While red floods the crypto markets once more, developments are happening quietly behind the scenes, as planned. At least that's the case with Steem.
I remember not so long ago in a @steemitblog update an approximate time for the Velocity hard fork was mentioned: first month of fall.
Since yesterday we have an exact date when the whole thing will happen, that is September 25th at 11am EST, if a super-majority of top witnesses + selected backup witness agree (17 out of 21).
Well, that's definitely the first month of fall, so it's on schedule.
Moreover, before that date, there will be a testnet available so that developers can get used to the proposed changes.
If you don't know what a hard fork is, in Steem's case it is exactly like a major software update of the blockchain. The "software update" is conditioned by a super-majority of witnesses approving it, as mentioned above. Right now the blockchain is at major software version 19 and will be upgraded to major software version 20. If you are familiar to Windows, it's like upgrading from Windows 8 to Windows 10, except it's more complicated on the blockchain, because decisions are taken by vote and it's distributed across the entire Steem blockchain, and it's not a discretionary decision like on your personal computer (or your phone's Android/iOS).
Here are, in a few words, the main changes Velocity hard fork will bring:
- halved curation window from 30 minutes to 15 minutes (after the curation window expires all curation reward goes to curator, before that, it is split between the author and the curator, in a linear progression, more for the author immediately after posting and progressively more for the curator as time passes toward the curation window limit)
- authors who upvote immediately after posting won't get an unfair advantage compared to other curators for their posts
- replaces bandwidth with resource credits (RCs), in a revolutionary new and so far unique system which attempts to fix the issue blockchains which have zero transaction fees have with spamming
- changes the way new accounts are created, making a huge step further toward an easier sign up process (creation fee is burned to disincentivize creating accounts for the SP; accounts won't need SP delegation from Steemit for the bandwidth anymore; accounts will be created using resource credits, which will simplify onboarding via other big projects, different than Steemit)
- delegations are returned to owner after 5 days when undelegating (from 7 days currently)
- you don't need Steem Power to vote, but if your vote worth is too low it won't be considered for the rewards pool
- possibility to comment every 3 seconds instead of 20
- internal market orders expire after 28 days (from never expire now)
- changes for the witnesses
- others (I recommend you to read the entire update yourself)