Alex DeLarge puts it succinctly.
This is what Steem, the nullifying of accounts, the censoring of content at the API level and all that shit is.
I haven't posted anything to Steem for a week now. I doubt I will post anything any longer. What the fuck is Justin Sun thinking? My initial thoughts were whether he really thinks anyone will dare invest in Steem when the entire cryptosphere including heavyweights like Vitalik Buterin and Andreas Antonopoulos are discussing the case again and everyone agreeing Steem is a real horror show.
But the price of STEEM seems to be doing fine regardless of the controversy. That fact goes to show that altcoin speculators will speculate on literally anything to get their dirty little hands on more Bitcoin.
Here's Changpeng Zhao of Binance on whether he will allow customers with STEEM on Binance access to their funds by supporting HF 23 on Steem.
https://www.binance.com/en/blog/421499824684900605/CZs-Statement-on-the-Recent-STEEM-Hard-Fork
Hive is a hard forked sister chain of Steem. CZ says he will list any fork of Steem to allow the theft victims to regain access to their coins from right before HF 23. Interesting. Property rights on a blockchain are indeed an interesting subject. Decentralization and "code is law" are supposed to supplant the legacy system and CZ is suggesting that hard forks be the only remedy to centralization and all wrongdoings that makes possible. The SEC in the US seems to consider centralized chains securities but decentralized chains non-securities. Steem is currently a centralized chain controlled through Steemit, Inc registered in Texas, USA, but no one has asked the SEC for a decision.
What this scandal guarantees is eyes on Steem and Hive for a long time. But that's not a big consolation for those who lost very large sums of money in the heist that HF 23 was. It's highly uncertain as to whether they'll ever gain possession of their funds again.