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Twitter saw the return of Vitalik Buterin vs. Justin Sun on May 19. The respective founders of Ethereum and TRON exchanged barbs over the matter of an imminent Steem hard fork, which will seize the funds of some of its users.
If Steem Hardfork 0.23 goes ahead on May 20, over 23.6 million STEEM coins will be taken from multiple users: that’s roughly a bounty worth over $5 million.
Buterin vs. Sun: Round 1
Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin appeared on a Twitter thread concerning the alarming decision by Steem (STEEM) to seize $5 million worth of tokens from its users in an imminent hard fork.
Buterin suggested that Steem’s users should move over to the Hive blockchain, which was created as a hard fork of Steem in response to Justin Sun’s recent takeover.
Buterin tweeted:
Steem Account Seizures
However, the current conflict stretches beyond a mere war of words on Twitter. Buterin’s tweet drew attention to the latest controversy in the ongoing saga of Justin Sun’s takeover of Steem. According to the specifications of the latest Steem hard fork (scheduled for May 20), several Steemit users will have their accounts seized.
A former Steem witness from before the Sun takeover, MarkyMark found his name on the list of targeted accounts.
He confirmed to CryptoPotato: “They’re clearing our accounts. All the tokens they are stealing are going to an anonymous account created a few days ago.”
MarkyMark confirmed this to be the anonymous account in question. Steem users are urged to send this notice of a pending class-action lawsuit to cryptocurrency exchanges. If crypto exchanges lend support to the impending hard fork, the victims will stand no chance of recovering their funds.