Genesis
I was beamed up into the world of crypto and decentralised blockchain technology in January 2018. If you wish you can read the background story here, which tells of my state of mind and the circumstances that led to me becoming aware of the Steem blockchain (Hive's disgraced and disowned parent :).
I had no savings at the time, opting to give as little as possible time and energy doing things I didn't want to do, all for the sake of an income - I worked only as many hours as required to make ends meet. I didn't have any interest in traditional, centralised 'finance' and had not yet been exposed to the new paradigm of decentralised finance and its tremendous potential for individual empowerment through eliminating the scheming and scamming middleman altogether.
Steem was pushing $5 then and it seemed that, with time, the holding of even a few hundred tokens could propel one to a life independent of having to slave away in the rat-race. There were already a number of people at the time who were claiming to make ends meet from blogging alone - this eventuality was easy to see back then!
I started off slowly on the lower slopes, making trickles on my posts and earning my first few hundred Steem organically. By the summer of 2018 the price had dropped to around $1.50 and I had figured out how to buy Bitcoin and swap it for Hive. I started buying small amounts every month as the price dropped......and dropped and dropped.
Life-changing potential, but not yet realised!
By the winter of 2019 I had around 5k Steem and some Hive Engine tokens. I had no doubt about the eventual mooning event (yes it's coming....:) and had also convinced a number of friends and family members to buy some Hive. I went off to live in a tent in Portugal for 9 months and my account remained idling with engine on but no real action taking place.
Recent Moves:
Then came the big bang event which gave birth to the Hive blockchain. I returned from Portugal to discover that I had doubled my stake without doing anything. I exchanged half of my Steem for BTC and converted the rest into Hive and powered it up. I used some of the BTC to buy a few Alts like Rune (on the back of it being talked up big in LeoFinance), ETH (used in WLEO version 1), and more recently, to buy a bit more Hive at bargain basement prices.
The BTC and Rune amounts I have are pretty small, a few hundred dollars atm. I consider my main hodlings to be those I have on the Hive blockchain - HIVE (10k), LEO (2.5k), WEED (6k), and these will remain my focus in the absence of means to acquire more tokens except through blogging or exchanging more BTC.
All-In With Belief-in-Blockchain
I have learnt a lot about decentralisation and have seen the development on Hive and thus do not need to be convinced of its tremendous potential to provide me with a livelihood in the near future. This has not happened quite yet but I do believe we are on the cusp of the 'event' :).
Currently I do not work for money, being utterly unable to prostrate myself before the 'job market'. Instead I have borrowed in order to live my relatively simple life and have a good friend who is helping me out in this regard as well as with accommodation.
I do however work on my posts - I take care in their presentation and I only write/create when I feel motivated and wanna do it. The discovery of the blockchain was, firstly and for me, about self-expression. The payouts were and are a bonus, not a 'salaried' entitlement. My life - my outlook on life with regard to financial security as a result of finding Hive (Steem) has already undergone a radical shift for the better.
Financial security is, for me, the extent to which I 'worry' about finances ie how 'secure' I feel about my financial state. The fact is, I feel very financially secure even though I have no pension, no fiat savings and am in debt.
This sense of financial security and a future of flowing abundance is a major side-effect of blogging on the blockchain. It has come about in a manner that I could never have foretold, and is beyond anything I could have imagined happening to me.
The Future
I see myself riding the crypto wave up to the point - in the near future - where I am able to obtain complete and utter independence in financial matters. This means paying off debts and making a very decent living as a digital nomad, able to locate myself, my beautiful dog Flame and our few possessions wherever the fuck we like. I love the idea of being able to provide for myself (and perhaps others in need) through art, photography, writing and interacting with others on the Hive blockchain.
How awesomely kewl iz dat?
Conclusion
Since being introduced to crypto and blockchain technology 3 years ago, the impact on my perception of financial security has been to decouple it from any notion of 'insecurity'. Although this has not yet been realised in a manifest sense, it is a reality in my mind, and that is what counts. The decentralised infrastructure is in place, so vastly superior to what the mainstream has to offer that it is hard for the uninitiated to grasp. I am grateful to have been thus initiated; the world will flow in and follow in due course. We, the early adopters who are here already, can surf this coming wave in some comfort.
Thanks to
for this initiativeThanks to you for visiting 🙏
Barge (
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Artwork for folk to use in posts if they wish:
14 Festive LeoFinance-themed page-dividers
21 LeoFinance-themed page-dividers
Metamask outreach artwork