Introduction: Approaching 5 Months on Steemit
As we begin the month of November I am just about to hit my 5 month anniversary on the platform.
Before getting into discussion of other matters I would like to take the opportunity to thank all those who have supported me and helped make this a wonderful and rewarding experience.
There are too many people who have helped in this regard for me to list individually. Further I would not want to take the risk of omitting someone important due to the limitations of my own very fallible memory. Anyway thank you all for your support and making Steemit such a great place!
Moving on, I thought it would be useful to start by discussing some of the things I have learned and my own personal philosophy about Steemit.
Further on in the post I will tackle some misunderstandings that I have seen amongst those who have been discussing their perceived problems with Steemit.
Things I have learned
1) Community spirit is one of our greatest assets
When I first heard about Steemit I never thought that I would devote so much time to blogging and getting involved with the community.
Whilst other crypto projects have provoked my financial interests Steemit (along with the now defunct DAO) is one of the few projects that has created true community spirit.
This is why I continue to remain positive in the face of much negative sentiment.
That does not mean I am a blind believer.
I have been in crypto long enough to realise that nothing is guaranteed and nothing can be taken for granted.
2) You don't have to be a whale or a friend of a whale to benefit
In the case of many cryptos I was one of the early miners. Unfortunately I didn't make a huge amount of money on any of them but I did get in really early so I at least had that opportunity.
In the case of STEEM I missed that chance as I was busy with other things. So basically I missed my chance at being a whale. If I was a defeatist I would I have just left it there and moved on to something else. I'm glad I didn't to that.
The thing is I love the Steemit platform and it it has hooked me in another way - writing.
I am (as is fairly obvious) not a professional writer. I never even considered blogging.
Steemit changed that and gave me a new way of increasing my holdings via posting and curation. It also made me feel rewarded for actually being an active member of the community.
3) If you help others it helps you
With Steemit helping others and being a good member of the community benefits you. That is the reverse of what happens with most other cryptocurrency communities where it is every man/woman for themselves.
I have been constantly working at building relationships within the community, trying to help other users and also to actively curate. I believe that if you continue to work and show initiative you will not only create friends and build up a following, but you will also help to strengthen the platform as a whole.
Keeping that in mind I am very fortunate to have recently exceeded 900 followers and have exceed my most recent SP goal of 30,000 SP. I am also now over 80 MVests and approaching my goal of reaching the level of Super Hero (100 MVests).
This is all thanks to a combination of the support I have received on Steemit via posting rewards/curation and also consistently powering up using my other cryptocurrency profits (something I will discuss below).
The point is that if you are new and just starting out you CAN do very well on Steemit BUT you have to work hard to achieve it and you need to be persistent.
4) Why I keep powering up
I suspect many people probably think I am a bit crazy for doing this. It is certainly a risk but big transformative ideas are often very risky financially.
No true reward comes without risk.
In my personal philosophy risk and reward are two sides of the same metaphorical coin. You cannot have one without the other.
If you take a risk and lose money on it there is still a reward in the form of knowlege and wisdom for you next endeavour.
You can choose to learn or you can choose to stay ignorant.
5) Putting it a slightly different way
Every mistake I make is a means for me to refine my actions and get closer to doing the right thing.
Life is a matter of constant iteration of effort. If you do not iterate you stagnate.
Mistakes are ultimately only problematic if you do not learn from them. I would also say that mistakes are sign that you are trying new things and being brave.
6) Panic over the STEEM price - the buy high/sell low mentality
Many of the people who seem to have a big problem with the Steem price are thinking in terms of short term speculation. I have seen this many times before.
They are only interested in investing in something that is rising in price and has a lot of hype behind it.
These people are generally naive investors who are not familiar with cryptocurrencies (or investment generally) and get frustrated because they generally start buying a currency during one of it's peaks and then start selling as soon as it seems to fall.
Even someone with poor mathematical skills can see that this is going to lose you money.
Buy low and sell high, not the other way around.
It seems easy and obvious when you think logically but a large number of people in cryptocurrencies don't seem to be able to do it.
They invest emotionally and react to market sentiment. That is not smart investing.
7) Sparing your ego might hurt your wallet
Ultimately this is a mistake that many people make when they start out.
Those of us who like to review and learn from our mistakes alter our behaviour to avoid repeating them.
A surprising number of people seem to get stuck in the self defeating loop of the aforementioned type of behaviour - buying high and then selling on the first sign of a downward trend.
Rather than looking at their own behaviour they then look for all sorts of other reasons that they are getting screwed and usually it involves blaming other people.
"It is the development team's fault" or "It is the early investor's fault" etc. They never actually consider that their own investment strategy and behaviour is the problem.
This type of thinking can be easier on your ego but it dooms you to perpetual failure.
Anyway I have said enough about these things, moving on to other matters:
A few corrections based on misunderstandings I have heard
In this second part of the post I would like to discuss some of the myths, misinterpretations and odd things I have heard from people who have been discussing Steemit.
There is nothing wrong with constructive criticism but you must first understand what you are actually talking about and get your facts straight.
There is an easy means of doing this which I fear most people have not bothered doing:
READ THE WHITE-PAPER!
1) STEEM Inflation - 100% annual inflation of STEEM does not tell the whole story
If you check on page 36 of the STEEM whitepaper - 90% of the newly created Steem is in the form of SP. Even if everybody on the network simultaneously powered down this would not result in 100% inflation of liquid STEEM.
When one refers to inflation one must take into account that a large amount of it is going to remain locked up as SP.
It is therefore not the same as regular types of inflation which one hears when talking about other currencies like Bitcoin.
2) Only 5% of Steem Goes to Witnesses and Miners
There has been a lot of discussion about how "excessive" witness pay is responsible for the declining Steem price.
Whilst it is a legitimate matter for the community to discuss there has been a lot of misinformation/misunderstandings circulating about this. I can't say what is and isn't excessive but I can comment on the figures which a lot of people seem to be misinformed about.
Of the roughly 800 STEEM created per minute 40 go towards miners/witnesses and 40 go towards the posting and curation rewards. This represents 5% for each respective group.
I have heard people throwing around larger figures and I'm not sure where they get them from.
Before starting this sort of discussion it helps with your credibility if you actually get the figures right and it is pretty easy to to read it in the white-paper as I have already stated.
Edit - Thanks to 
for pointing out some errors/changes since the white-paper. I have included his comment for the sake of clarity:
This is a slight error, but perhaps quite significant and unfortunate given some of the protests we've seen about witnesses getting too large a share of rewards. In fact, of about 600 STEEM created per minute, 20 go to miners/witnesses and 40 go to authors/curators.
The reason for the error is probably that during the pure PoW phase, an extra PoW reward was given to the block producer for including the PoW. On average during pure PoW, one PoW was created per block, doubling the amount going to miners/witnesses (each PoW is worth one block reward). However, once we switched to hyrbid DPoS, only an average of one PoW is produced per round (every 21 blocks), a reduction of 95% (small enough so that I am ignoring it above).
Of the 600 STEEM created per minute roughly 3% go to miners and witnesses.
(Also, the total is reduced since liquidity rewards are disabled, but that does not affect the above numbers.)
3) Censorship does not exist on the blockchain
Another issue that is being disscused a lot is censorship. Many people seem to comment about this without truly understanding how a blockchain works. There is an idea that Steemit is censoring users by flagging.
Whilst I agree that there is potential for flagging to be abused (like most things) it is not the same as censorship.
Once material is on the blockchain anyone is able to view it. Even if the Steemit website was taken over by a hostile force that wanted to censor certain opinions they would be unable to prevent people independently accessing it from the blockchain.
4) Freedom of speech is not the right to force people to listen to you or a warrant to be a dick
Being muted or having your visibility reduced is not contrary to freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is about allowing opinions to be expressed. Side by side with that people also have the right to reject your opinions or express their displeasure about them.
If you go around trolling people and acting like a general dick then you will get flagged. Crying about censorship is not going help or get you any sympathy from the community.
People cannot stop you from trolling but then complaining about them flagging you is simply infantile.
It is your responsibility as an adult to modulate your own behaviour. If you are unable to do that then flagging is the least of your worries.
Conclusion
The last 5 months have been amazing and I would be naive if I could tell you with absolute certainty what the future will bring. I will continue to do what I have been doing in order to be a valuable member of the community and to help out in any way I can.
I would urge all other users to do the same.
We are building something important here and we each have a stake in it. It may seem small right now but if we keep working on it great things are possible.
Another thing which I will also keep saying is - READ THE WHITE-PAPER - it is not as difficult to get through as you might think and it clarifies a whole lot of issues.
Thank you for reading. Here is your reward for getting to the end:
If you like my work and aren't already, please follow me and check out my blog (I mainly discuss photography but I do other topics too) -
Photo Credits: All images are from my personal Thinkstock Account or screenshots from the Steem Whitepaper.
(Verification for me here: http://www.aapicture.com/about-me)
Some of my other recent posts
- Ten of My Favourite Horror Movies for Halloween
- Silhouette Photography Tutorial and My New Lens Causes a Fight Between My Cats
- More shots from Grangetown Cemetery - photos for you to use in your Halloween and other posts
- Are we being manipulated into a war with Russia?
Are You New to Steemit and Finding it Confusing?
These resources may help:
- For a Quick FAQ - Try this
- To learn about Markdown (to help you post) - Try this
- Need to know Steemit Etiquette? - Try this
- Need some free images for your posts? Try Steemit4free - make sure to check which images it applies to.
- Need to talk to a human for help? - Try the chat
- Need Mentorship? - Try Steemprentice - here is a link that explains it, and here is the chat channel.
- Need a Free Image Host that works with Steemit? - Try SteemImg - it automatically produces markdown and html links for you, as well creating thumbnails and more.
- Need to Buy or Sell Steem/SD? - Try this tutorial for Blocktrades.