Three years ago, the Steem blockchain issued its first block. Since that time, every three seconds, a new block of confirmed transactions is added.
For me, my journey on Steem started 19 months ago. Thus, I am around for a little more than half of Steem's existence. In that time, a lot took place and we saw many changes.
It is often hard to see what is taking place unless we step back.
When I first joined, there was a great deal of negativity surrounding the blockchain. Many were down because results were not coming fast enough. This was not long after the March 2017 lows which put a lot of fear in people. Many were questioning whether Steem would even survive.
This was astounding to me since I saw the potential and some of what was taking place. The blockchain world was still flying under the radar yet there were advancement being made. Nevertheless, the outlook for many was bleak.
I started writing about what I saw, a move that was met with resistance. I was called a Steemit fanboy, Ned's bitch, and a cheerleader. The anger was still raging.
The bull run at the end of 2017 got everyone excited. The prices were going insane which put most in a good mood. The underlying situation really did not change any since price action reflects very little. Fortunately, the development was continuing.
As the new year rolled around, the party stopped. We did not realize it at the time but a major FUD campaign was kicking off that went on for all of 2018. The powers that manipulate wanted prices lower and that is what they got.
The entire time, we saw development. More applications showed up on Steem that people could use. Upgrades kept coming adding functionality and more features. While the tone was negative which is common in a bear, the progress was great.
Looking back, there was a ton of advancement made in 2018. Compared to 2017, we saw this place grow by leaps and bounds. However, that was relatively mild compared to, for lack of a better word, the "black swan" event in November.
One day, Steemitblog put out up a post announcing that it was having to lay of 70% of the staff. They were burning through money since they did not have an outside revenue stream. The low price of STEEM did not help matters any.
This sent the attitude even further down. Some were losing their shit. However, there was a silver lining and it came in the form of a major kick to the you know what.
The community got complacent. It really is that simple. The news from Steemit Inc. was a wake up call and many responded.
In the past 4 months, since that time, I feel we were jolted on a different trajectory in terms of the growth curve. Bear in mind, I am referring to development and not necessarily user numbers. It appears the amount of development taking place today is far greater than it was before that announcement.
2018 saw more advancement than took place in 2017. Already in 2019, we are ahead of pace compared to a year ago. This is common and how things compound. We are seeing a lot of pieces put in place that serve as our foundation. This will only be used down the road to build even more projects.
What is really exciting about exponential growth is that what appears to be massive advancement, years down the road, looks to be in the flatline part. When I ponder this, I am only left to conclude that we are just getting started. In three years, we will look back and feel that the development of today was slow. Hopefully, we will be seeing a pace that far exceeds what is being done today.
There were a lot of ups and downs over my time on Steem. We know, going forward, we will see many more. However, at the onset of cryptoeconomics, there is no better place to be, in my opinion, than on Steem.
Each day, we keep adding to the blockchain building the value of it. Over time, this effort is going to result in significant advancement. A simply chart like the one I posted above shows the path we will most likely take.
It is already in motion. We are all along for the ride.
Steem;s third year was pretty good. It is exciting to know year 4 is going to be even better.
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