It was just an ordinary day in crypto in July 2016, another brand new coin called Steem pumped to 4$, nothing new, but once you started to explore what the coin was about it took me literally 10 minutes to join and create an account. Steem already had a working paying social network platform called Steemit.
Back then Steemit was like a wild west, everything was allowed, everyone wanted to make that special post to attract the whales attention and get that big vote, and the votes were big back then. Suddenly a whole new world of possibilities opened once the Steem Proof of Brain concept was introduced as a new "type of mining" some cryptocurrency. If you had any knowledge about anything and some decent writing skills you could of made a killing on this platform.
Of course any new and radical platform like Steemit would be wildly unprepared for massive audiences and it still is. This is a work in progress, 2.5 years in beta state Steem already had hundreds of thousands steemians come and leave the platform.
Some of us long term believers will stay if Steem goes to the moon or if it crashes and burns. Whatever happens we will deal with it, but leaving the platform while it is still work in progress is not very smart thing to do IMO.
The code changed so many times it is hard to count, voting algorithm, curation rewards, payout period, powerdown period, everything changed and will change again until we make it perfect for anyone involved, investors, bloggers and entrepreneurs. And let's make it a hell for any spammer, scammer or any bad actor willing to do anything bad to get some of that Steem.
It is a long and stressful game filled with huge ups and downs, but in the end only the fittest survive. Evolve with the platform like I did and will continue to do so, and the future will be bright for many more anniversaries to come. Remember BTC Bear won't last forever. Peace out and Steem on!