I can say with certainty that this is the end of a beginning and the beginning of something new, bigger. This is my story about how it all even started in the first place, and how did I, without investing any of my money, earned some crypto that will become my first ever staked Hive in Hive Power 3 years later.
How It All Started - Introduction
In January, 2018, on the advice of my friend 
I was getting used to the platform, and slowly, but safely, I was learning every day something new. Information about crypto and platform itself were piling up, so I was getting a feeling everything is sitting on its place.
Looking at my first few posts, at this moment, I can easily see they were typical shitposts - but I was fuming how is everyone getting attention and rewards on their shitposts, not having in mind I've just started and that actually no one cares about my $0.00 - strange, huh?
The time for my first post I actually shed some sweat for - learning, exploring and thinking about how will it look and are the information in it right, has come. COLORS - INTERPRETATION WITH THE WORLD. After few days seeing $5 reward on it I was so happy and proud. I bet there's plenty of you who can identify with me - we've all been through that euphoria. "People actually liked this and my effort paid of!?". The beautiful feeling of getting recognized for something you liked doing is just incomparable & priceless.
My wallet was slightly filling with some Steem & Steem Backed Dollars which I never touched due to my ignorance about transactions, powering up / crypto in general. I was thinking back then, let it stack - I'm going to do with it some day, it wasn't really important to me. The more people I met, the more interesting it all became to me. I think my biggest turning point was the time I met 
We were "hanging out" literally every evening and sometimes until late into the night. Through that our fellowship little new actions were created gradually. Now, I can't remember what day clearly, but one day in the week was reserved for Voice presentation of our recent posts in which we would praise each others work, but also, more important, we took care of each other - gave advices, on what to change, add or take away in posts to make them better and better.
I've met a lot of people there and some of them are still active. The situation from "Let's try this platform" changed very quickly into "I freaking love to spend my time in here". I really liked that people, situation, community, and last but not least, I was getting some money maaan! I'm glad I'm still in touch with some of them, also, check out their work it's great! 
Although our virtual socializing was productive in every sense, we managed to take a step further. We made a deal to meet up in real life and the first Steemit Meeting in Zagreb happened few months after we opened our Croatia & Balkan Discord Channel. It was really a step further. I finally met someone in person, and we were talking for few hours about our thoughts, how we started, what drives us, what we would change, improve and similar topics. I've collected 50% of the knowledge in 1 day, brutal headstart!
Our First Steemit Meeting
Not long after, my first epic post reward happened. As I said, I was a student of Graphic Design and Production. We got a great project to do at college - Scene Remake for the movie of our choice. We decided to do it for legendary and cult movie - Se7en. It's a movie where leading actors were Morgan Freeman, Brad Pitt & Kevin Spacey. Brutally sounding names, but we weren't scared of acting, no matter we never did such thing. I wrote a post about my first filmmaking, as I'm typing it right now for my first Power Up. You just have to adore and respect things you do for the first time - there is a certain beauty in the that. First Filmmaking - Se7en Scene Remake.
I was rewarded with a high $75 thanks to 
That money was in my Steemit wallet for straight 2 and a half years, so now we come to the point where today’s power up came from.
Converting SBD to Hive + Power Up
Few days ago, I saw 
It's my "short story" how have I managed to earn without investing any money in crypto. It have all started with Steemit, and I have to be thankful how it all played. We're not even aware how certain situations and decisions in our life can affect on the future. It's just amazing!
I had around 50 HP right before Power Up, and my upvote with 100% power while with full voting mana was worth around $0.003.
Like Steemit was the beginning of my crypto world, I think this the ending of that era, and the beginning of the new one. Stronger & Better. And one more important thing: with much more knowledge than I had back then!
This may be my first Power Up, but certainly not the last one