Time to wax poetic on all the predicatble points to be made from hodlers of Steem and lovers of the community.

I probably will not be saying much different than what you have already seen on your feed.

I will admit, this probably is not anything different from what you have already came across (if you are not already off the platform). Really I am just preaching to the choir at this point.

But there is a lot here to hold dear and cherish and I wanted a brief moment to go over what it means to me.

We have all witnessed the activity of the Steem blockchain and it's tie to the price. It is is pretty easy to see and understand. When price is higher the ability to earn increases.

Or does it?

The ability to earn MORE FIAT is indeed true, but not necessarily to EARN MORE STEEM.

Bear market, correction, chasing the price of nothing, whatever you want to call it. Fact is this is not anything the crypto community has not already seen if they have been involved for any decent amount of time.

For those involved in this community it may be some people's first go on a bear market.

Really it comes down to this:

Are you here for the community or the fiat?

So what happens when the price goes down?

• Less people use the platform
• Less people put effort into content creation
• Less people seeing the benefit of cashing out (unless they are done with the platform or are giving up)
• People that believe in the platform are buying other's influence for rock bottom prices.

Look at your rewards from 6 or 7 months ago. You may have made MORE IN FIAT but the likelihood is you WORKED HARDER for SP than you do now.

Now you just want to throw away that influence to others? For such a cheap price?

Seems backwards to me but I have never been accused of being a person that only worried about the numbers and income and strategy to maximize the benefit TO ME. So perhaps you can understand why I have a hard time putting priority to my wallet over the support for others. I did not sell at $7 why would I now?

Where we are at:

• Those vested in Steem are still utilizing their vote power to earn curation
• Of those that do not use their vote power it makes it so more of the reward pool is decided by the people that are
• If less people are using the platform they have less options to upvote others
• Just creating content in an environment like this proves your commitment to the platform
• Your actions now will be remembered.
• Those that care about the platform are more likely to support you in a time like this and when times get better
• You are either going to be remembered for focusing on yourself or be remembered for your focus on the community.

Chances are if you read to this point we already know where you stand. Thank you for continually being part of this awesome community.