The first payout on Steemit was one year ago today, on July 4th 2016. That's when all of this became 'real'.
It was no longer just a number next to the post, it really actually ended up in your wallet, and it really actually had real value. Of course when it launched the value was quite low but it soon grew quite a lot — and has not hit that high since. But it will again, probably.
I started powering down a few months ago.
At first I was very strict about powering down, I just didn't do it. There was no real need, I wanted to build up my Steem Power.
Then the crash happened. Steem went to a few cents, but I kept on posting through it.
I started powering down because Steem is my largest holdings.
According to Steemwhales.com I am currently holding the #70 spot for highest posting rewards so far, at 41,983,620 vests.
That's pretty impressive, I would say, and I'm happy to have made it to the top 100.
I powered down about half of my holdings and spread it into other cryptos, to diversify. I made some bad trades and some good trades. I was selling Steem when it was 20 cents, and when it was $2.70. It's quite difficult to buy bitcoin out here, you have to get around some hurdles, and so going from Steem to Bitcoin to other currencies was the best way to go.
Steem is still my largest holding.
At the current price of Steem, it is still the largest part of my portfolio... but my portfolio is much more diversified now, and a bit more equal than before.
Today I cancelled my power down....
As hard as it is, I would like to keep my Steem Power and build it back up. There are things that I'd like to do with it, invest in other things, use it for travel, use it to fund other ventures.... but I've taken out enough. Now it's time to build again, as difficult as that might be — it's getting harder and harder to get noticed on the platform, you have to be extremely consistent, dedicated, and give a lot of your time (like 
Moving forward...
I'd like to plan out my posts a bit more, dedicate a bit more time and energy (if that's possible! I feel like I spend a lot of time already!) and also focus more on curation. I would like to double or triple my SP holdings in order to spread rewards to, in my opinion, the best photographers on the platform. If you would like to delegate SP for this purpose, I would certainly not object :)
Moreover, I intend to sacrifice a little bit more sleep and a little bit more time to create content people want to view and want to share and interact with. Right now I work a full time job, a part time job afternoon/weekend, and Steemit! Living in Caribbean Paradise is expensive, and this month they increased a bunch of taxes so everything is 10%+ more expensive.
There have been people on Steemit who supported me and my work from early on, and there are people who I give my support to - however small or insignificant it is; through exposure; through facilitating the contests, through upvotes etc, — and I would like to increase my support and spread it widely.
If you have a good idea for a project on Steemit and you think I'll be interested in it, send me a message on steemit.chat
Reasons To Build Up Steem Power
These are more for myself than anything else....
Higher stake in the platform.
Since HF19 you no longer need to be a 'whale' to make a difference. A nice sized 'dolphin' account has a lot of spread nowadays, and if the price of Steem stays steady above $2, it can be pretty great for everyone involved.Contribute to increasing price
Holding your Steem Power instead of selling it makes it more valuable, it reduces the amount of Steem on the market and people will be willing to pay more if there's less being dumped. I say this after having sold more than half of my holdings. I know that we sell for various reasons, and I'm not saying it's wrong to do it... but it's also a positive to hold onto it.Steem will be more valuable in the future anyway
This is a hope and a prayer, to be honest. I am betting on it being more valuable. I have hedged against it to some extent (by diversifying my portfolio) and now I am planning to ride it out, to the moon or to the dumps — either way! I'm hoping for moon.Higher curation rewards
The incentive built into Steemit to look out for high quality posts is that you are rewarded for curation efforts multiplied by your amount of Steem Power. The higher your Steem Power, the higher your upvote is for others, and the higher your curation rewards will be. In other words, higher Steem Power grows faster, it's kind of like a high interest account.
What other reasons can you think of?
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