In March, one of the biggest headlines in the crypto space was the controversial takeover of the STEEM blockchain by Tron Foundation CEO, Justin Sun.
The takeover followed Sun’s acquisition of the Steemit blogging platform that was ironically reported by the Tron Foundation as a strategic partnership, only for Steemit Founder, Ned Scott, to show up on Twitter a few hours later to announce that it was a buyout.
As Coinfomania also reported then, the takeover took place in collaboration with crypto exchanges, whereby user funds were used to back STEEM network witnesses designated by Justin Sun to reverse a decision by the community regarding a portion of the network’s token supply.
The STEEM community then elected to engineer a hardfork, moving away from STEEM to its new blockchain, Hive.
HIVE Overtakes STEEM by Market Valuation
Now, one month down the line, the community-led effort is yielding results according to data first shared on Twitter by Hive proponent, Dan.
Freedom vs. Tyranny. #Web3 the free market is the judge, jury & executioner. #HIVE pic.twitter.com/RZXa3Ur86Y
— They Call Me Dan (@TheycallmeDan_) April 24, 2020
The data which references data from the crypto data provider, Coingecko shows that HIVE’s market valuation has surpassed that of Justin Sun’s STEEM token. While Hive (ranked 63rd) was trading at a $0.21 price with a market cap of $77.2 million, STEEM ranked fifteen places lower with a price of $0.15 and a market cap of $55.2 million.
While the Tron Foundation CEO had claimed then that the takeover of the STEEM network was done to undermine an attack by hackers, the current market valuations, although subject to fluctuations in the future, would suggest otherwise.
Meanwhile, the Hive hardfork and subsequent growth (although still at an early stage) may once again have provided a proof-of-hope that the decentralized principles of the crypto community would endure, even as powerful centralized entities grow.
