@v4vapid, thank you for a really well thought out and thorough explanation of the scenario we're dealing with here.
I had been pondering Steem's predicament as yet another example of "predatory capitalism" and your article only bears that our further. The "no-shop" clause was another piece I had not taken into consideration; thank you for that.
A true value investor could have come in here; acquired the Steemit, Inc. stake and assets, pumped maybe $10-20M into development and marketing, and could have seen their investment in 17-cent Steem potentially turn into a result of $10 Steem in the matter of a couple of years, while also being hailed as *"the savior" of Steem. Instead we have this... shitshow.
He clearly did not expect the community to "bite back." Not only did the community bait back, it made JS lose face and credibility with his cronies at Binance and Huobi... and much of the Steem liquidity dried up, so he was prevented from executing a quick fix by trying to buy millions of Steem to get the sock puppets back in change.
It does make me laugh that TRON holds itself forth as a developer and proponent of decentralization when it is one of the most centralized blockchain operations around!