Hi All, I found enough enthusiasm to create a post today - the first in 5 months. I needed a break from HIVE, and all things crypto actually. I found I was doing too much, and it had started to dictate my daily life, so needed a break. But the main thing is life is good.

This weekends excitement was going to see Scotland vs Wales in the 6 Nations International Rugby Tournament. I'm Scottish and my wife is Welsh, so its our annual grudge match ! Scotland won again (35 - 29). We went with friends and then also went to a few pubs in the evening, so had a great day out.

Where to go from here ?

I guess I came back to write a post more to make sense out of blogging/HIVE/crypto for myself more than anything. I just thought I'd write something about been whats going on and maybe it would help me to understand what I should (or should not) be doing !

Hive

Although I've not posted for a while, I do still pop on now and again. I look at the odd travel post, still do a few HIVE/HBD flip trades, and stake various tokens that have built up. My HP is largely delegated and with various stuff staked its great to see that things still accumulate - it just works away, even when I'm not there !

I went away because posting became a chore. I felt pressured to post - it was my own pressure due to my desire to grow my HIVE stake. In the end I felt that wasnt too healthy so it was part of my reasoning to take a break.

The other issue I had was doing my tax return. I tried my best to take account of crypto gains within my tax return - and it simply wasnt worth the hassle. I'm UK based and the info you would have to retain to fully declare any earnings would just be a complete chore (track every single trade, stake, post earnings, etc, etc). Plus you have to pay the tax on it basically as its earned, way in advance of ever liquidating anything if you were a HODLer like me. So that also completely turned me off - why earn it if it was just going to be too hard to do anything with it anyway and give me grief from the tax man.

But let me just say, I still think HIVE is awesome. Its an incredible ecosystem and community, and that is why I came back to do this post. I've not forgotten about HIVE, and I dont think this is me coming back full time, but in short I am also not fully away.

Mainstream Crypto

The tax aspect wasnt just a HIVE thing, because I have other crypto holdings (although I have most in HIVE). So it turned me off to all of it really. I still look at the price of BTC and I have done a few flip trades between BTC and a stable coin, but all small in value - nothing really to speak off. And generally I no longer hold anything else (just BTC, then stuff in HIVE and WAX).

Crypto Gaming Generally

I've always enjoyed gaming. The desire to earn more crypto was driving me mostly to crypto games. I was really enjoying REALM on WAX and when that disappeared overnight via a rug pull type maneuver from the developer it also turned me of to many other crypto games.

Also, I was generally finding that some of them were not really games anyway. It was clicking buttons to earn nano amounts of crypto. This had basically driven me from playing games I used to enjoy, towards games that I no longer enjoyed. So that was another part of it - I just wanted to go back to playing games that I would actually enjoy playing - who cares if it provided crypto or not.

WAX

Just about the time I was starting to come of HIVE, I did really get into all things WAX, and particularly Alien Worlds. There is so much more to Alien Worlds than I ever reaslised, and its a tough nut to crack (just to understand it - or at least it was for me anyway).

I sort of fell into a similar issue with WAX. I was then playing these WAX "games" to earn a few extra tiny amounts of WAX, which were completely chore based and not even remotely fun.

After a couple of months I jacked all of the other WAX things in as well, except mission control, which is part of Alien Worlds (I know that description is not quite accurate, but I'm struggling to describe it correctly).

Mission control includes an idle type game called outpost builder- and I simply enjoy it. I can now earn with it, although the earnings are low. That tied in with tool renting for alien worlds allows me to continue to earn a small amount of WAX - say about $5 every couple of weeks. Maybe that does not sound worth while, but again I'm doing it because I enjoyed it, not because I'm desperate to earn more WAX.

So what does it mean going forward ?

HIVE - I can see I might do the occasional post - but when I want to, not when I feel I have to do it. I will still want to stake and earn, but wont come on every day to do it. I still want to read travel posts (always looking for another great location for us to visit).

TAX - I would like to figure out how to make my crypto and tax worlds work. I'm a great believer in paying tax even if I dont always agree with how it is spent (and I'm not getting into any political debate here, because I'm useless when it comes to politics !). But if its just going to be to hard to do a tax return for it each year, and cost me additional money, then I'm never going to get back into crypto earning in any big way, until thats resolved.

GAMING - I will continue to play games because I enjoy them, and not because they earn crypto. If they do, then thats fine, but the driver will be fun. For info, the game I'm really enjoying just now is called Conflict of Nations, World War III. Its a war game that I play on my phone. Its pretty fun, so thats keeping me entertained (and its not crypto based).

WAX - I'm still enjoying outpost builder at the moment, but I can also see there will come a time where I grow tired of it. Thats also fine. With WAX you can aslo stake things, etc, so I'd just set it all up to sit and earn away, similar to my holdings on HIVE, so that it will continue to slowly increase.

So I guess the summation of this is fun/enjoyment. If I enjoy it I will do it, if I dont I wont, and I'm not here because I think it will allow me to buy a lambo ! Writing this post has allowed me to make some sense of it all, so I'm glad of that !

Cheers !

[Enjoying a few whiskies while out on the town last night !]

Well, I'll leave it at that. Silver Bloggers seemed like the most appropriate place to post, more because of my age than anything else !

All the best - I'm still around and all is well !