The Steem network has been the topic of many controversies in the past few months, as it put forward the problem of centralization in the blockchain industry. The blockchain, which hosts the Steemit social media platform, was purchased and taken over by Tron earlier in February in what many described as a massive takeover. This resulted in members of the Steem community hard forking the network and starting a new platform called Hive, which quickly overtook Steem’s market cap.

However, it seems that the Steem saga is far from over as the latest reports suggest that an upcoming fork is set to seize assets from dozens of accounts on the platform. The hard fork is set to seize 23.6 million STEEM, worth around $5 million at press time, from 64 accounts. The hard fork is scheduled for May 20. 

The accounts that are set to be “seized” in the hard fork have been leaked on Twitter, with a Hive developer claiming to have received the list from someone working inside of Steem. The screengrab shows the names of some of Steem’s original witnesses, who are set to be banned and have their funds removed in the upcoming upgrade. 

https://twitter.com/netuoso/status/1262408664306024448

The names leaked in the text messages match the names that have been included in the GitHub repo of the hardfork.

A Steemit witness group called Triple A told Korean news outlet Joindy that the upcoming 0.23 hard fork will seize the assets of accounts it determined to pose a “direct threat” to the Steem blockchain or want to seize the legitimate assets of Steem holders. This, the group said, is an “indispensable measure” needed to improve the network stability and user environment on Steem. 

All of the 65 listed accounts are said to belong to people who were attacking other users, collecting personal information, and even threatening murder, Joindy reported. 

However, this was widely refuted by the Steem community, with many saying that this was an attempt to “whitewash” the February takeover by Justin Sun and Tron. A former top witness on Steem whose name appears on the hard fork list said that all of the others listed are those who opposed Sun’s takeover of the network. 

Sun responded to the controversy saying that neither he nor Steemit was involved in this hard fork. The first he reportedly heard about this was when the story broke earlier today.

“Give proper context to the hard fork, First of all, both Steemit Inc and I are not involved in this hard fork and I know this from the news as well. I have sympathy for current Steem witnesses. The hive witnesses did this to them first and took all their assets,” he said in a Twitter response.

From his perspective, the hard fork was understandable as “millions of dollars” were stolen from the network by Hive witnesses. Steemit and Tron are reportedly working with law enforcement agencies to get the funds back to Steem.

“As for Steemit Inc., many millions of dollars were stolen by Hive witnesses. We are working w/ law enforcement & will take actions to get our funds back! We have lots of sympathy for all Steem witnesses who has suffered the same at the hands of the Hive witnesses.”

Sun also said that it was his duty to voice the opinion of the Steem community even though he isn’t directly involved in their decisions. 

“I am not involved in any Steem community decision but I have to voice their opinions. Since Hive took their money @VitalikButerin & the misleading media are 100% supportive of it. Any media that covers this should interview current #STEEM witnesses,” he said.

However, despite denying his involvement in the hard fork, some Twitter users pointed out that an account believed to have been directly connected to either Sun or Tron, @dev365, has given its support to the witnesses. 

https://twitter.com/juliakponsford/status/1262952598350462978