Since it's really been a while since we have been super active, I thought I should re-introduce who we are and where we came from. After already having a successful career in international field service and being an expat in Germany, Ireland, Singapore, South Korea, and more, my wife and I decided to make much of our personal content public. This occurred in 2011 after I had begun international travel in 1989. So yes, we really do have a good idea of what we are doing.
From 2011 to 2016, we began to have censorship around my idea of being able to use Bitcoin as a financial mechanism to travel internationally. I started seeing our significant social media presence being censored, and in a few cases, companies shut us down. Because of this, we looked for some alternatives. Some worked out while others didn't. That's what initially brought us to Steemit, and our content began to do well, even earning us additional crypto.
We did so well on Stemmit that we decided to begin networking with other very active users of the platform. That's where SteemFest 2 came in, and we went to Lisbon, Portugal. The event and the opportunity to meet others went exceptionally well, so we began to grow there even quicker. Now, 2018 was a rough year for us health-wise, and then there was this "5 December 2019—Justin Sun, CEO of Tron," and we really did not know what was happening.
Now, it's March 2020, and COVID-19 has already begun. We were already under major attack on every social media except Steemit. However, the fork of March 2020 happened, and then COVID-19 really began causing havoc along with government control mechanisms. The attacks on us seem to have been centered around us warning people in late 2019 that something was happening in China and that if the World Health Organisation declared a pandemic, many governments would implement different controls. So, it was a busy time for us.
So now it's 2020, Hive has been forked, and crypto generally was not doing well for us. We were fighting COVID, censorship, and the health issues that came with this period. At this point, we started to post less and figure out where all the pieces would shift. This period took an additional two years. Then, in late 2022, we began packing back up and left the United States back to Asia. In the years 2019 - 2023, our content began to be more USA outdoor-based due to the events of the time.
Now, we are working out of Penang, Malaysia, and have been able to expand back to where we were by 50%, but website traffic is still down. However, our presence via video has skyrocketed via YouTube and other platforms I can autopublish to using software. So now this brings us back full circle to Hive.
As far as I can tell, Hive is still running on the basic free-speech ideas it did via Steemit before the fork. Nothing will be perfect, but we feel it's time to return to being more active here on Hive Blog. Any content I think we cannot post on our website or YouTube will end up here in three different areas. Hive Blog. DBuzz Hive dApp and DTube, assuming they still work the same. This should allow us to provide unique content here on subjects that get us censored.
In conclusion, it's great to be back here, and we hope to reconnect with old friends and meet new friends along the way. We will also look for in-person events to attend if they exist.
P.S. I may add some videos and pictures later when I edit this again for spelling.
Take Care and Travel On! John Gentry ExploreTraveler.com