for anyone to undertake, that is why the Witnesses enjoy some unique perks for the services they offer such as approximately $2,500 witness pay per month. Also for each block a witness produces they get paid a part of the transaction fees rewards fund (i.e. block rewards), since a block is produced every 3 seconds through a rotation method through the 20 witnesses + the backup witness, that means each witness produces a block every minute and gets paid for it. The block rewards can be viewed here.
Who Are The Hive Consensus Witnesses And The Current Witnesses Holding That Position
Although any account on the Hive Blockchain that has the interest can start running a Witness node (i believe some help can be found here on how to start), but only the top twenty (20) witnesses or nodes are considered Consensus Witnesses and this is determined by who has the highest number of votes from the Hive community. It is worth noting that a backup Consensus witness is randomly selected from the other accounts running a Witnesses node (I'm not too sure about the mechanism employed to achieve this), and they get to produce the next block after each of the top 20 witnesses have produced a block each.
Below is list of the top 20 Consensus Witnesses and their stake in the platform:
@blocktrades - Undertakes the development of applications on/for the Hive community eg Hive Application Framework (HAF), Hived: blockchain node software, Clive: new Hive wallet with a text-based user interface, etc. They used to also offer cryptocurrency exchange business, but have since shutdown that part of their services. Blocktrades is a major stakeholder, having over 11 million HP, i.e Staked Hive Tokens, meaning they have a major vested interest in the success of the Blockchain.
@gtg - This account is a major player in the Hive Blockchain but i'm not too sure of their exact projects. As expected, Gandalf The Grey will always be a mystery even in the real world, but never underestimate his capacity for good and the technical power he wields!😀 Current Staked Hive Tokens ~1.1 million HP
@stoodkev - He's one of the founding members of the Hive-Keychain. Current Staked Hive Tokens ~516k HP
@arcange - Creator of HiveBuzz, HiveSQL, HiveAuth, Engage, Hive.NET, Hive Recovery, Hive Autoclaim. Current Staked Hive Tokens ~673k HP
@steempeak - They're part of the team behind the Peak Projects, notable among them being peakd.com, a Hive based UI for accessing the social media of the hive Blockchain. Current Staked Hive Tokens ~42k HP (Note: a power down is currently ongoing on this account, with most of the funds being transferred to the @peakd account)
@yabapmatt - A part of the developers/creators of the Hive Keychain, Hive Engine, & Splinterlands. Current Staked Hive Tokens ~630k HP
@roelandp - roelandp has been one of the founding pillars of the Hive Blockchain,
being the initiator and one of the major organisers of the Hivefest, designer of the Hive logo, creator/co-developer of @hivewallet.app, @whalefountain, etc.
Current Staked Hive Tokens ~202k HP (Note: a power down is currently ongoing on this account)@ausbitbank - He's a developer, curator and more on the Hive Blockchain. Current Staked Hive Tokens ~158k HP
@ocd-witness - This is the witness account of the famous OCD, owner of @ocd, @ocdb, @poshtoken and @acidyo, popularly known for supporting members of the Hive community through it's curation trail. Current Staked Hive Tokens ~91k HP
@themarkymark - A true Patriot of the Hive Blockchain, perhaps best known for countering abuse and shady moves by others on the platform. Besides, any fan of Deadpool, is definitely my friend! 😄
Current Staked Hive Tokens is over 1.5million HP, I'd say that's quite a commitment to the community.@good-karma - He is one of the major innovators and creators on the Hive Blockchain. Some of his works I'm aware of are Ecency, Hivesigner, Hivesearcher. Current Staked Hive Tokens is ~37.5k HP (Note: a power down is currently ongoing on this account, with most of the funds being transferred to the @ecency account)
@therealwolf - One of the active developers on the Hive Blockchain, creator of @inji and Splinter Royal. Current Staked Hive Tokens is ~47.5k HP
@deathwing - Also a major developer on the platform and creator of the api.deathwing.me node, some of his works include @BSCBridge, @FRIDAYbot, @Swaps, @polygonbridge, @rc-angel. Current Staked Hive Tokens is ~96.3k HP (Note: a power down is currently ongoing on this account, with most of the funds probably being used to fund server hardwares and services)
@quochuy - Seems to be a developer, but I'm not sure of their involvement in Hive Blockchain applications.
Current Staked Hive Tokens is ~202k HP
(Note: a power down is currently ongoing on this account)@threespeak - 3speak needs no introduction, the very first censorship resistant video platform built on the Hive Blockchain. Current Staked Hive Tokens is ~67.6k HP (Note: a power down is currently ongoing on this account)
@smooth.witness - This account doesn't seem to be active on the Hive Blockchain, their last post was before the Hive fork from Steem on the 23rd Feb, 2020 stating that they quit their position as a witness, but curiously, they are still a part of the 20 consensus witnesses. I hope the person behind this account is well and ok.
Current Staked Hive Tokens is ~537.9k HP@emrebeyler - A developer on the Hive Blockchain who also runs a public API node hived.emre.sh. Current Staked Hive Tokens is ~82.4k HP (Note: a power down is currently ongoing on this account)
@abit - Also a developer, but I'm not sure about their projects. Current Staked Hive Tokens is ~100.8k HP
@guiltyparties - An ardent supporter of the Hive Blockchain with a lot technical contributions. Current Staked Hive Tokens is ~64.8k HP
@steempress - This is the creator of the @exxp WordPress plugin which is used to connect WordPress blogs and websites to to Hive Blockchain. The initiative is jointly run by @howo and @fredrikaa. Current Staked Hive Tokens is ~35.6k HP (Note: a power down is currently ongoing on this account)
List extracted from Hiveblocks
How to Vote
To vote for your favorite Witness all you do is simply go to https://peakd.com/me/witnesses
Scroll to the right and locate vote column, scroll down to the row that corresponds to your favorite Witness, and tap on the vote button circled in red below.
A transaction confirmation window pops up, confirm it to complete the voting process, that's it.
Every account on the Hive Blockchain (with just a little HP) is entitled to 30votes and can vote for up to 30 different witnesses of their choice.
Although every vote does count no matter how little, but the more Hive Power you have, the more weight your vote has. This is designed so that only those who have a vested interest in the Blockchain should have the power to direct how things are done in it. That way, they stand to lose a lot if something goes wrong with the policies that they supported in the first place. This in my opinion is the perfect variant of democracy for the Hive Blockchain voting system.
What You Should Look Out For When Voting For Witnesses:
There really isn't any criteria for choosing who to vote for, just vote for who you feel has the best interest of the Hive community at heart. A lot of pointers can help in determining this, such as how active they are on the platform, their contributions (technical or otherwise), their financial stake in the platform, etc, but in the end, it remains your personal decision and your personal vote, so use it wisely.
I tend to understand a topic more once I write about it, I acknowledge that my knowledge of the Hive Blockchain is limited and some of the things I wrote may not be 100% accurate, hence I would appreciate corrections or contributions in the comment section, thanks for reading.
