Witness Voting plays a big part in Steemit. Everyone has a right to vote for 30 witnesses. But not everyone votes, and some people appoint a proxy to vote on their behalf.
A recent post from @plushzilla ‘Witness Votes - who do the witnesses vote for?’ looked at Witness popularity amongst themselves and reviled some very interesting insights
However @plushzilla suggested that we dig into the data a little deeper, so I have decided to look at a different approach. I have also had some other people also requesting a look into witness voting, so here you go!
Did you know that 4290 steemit accounts have set a proxy to do their witness voting for them? That means all of the SP owned by these 4290 accounts are in the hands of others to use as they wish on witness votes. I have identified 293 proxies
The total Vesting shares from Steemsql @ 16:34 on 07/11 was 389.74nb, of which 11% has been allocated to a proxy
The top proxies in terms of number of accounts that have set them as proxy can be seen in the table below. It’s an indicator of popularity.
However if we look at the Controlling vesting shares (which is the owned vesting shares plus the proxied vesting shares) we can see a different perspective.
Of all of the proxy accounts, @steemit has the majority with just over 60%. @pumpkin and @ned come second and third.
Looking further at the values for, @steemit have 38% control of all steem power for witness votes. @pumpkin has 4%, @ned has 2%. Actually looking at it now, 9 accounts have a 51% controlling power on Witness votes.
Just wondering something, what do you consider centralised?
But @steemit, @ned, @proskynneo do not vote for any witnesses. Also from this list of 9 accounts @blocktrades @clayop are in the top 20 witnesses. Both vote for each other as a witness, between both of these accounts, they control 5% of the total vesting shares. In addition to this @blocktrades also has a vote from @minority-report.
As @steemit, @ned, @proskynneo do not vote for any witnesses and they control such a large amount of power, it is important to adjust for Vests that have not been used for either a witness vote or for a proxy. Only 31% of vests are used for witness votes.
We can now look at this data based on the used vests of 122.61bn. A 51% control of this is made up of 22 accounts as seen in the table below
@blocktrades, @clayop, @xeldal, @riverhead,@ lukestokes.mhth @pharesim, are in the top 20 witnesses. @smooth.witness @netuoso @steemd , @delegate.lafona are in the top 50.
@Pumpkin control 11% of the actual vests used to vote on witnesses
The witnesses in the top 50 that are also proxies, between them control 20% of the actual vests used in witness voting.
11 accounts holding 31% of the voting power. This is really interesting.
@pumpkin has massive weight. And this ties back to a post I did the other day, Unmasking Freedom – What the data can tell us. If you missed it you can check it out here
/@paulag/unmasking-freedom-what-the-data-can-tell-us-steemit-business-intelligence
You see @pumpkin is set as a proxy for @freedom, the second largest stake holder on steemit. And look who else is set as proxy for @pumpkin
These are the same accounts identified as connected to @freedom. Maybe @pumpkin is @freedom. Maybe @pumpkin is an official steemit account? After all there were those witness updates from all of these accounts referencing https://steem.io. I am thinking that @pumpkin and @freedom are one and the same.
Looking at the 11 account which hold 31% of the voting power, and let’s add back in @Minoriry-reports @hendrikdegrote and @berniesanders as combined this will increase the voting weight to 35%
Lets see how they have voted when it comes to their witness votes
This table shows how these accounts voted for each other in terms of witness
And this table shows other witnesses that have the most amount of shared votes from these account.
@jest @gtg @pfunk @roelandp @thecryptodrive @anyx are all top 20 witnesses and @cervantes is in the top 50.
I find it very interesting from these charts that @pumpkin does not self vote as a witness, and they are also not voting for @blocktrades. Could @freedom be @blocktrades?
Conclusion
There are a number of accounts (11), which combined hold 31% of the voting power for the witness list. I know if I keep digging I will find the account that make up 51% which is a majority holding.
I guess we all need to take care when appointing a proxy for witness voting, and made sure we agree with who the proxy is voting for to represent you as a witness.
This analysis also shows a problem when it comes to new witnesses reaching the top 20, if a small few hold the majority of the power, then unless you get in with this golden circle, the changes of making it to the top 20 will be very difficult
The analysis also highlights a need for some sort of witness awareness campaign. Only a third of all vests are used for witness voting, either with a proxy or selecting your own witnesses. If we could get more people on Steemit to engage with witness voting the balance of power could be shifted.
I am part of a Steemit Business Intelligence community. We all post under the tag #BIsteemit. If you have an analysis you would like carried out on Steemit data, please do contact me or any of the #bisteemit team and we will do our best to help you...y
You can find #bisteemit on discord https://discordapp.com/invite/JN7Yv7jwe share a home with @steemitbc