Today it is official, I turned 40.
40 years old and, 40,000 Steem Power.
While sad on the first milestone, the second is pretty cool. I never thought I would make it to this point and while it has been a lot of work and at times, a fair amount of sacrifice, I am glad that I have gone through it.
Actually, I never thought I'd make it to 40 years of age either as it was touch and go from about 18-21 and the damage done by a host of factors and how they will affect my future health is unknowable. Still, life is what it is.
Someone said a couple weeks back that it is impossible for someone to reach dolphinhood unless benefiting from the early high inflation but I think that is nonsense, considering I didn't and I know others who came in well after me who have earned a fair amount of Steem too. Yeah, it isn't easy.
Looking at the current price it looks like I have unfortunately missed my opportunity to buy cheap Steem with my new job earnings by a couple weeks, I don't think it will drop back to 20 cents again for a while, if ever.
It is kind of interesting to think that the last ATH was more than a year ago at 8.30 but since that time there is about 10% or 30,000,000 more Steem in the total supply pulled from the inflation pool. That is a significant amount more coins going out to accounts and at the current price, about 16 million more dollars worth of wealth into the community. Not a bad year for Steem really.
It is also something people don't often think about when it comes to the price of Steem as there is only about 25% of the supply on the exchanges at any given time meaning, that is all that need to pump. Market cap value is based on that price however, not everyone can sell at that price of course. The amount of Steem sold at $8.30 was minimal and, it wasn't at that price for more than a couple minutes before dropping down as the market dumped.
At some point, with a whole host of ways to earn on Steem in the future, the will to sell is unlikely to be as high as selling means not being able to take advantage of other revenue streams. 
Of course, the same type of investment opportunities are going to be available for other assets like Steem Power some time also. Resource Credit pools and account creation come to mind, as well as paid delegations by communities and companies for various reasons.
As I have been trying to push for a little while now, the idea that Steem is a currency is becoming more nonsensical by the day as the protocol is what has true value. It is an asset class and one that is highly versatile and becoming more so as usecases continue to build.
Yes, you could potentially buy a cup of coffee with an upvoted but where the real opportunity lays is being able to invest into a building development or a startup company with an upvote instead.
Using Steem as an asset to enable buy-in to other assets is where the future is heading I think and the way the Blockchain can track and trace as well as PoS allowing for stake-weighted investment, real world business could fund parts of their development quickly with Steem and at a better rate than the middlemen banks are offering.
The economic future is really bright on Steem and in crypto in general for those who are willing to take the risk and keep growing their assets. For the blockchains that allow for staked earnings and usability , the future may be even brighter as rather than only an incentive to sell for value, there is the potential to earn by holding and what tends to happen in places like Steem is, communities form.
Yes, it is a new industry and there are a lot of problems but each day there are a growing number of solutions being provided at higher and higher levels. I am looking forward to when the Steem.DAO that 
At the moment it feels like there are quite a few distributed processes going on that are converging upon a point in the near future that allows them to compound heavily against each other. It is going to get pretty exciting as it all comes together.
Last night at dinner, I was telling my wife about the future and she said "You said the same last birthday too" and she is right, I did. The timeline at this point doesn't matter too much and since that birthday 1 year ago, I am more confident than ever on Steem future as it has matured a lot and right now, we are closing in on that convergence point.
Once those lines hit, it will not be too long after that Steem starts gaining real momentum and attracting attention from not only the crypto communities but the mainstream world. People forget that we live at the time of the attention economy and once Steem starts to grab attention, we already have a community and an economy to capitalize on it.
When it comes to onboarding into crypto and blockchains, Steem is not only a soft start, it is a place where people are able to learn and take advantage of crypto by doing a lot of what they are already currently doing online.
What I am hoping is that the DAO will be used to not only innovate but also, simplify and create familiar experiences for new users. There are so few who have seen Steem and when they arrive, familiarity combined with the technology is going to be a massive draw card.
In time, the 40,000 Steem I have will hopefully by very valuable bit, what I am able to accomplish with it might be invaluable.
What feels like slowly, the world is changing but it is happening much faster than it feels. Only ten years ago Bitcoin began and was a joke for many yet, is being taken a lot more seriously now. 3 years ago Steem began and I don't think it is going to take another 7 years for it to make massive inroads in the world and, it is going to do it from the ground up through distributed communities.
I love being part of this and if you are here, you are part of it too. You might not hold the same beliefs as me in the future but, that is the beauty of Steem and why I think it is going to eventually go insane because, at all levels, people can take part and find or create a space for themselves in the digital economy.
Steem is an asset and the form it takes depends on the way we use it. The only thing that is required, is participation. How you do that is your choice and responsibility.
Thank you to all of the long-term supporters who have helped me get to this point so far, there is a long way to go but, I am grateful. I normally don't do this but I will mention a few of the accounts that have supported me heavily for a long time. What I love about these accounts is that they are people who have read and commented on my work as well as supported countless others in many forms.
Thank you:
Thank you again, see you all well past the moon - closer to the sun.
Taraz
[ a Steem original ]
(posted from phone)