Seriously, what is a STEEM witness? Why should I care? How do I become one? (Answer)

A few people are still confuse as to what a witness is. There's a lot of mixed information on Steemit about what a witness does, and the amount they earn.

I'm here to clear this up a through post, with basic explanation where conceivable.

What is a witness?

A witness has a vital influence in how the STEEM network function. A few people probably won't know about this, however Steemit is only an fancy web interface over a huge network called STEEM, which works remotely like Bitcoin.

Simple Definition:

A STEEM witness is a person whom operates a witness server (which produces blocks), and publishs a price feed of STEEM/USD to the network.

Witnesses have numerous tasks. The as a matter of first importance is to create blocks (consequently process trasaction), the second most critical is to deliver a price feed, which is how by which STEEM Dollars are always worth 1 US Dollar in STEEM (using the 7 days transaction).

You may have known about the term 51% attack before. Dissimilar to Bitcoin, miners don't make a difference much to the STEEM network, rather, that is a witnesses work:

A hard fork happens when 67% of the best witnesses are all running a certain version of STEEM, which implies the main 19 witnesses can pick and choose whether to concur with a fork or not.

Tl;Dr

• They're the fundamental maker of blocks (not miners)

• They maintain a price feed, which is the means by which SBD funtion

• They assume the part of agreement (choose whether to hard fork or not)

• Many witnesses, for example, @surpassinggoogle, @aggroed deal with vital things to enable the STEEM network function and develop
  Some witnesses don't create any content, or work on anything STEEM related, anyway they are some of the time exceptionally engaged witnesses, who are very reliable

Why Should I Care?

A witness is paid relatively to how high they are in the witness rank, barring the top 19 witnesses (who get 1 block each ~63 seconds).

Be that as it may, how would they get to those positions? They get voted in, by people like YOU. It's much the same as a race, if you don't vote, other people may vote in witnesses who are pernicious or simply unreliable

Witness voting page

You can see the witness rank, and vote in favor of witnesses at https://steemit.com/~witnesses

How are Blocks Created/Scheduled?

It is not a very even mixture as you would hope. Blocks are produced in "rounds", which are 21 blocks long, and blocks are created every 3 seconds.

During every 21 block round, the blocks are distributed as such:

• 19 blocks go to the best 19 voted witnesses (who are somewhat rearranged to stay away from witnesses deliberately skipping blocks)

• 1 block goes to a Proof-of-Work minner, who turns into a witness for only 1 block.

• 1 semi-random witness outside of the main 19, which is influenced by their ranking

How Often Do They Get Blocks (how much do they earn)?

As mentioned in the previous section, witnesses are paid relative to their rank in the system. A witness at rank 30 can produce upwards of 4 blocks/hour, contrasted with a witness at rank 50, which may produce less than 1 block/hour.

A STEEM block is worth 1 STEEM Power (not STEEM, or SBD), which implies all prizes for minners/witnesses are trickle-paid for 2 years.

But what about the top 19? What do they get?

The top 19 witnesses get 1 block each, per 21 block round. This implies they get roughly 1 block for each 63 seconds.

Every day they get about 1400 SP

(60 * 60 * 24)/63 = 1,371.42

Every month they get around 42,500 SP

(60 * 60 * 24 * 31)/63 = 42,514.28

What's more, every year they get around 510,000 SP

(60 * 60 * 24 * 31 * 12)/63 = 510,171.42

Can anyone become a witness?

The short answer is: Yes.

Turning into a witness requires a few things:

• A great (and dependable) server to run a witness server on

• A second great server, with great transmission capacity - to work a Steem Seed (like a Bitcoin full hub, disttkribute blocks)

• Creating a signing key, and after that telecom your goal to end up a witness from cli_wallet

• An accurate price feed of STEEM/USD which is updated atleast once every day

• Specialized abilities - you ought to understand most STEEM concepts, and have the capacity to manage server issues quickly

• Trust from the cummunity that you would be a decent contender for a witness
  Some of these steps are optional (e.g. the seed), while others probably won't make any difference until the point when you approach the top 19 (the price feed) be that as it may, they're all strongly recommended on the off chance that you need to prevail as a witness.

If you want to set up a witness, I recommend joining #witness on STEEMIT.CHAT and asking for up to date guidance.

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@strongwilled