As I learned more and more about Steemit I have heard about the term "Witness" more often and wanted to get a basic understanding about who it is and what they are doing in Steemit.
That is why I did a research and gathered a simple explanation of Witness on Steemit for all of you.
What is a Witness?
Basically Witnesses are people who are interested in Steemit's future.
Their main task is to:
- Run a software on their servers 24/7 that produces Steem blocks, which store every upvote, comment, post, and transaction
- Provide an updated exchange rate of STEEM to U.S. Dollar
- Set a minimum STEEM POWER registration deposit for a new account
- Set the interest rate of STEEM DOLLAR (APR%)
- Set other variables needed in the future
Image credits
They are also encouraged to run a seed-node so that Steemit blockchain can be synchronised (downloaded) by others. The more seed nodes there are the safer the Steemit network because it also acts as a kind of backup.
Where can I see these Witnesses?
The list of top 100 Witnesses can be seen here: https://steemd.com/witnesses
Lets look at the variables in the table and what they actually mean
Rank - order of Witnesses by total amount of vote power (MVESTS) received by Steemians
Witness - name with a link to the account on Steemit
Approval - Amount of MVESTS voted for this Witness
% - Percent of vote power compared to the total
Miss - Amount of blocks that Witness should have produced but did not for some reason
Last block - The last block number which was produced by Witness
URL - Link to any webpage explaining why they should be voted for Witness
Reg fee - Minimum deposit set by the Witness for new account registration. This deposit stays on the account of the newly created user.
** Feed** - This is the exchange rate of STEEM to U.S. Dollar set by the Witness
Bias - This number is used to peg the STEEM to U.S. Dollar with a different denomination
APR - Annual interest rate for SDB (STEEM DOLLAR) or in other words percent return on SDB.
Block Size - Maximum block size set by Witness in bytes. This variable is used to stop spam attacks.
Version - Version of Steemd that was used to produce the last block
Witnesses are sorted by people's votes on Steemit. Everyone in the Steemit community is encouraged to monitor these Witnesses to upvote the most loyal, responsive, up-to-date, and reasonable in their variables set.
Can I change my vote on a Witness?
YES, Please!! You are encouraged to monitor Witnesses and downvote them if they become not responsive, or if they do not update they software, or stop updating the latest STEEM PRICE. We can change our votes as much as we want, but we can vote for no more than 30 Witnesses.
We as a community need to promote the most responsible Witness, who will maintain Steemit's health and prosperity.
How do I know who to vote for?
6 Key points I personally look at when choosing Witnesses:
- Feed is close to the market price of STEEM
- Version number is up to date
- Witness is not grayed out and crossed out
- Witness is active in the community (lots of recent posts and followers)
- URL shows good motives to be a Witness
- URL shows proper equipment for Running a node
Ok, so where do I vote? 
You should visit this link ( https://steemit.com/~witnesses ) after you have monitored and chosen which Witnesses to vote for. You have up to 30 votes that you can give to these Witnesses.
Image credits
How are Witnesses rewarded?
A sample block that Witnesses produce can be seen here: https://steemd.com/b/7034896
Change a number at the end of this link and see another block. Blocks are produced at approximately the speed of 1 block per 3 seconds.
The fact that Witnesses are getting paid in STEEM POWER makes them more incentivized to keep Steemit in best possible shape.
Hope that now you have a basic idea about what a Witness is and what they are for.
Thank you for reading! Follow if you like and don't forget to Steem ON!
