Hello everyone—Hivers, Splinterlands gamers/collectors, and as of today, Lions, too!
2020 has been a singular year, changing almost all aspects of our lives so drastically, and sometimes in permanent ways. As the year closes, here's my look back at how my year went and what I look forward to in the coming year.
Photo by Artem Bryzgalov on Unsplash
Moving from Steem to Hive
The move from the old blockchain to Hive was not as smooth as I would have wanted.
I missed the chance to double my Hive Power. This was entirely my fault for not paying attention, being impatient, and making hasty decisions when completing my transfer attempts. In the end, over the 13-week power down period, I only managed to move a small portion of my Steem to Hive. Most of it was lost due to a combination of sending Steem to wrong recipients, blocked swap channels, mistyped ETH addresses, and all over poor judgment on my part.
Yeah, terrible mistakes, I know. I wallowed over that for a bit. Thankfully, my Steem stake was not that big and I'm over it.
Also, it's a good thing that Hive Power can grow passively. So, even though I didn't do much this year, my Hive Power still increased, even in small increments.
On the bright side, thanks to 
So, from now on, depending on the topic, all my posts will be published in either PeakD or LeoFinance.
This brings me to my decision to start posting on LeoFinance.
Discovering LeoFinance and my crypto story
Over the last few weeks, I have started reading content on and exploring LeoFinance. And after commenting here and there, I think its time I start contributing, too.
My introduction to cryptocurrency goes along the lines of hearing about Bitcoin from somewhere in the interweb in the early 2010s. Around that time, I remember one of my clients offered to pay me about $100 worth of bitcoin for a project. But like the "smart" person that I am, I said, "Uhh, no. Real money only, please". (Not sure how I feel about that decision.)
You can imagine how I felt when I heard about Bitcoin again in late 2017. By then, I was kicking myself. Thankfully, when I rediscovered bitcoin in late 2017, I decided to do the smart thing and explore it and cryptocurrencies a bit more. The problem is, in late 2017/early 2018 bitcoin was already super expensive. So, I still couldn't buy any.
This was when I stumbled on Steem. And, for the next several months, I casually spent my time blogging there, participating in airdrops (Byteball, anyone), and playing Splinterlands.
Then, 2019 came along and the price of bitcoin went down to about US$3,000-5,000. I was a little smarter in 2019 than I was in 2012. So, I took the chance and bought myself some bitcoins, just a few hundreds worth.
But then things got hectic in real life. And around July 2019 I paused my blogging and crypto exploration for a bit. The small amount of bitcoin I bought was also hidden away in a laminated paper wallet that I placed in my everyday wallet. (I have recently replaced it with a Ledger, so that's an improvement.)
Then, in 2020, I find out that my small amount of Bitcoin has more than doubled in value, that the community has forked into Hive, and that LeoFinance has overtaken both Hive and Steem in price.
So, here I am today, trying to get back into the swing of things and exploring a new community in the process.
Growing my crypto portfolio for 2021
2020 was a good year for me, crypto-wise, but not so much blogging-wise. I also regret that I didn't grow any of my Hive tokens this year. That includes the 266 Leo I received from the original airdrop. I feel like my 2017 self again, kicking my 2012 self for letting my tokens sit idly.
But, the good thing is, cryptocurrencies, especially Hive and its tokens have the tendency to grow over time, even when you don't do anything with them. My Hive Power, for example, grew passively as a result of my previous power ups.
But, there's always room to grow in 2021. So this year, I'm going to be more active in Hive and LeoFinance and make an effort to increase all my tokens, especially my Leo tokens.
I have always believed in the revolutionary role that the blockchain and cryptocurrency will have in the future of the world. My belief in these emerging technologies have been reinforced over and over in 2020.
Just this week, amidst the news about Bitcoin reaching and exceeding its all-time high, I read about the US-dollar also reaching an all-time high—in printing money. Though I don't believe this is a sign of an impending dollar crash (at least not in the near future), it's still a glaring sign that aspects of global economy's status quo are broken. The idea that we're printing more money now, just because we're low on cash is straight out of Monopoly's bank rules.
I'm taking this as a sign that I'm gonna need to protect my finances through cryptocurrency. And knowing what I know now, I think one way of doing this is through participation in LeoFinance.
So, with that in mind, here's to a better crypto story for 2021.
Cheers, everyone!