Leofinance then and now. From Steem Leo to Leofinance.

Back in the time before Hive, during the time we were all part of a community called Steemit, on the Steem blockchain.
A Community member named Hive account@aggroed and his team of developers decided to build a second layer or new blockchain, connected to the Steem blockchain.
And this new layer would become the metaphorical engine or vehicle which would, make change possible.
This Engine of Change in the Steemit ecosystem was called Steem-Engine.
It became, just like in the childrens story, the little engine which could achieve great things.

The purpose of Steem-Engine was multi-fold, and while I cannot claim to know what Hive account@aggroed had in mind.. I know what it meant to me was ERC-20 like tokens, on the Steem blockchain.
And these new tokens, could give birth to big innovations like the original ERC tokens gave birth to on Ethereum.
Innovations like Ethereum’s MakerDao ERC token DAI, Chain Link’s ERC Link, and Ethereum’s Thorchain’s ERC Rune.
To me the seond layer blockchain Steem-Engine was meant to make possible new applications, interfaces and communities.
And one of those was Steem Leo

The Golden Age of Steemit and the start of Steem-Engine

And so Steem Leo, the precursor of Leofinance was born during the Golden Age of Steemit, when we looked out into the universe and knew we were destined to walk in the light of distant stars.
Our dreams were limitless, and our community was large, diverse and full of talented people with many dreams.
But that was before the darkness found us, and changed everything.
But that is another story. Link to a Hive origin Story
It was the end of life on Steemit, as we knew it, but it was also the beginning of Hive.

As I recall the past of Leofinance, we started as a new token on Steem-Engine, the first generation of communities on Steemit who rewarded community members with both Steem and new second layer ERC like tokens.
‘Leofinance was called Steem Leo back then, and our community token was called Leo, and we still rocked the Lion Motif.

And the Flaming Lion Gif was born back then.

Many new communities were born on Steemit following the birth of the second layer Steem-Engine, and one of them was Steem Leo.
Steem Leo was a community devoted to articles about cryptocurrency and finance.
There were also other communities devoted to sports, gaming, photography, art and even food.
It was truly a decentralized movement where people were free to build a community based on a shared interest, and develop reward tokens to reward content creators within those communities.
Which of course requires people to buy these second layer tokens, stake or power them up, and become curators, who rewarding content creators, and then watch the community grow.
The success of this model required longterm vision, not short term profit taking.
If everyone sells their tokens as soon as they get them, the token price drops, and soon tokens purchased for one Steem were worth only small fractions of that value.
People fled communities, tokens became worthless, and many Steem-Engine communities became ghost towns.
Steem Leo experienced these ups and downs in price, but it avoided the fate of many of these dead tokens because a few of us saw Steem Leo as something different.
We believed this niche of cryptocurrency and finance was special, and we didn’t leave.
In fact we continued buying tokens even when the price plummeted, and tragically some Steem-Engine communities died as their people had no longterm interest.

Truth be told, even back then Steem Leo was a place where the creators and the investors had a vision for the future and a sense that this community could be something great.
Back then a popular theme was to be the Option Alpha of cryptocurrency.
Option Alpha was a famous, huge online community of traders and content producers.
Steem Leo was to become like Option Alpha, but a modern decentralized, tokenized version. - A place where content producers could be bloggers of both the written and spoken word as video blogging was also planned.

Steem Leo accomplished many things.
A separate web based interface
A separate community on Steemit and then Hive, both communities still exist today.
Steem Leo also had Virtual Miners, yes software code which didn’t actual mine blocks, but was awarded Leo daily according to how many miners you owned.
There are a select few who still own those miners today, and earn Leo daily for that investment made years ago.
Steem Leo developed a curation bot powered by Steem delegations
And Steem Leo policed the community with a cute sounding, but deadly account called Hive account@noleo4u
Steemleo even developed a reputation for nurturing newbies, and a dislike for flag wars which caused permanent crudges and ill will.
Steemleo was the beginning, but not the end.

But Leofinance was both new and different.
The community was no longer defined by the blockchain Steem as Steem Leo had been.
Leofinance charted a different path, but continues to be a community of people interested in crypto and finance.
Leofinance has achieved many of it’s dreams of reaching out onto other blockchains with cross blockchain bridges on Binance, Ethereum or polygon is backed by a Hive version of Leo.
Leofinance has achieved the dream of allowing us to walk in the light of distant stars. A metaphor for our ability to move value from Hive to other blockchains. To trade on Ethereum, Binance and Polygon.
We are now able to do the things we only dreamed of back in Steem Leo Days.
We now enjoy the Golden Age of Leofinance.