A friend, by the name of Jon Olson (
I didn't come to Steem with any expectations at the time. I was just bored and looking for a distraction for my spare time.
29 January 2018. That sounds awfully close to the highs in December 2018, doesn't it? Yes it was. But I joined as a blockchain enthusiast that I was becoming, and not looking to get rich from it overnight, or at least so I'd like to believe.
In fact, I haven't changed my account description since I joined:
Believer in revolutionary applications of blockchain, and cryptos value as a consequence.
I joined early enough to catch the impressive rewards post all-time highs, but too late to really benefit from them, as all newcomers go through a phase when hardly anyone notices them.
In fact, as a test of my determination to continue, I don't think it could have been a better timing. Maybe in November, as I would have had the chance to taste more of the phenomenal reward levels and then plunge into the abyss.
But ever since I joined there has been a downtrend. As a result many of the previously active users gave up. The active userbase peeled up like an onion. Until only the core remained. And I'm glad to still be one of them, when there were so many times when I could have just thrown in the towel and switch to something else.
Despite this 'peeling' of layers of active users, Steem has an incredible community, and the harder things get, the more feedback and desire to help comes from our community.
This is one great asset we have, almost unique in the crypto world.
At the end of one year, I've also checked how am I doing as an investor in STEEM.
While in fiat and even in bitcoin I'm in a loss on this downtrend (even though until June my purchases of STEEM were with bitcoin, not with fiat), I have a profit in STEEM. My ROI in STEEM is 12.754%, which is better than the annual inflation of 8.5%. It could have been better and there were ways to improve my ROI, some of them I simply chose not to use.
At the same time, I try to offer regular giveaways, in a way creating a micro-reward pool of my own, using my own gains and stake. While back in March, I think, I was too small for anything significant, I still upvoted and resteemed some of my followers' posts. If I remember right, my upvote back then, at a much lower SP stake, was worth about the same as now.
Since then I gave away either STEEM or SBD as prizes, until I realized a much better approach for the long term would be shares at SBI and delegations, which is what I still do now.
I'm not talking about my giveaways to brag, but it is a way to help promising steemians who need to grow their accounts or to support excellence on Steem. And usually when you give away you will receive back in some way, so don't start thinking at it as a loss.
For 2019 I wish Steem will have the power to remain in lead where it is tested, and to extend beyond the borders of the crypto world more courageously. I also hope to see STEEM above $1 again this year. Do you think I'm overly optimistic?