Today I managed to power up my HIVE on the right day. It feels like it took forever, but in reality it was only 3 months. I'm already looking forward to next month's PUD!
I created my HIVE wallet on August 31 this year, and had no idea what I was getting into. I knew what I wanted: a p2e game to finance my WAX NFT purchases. From what I was told by various streamers, Rising Star and Splinterlands would be good choices with fast returns. Yeah, right!
To start earning from #Splinterlands, I would need to buy a $10 spellbook. After playing four matches with the free cards - and losing them all - I decided not to put any money in until I have a better collection of cards, and a better understanding of what all the abilities and stuff do. The game seems complex enough that I'm surprised there are no college classes for it. Or maybe there are? In the meantime, I'll rent out any good cards I get, and earn a few DEC that way.
#RisingStar on the other hand is a game I can understand. Most of it at least. And the parts I don't yet get are probably not essential. Patience not being one of my middle names, I wanted a head start, so I converted some WAX into HIVE and bought a bunch of packs. I also decided to take part in giveaways, which I had heard would not only give me a chance for free cards and starbits, but also earn me a bit from commenting and upvoting.
What no one bothered to explain was how commenting or upvoting works, and that I'd need a lot of HP to do it. I felt like I was draining every other wallet I had to feed the HIVE beast, and it still wasn't enough! And I did it on the wrong days, too. Not on September 1st, and not October or November 1st either, because I didn't have time to wait for those dates. I was running out of both votes and comments, since I happily entered any giveaway I could find, and clicked the upvote button 40-50 times a day!
So I sent some more WAX over, and also converted som Banano. I think of it as borrowing from myself, and it'll need to be paid back someday. WAX was easy, and figuring out how to turn the BAN into HIVE without using KYC and paying through my nose... was fun! I used nanswap.com (ref link) to trade BAN for LTC and had it sent directly to my HIVE wallet where it appeared as SWAP.LTC. From there it was easy to turn it into SWAP.HIVE, and then HIVE.
I said up near the top that all I wanted from HIVE was WAX. But I found so much more: a whole new universe full of kind and helpful people, interesting posts about everything imaginable, and plenty of communites that are built on caring for each other instead of on excluding everyone who doesn't fit some mold. This is a world I want to be part of, and support, not only take from. So I've set myself some goals:
Short term
Post to my blog at least once a week.
Put aside some starbits every month to convert into HIVE for PUD.
Take part in contests, not only giveaways. (It's much more satisfying to win something by effort than by chance!)
Sell one or two duplicate non-drum instruments a day until I run out, buy more drums.
Long term
Learn enough about HIVE that I can help new people with their questions.
Accumulate enough HP that a 10% upvote gives the poster at least a fraction of a cent. I don't know how many HP I need for this, it seems to fluctuate a bit? Then keep adding, to make my votes more valuable.
Unlock all 4 islands in Rising Star and reach the top 1k players list. Currently I'm around 1200-1500, depending on how much I play.
Earn 5k starbits a day.
Sell other duplicate RS cards, buy uniques.
Very long term
Make 10k starbits a day.
Reach 10k HP
What about the WAX and BAN then? I will need to trade some back to WAX, sooner rather than later, Christmas is almost here... but the BAN can wait. There are other ways to refill that wallet, I just need to remember to spend some time on it. But for now I'm too busy exploring the HIVE universe to be bothered. 💖