In the crypto world, Daniel Larimer (BM, ByteMaster) is a highly controversial figure. He has created three sensational projects: BitShares (BTS), Steem, and EOS. Each time, it began with a grand vision, a surge of capital and technology; each time, it ended with project stagnation, community disappointment, and BM stepping away.

If BM is a genius builder, he is equally a cold-hearted abandoner.

1. BitShares (BTS): The First Dream of Decentralized Exchanges

In 2013, BM launched BitShares, focusing on the concept of decentralized exchanges (DEX) and pioneering the DPOS (Delegated Proof of Stake) consensus mechanism. This was revolutionary at the time.

In the early days, BTS gained significant attention with its fast confirmation and high throughput, briefly ranking among the top ten cryptocurrencies by market value.

However, BM frequently changed the roadmap, introducing the Graphene framework and BitShares 2.0, causing community splits. Meanwhile, he showed little interest in market operations, and the project lacked sustained iteration and commercialization.

Ultimately, BTS fell into decline, and the community tried to save itself, but BM announced his departure in early 2015 to pursue a new project—Steem.

2. Steem: The Disillusionment of the Content Incentive Empire

In 2016, BM co-founded the Steemit platform with Ned Scott, leading to the birth of the Steem chain, focused on blockchain content incentives, and introduced the Upvote monetization model for the first time.

In the early stages of its launch, Steem quickly became popular, with the number of Steemit users soaring. However, the internal governance mechanism was extremely centralized, with Steemit company holding most of the Steem Power, leading to a gradually distorted project ecosystem.

After 2017, Steem's token inflation was severe, content quality declined, and the reward system was abused. BM's new technology, SteemIt Smart Media Tokens (SMT), was delayed for years, with development progress extremely slow.

At the end of 2017, BM once again withdrew, quietly leaving Steemit to pursue a grander dream—EOS.

This left the Steem ecosystem to self-consume, ultimately leading to its acquisition by Justin Sun, resulting in widespread community rebellion.

3. EOS: The Most Expensive Failure

In 2017, BM launched EOS, with Block.one responsible for development, proposing the concept of a 'commercial-grade blockchain operating system.'
The ICO lasted a year, raising an astonishing over $4 billion, becoming the largest financing case in blockchain history.

BM claimed that EOS would provide one million TPS (transactions per second), no fees, and unlimited scalability. However, the actual delivery fell far short of expectations:

  • After the mainnet launch, performance and stability were frequently criticized;

  • The development of the DApp ecosystem was limited, with high resource rental costs (RAM/CPU) deterring developers;

  • EOS main chain governance was chaotic, with severe interests group formation among supernodes, leading to the bankruptcy of decentralization promises.

At the end of 2019, BM suddenly resigned as Block.one's CTO without prior communication, turning to pursue new visions (such as Voice, Clarion, and other projects).

The EOS community feels extremely disappointed, with prices continuing to decline and market value plummeting by more than 90% from its peak.
Block.one is also gradually withdrawing from the EOS ecosystem, shifting its focus to capital operations.

BM has once again abandoned the kingdom he built.

Summary: Genius? Traitor?

BM is undoubtedly an incredibly creative technical genius in the blockchain industry, having contributed concepts such as DPOS consensus, on-chain voting, and smart contract performance optimization.

However, the rise and fall of each project also exposed his extreme technocratic tendencies and lack of long-term operational management:

  • Only enthusiastic about architecture and initial innovation;

  • Lacking sustained investment in community, economic models, and market ecology;

  • Whenever a project enters the operational phase and complex problems arise, he quickly chooses to exit and pursue new dreams.

What he left behind was not just three unfinished cities, but countless scattered developers, investors, and lost communities.

In the history of crypto, BM is forever an undeniable light, but also a regrettable shadow.