My 3rd cake day
Today marks 3 years on Steem and by extension Hive. As I have said before, I joined July 1st but I didn't actually do anything until the 22nd when I followed quickfingersluc who has long since left.
It has been a long journey and quite an adventure.
How did I get here?
When I first heard of Steem, I was mining Ethereum, and as far as I can remember one of my friends on the Space Station Discord told me about Steem.
Shortly later I stopped mining Ethereum and sold all my rigs and transferred my Ethereum to Steem. I kept a few rigs behind to continue to mine but for the most part I was done.
Once I discovered Steem, I was hooked. It was exciting, challenging, and unique. There hasn't been a day since then I haven't interacted with the blockchain and community in some way.
Blogging
My first post on July 22nd was about boosting your reading speed.
How to boost your reading speed
I tried a few different things early on, posting about goals and productivity, memes, and technology. I never was much of a blogger, and I always hated writing. But I made a promise to myself, I will write something every day. I did this for the first year almost perfectly, even on days it was hard. To this day I still post most days.
I find the most difficult part is finding what to write about for the day. Over three years I had to do this over a thousand times and I still don’t know how I manage to find something each day.
When I post, I have three goals in mind.
- Don't be me me me me
- Respect my readers time and attention
- Offer something valuable
As I said before, I hate writing and I am not a good blogger, but I always try to stay true to those three guidelines. I feel that allows me to offer something decent that is worth reading.
Witness
I started a witness on August 13th, 2017.
I didn't sign my first block until almost a month later on September 5th.
On January 18th, 2019, I became a top 20 witness.
I am active, present, and passionate.
Birth of Hive
I worked with many users and witnesses and on March 20th, 2020 Hive was born. I was already at this point powering down as fast as I could on Steem and putting all my attention to Hive. I saw no future where Steem would be successful and I was (and still am) excited about the future of Hive.
I suggest reading some of @blocktrades recent posts to see what the future has to offer. Very soon Hive will show itself to be more than a fork of Steem.
Theft of Property
On May 20th, 2020 Justin Sun and illegitimate Steem witnesses stole over $5M USD worth of Steem from stakeholders, 170,000 Steem (~$40,000 at the time) of that was from my wallet.
Hive Hackathon
On May 1st, 2020 I announced the first STEMGeek's Hackathon which raised over 12,000 Hive (around $4,000 at the time) as prize money for the largest contest to ever be run on Hive or Steem.
14 developers created apps in the two weeks allowed by the contest and three winners were announced.
First Place - 6,311.685 Hive
Second Place - 3,787.011 Hive
Third Place - 2,524.674 Hive
@mahdiyari - Hive Notifications
Three amazing new dapps were awarded a share of the prize pool generously donated by 15 contributors.
You can read more about the Hackathon at https://hivehackathon.com/.
Abuse Fighting
As many know, I spent a lot of time behind the scenes fighting abuse and minimizing the impact of spam and abuse. This is has been a very time consuming and frustrating job and has made me the target of a lot of angry people. Every day I question why I bother when so few seem to care and it has brought nothing but frustration and drama. Every time I ask myself that, the answer is simple, if no one does this Hive will quickly degrade into what Steem has become.
I continue to devote countless hours to minimizing spam, plagiarism, and fraud on Hive using my own resources.
Engagement
Engagement remains one of my number one interests on Hive. I believe engagement is one of the secrets to create a thriving community. I am actively looking at and promoting ways to increase engagement on Hive. Along with engagement, I firmly believe the solution to most of the problems we have is increasing our user base and it remains my number one interest right now.
Why you should vote me as witness
Happy Hive Day! ^^
My account is 15 days older and I did nothing in comparison to what you have done for the community.
Congratulations man!
Never too late to start. It is a marathon not a sprint. Happy belated cake day!
I want to piss in your face. Believe me, you will like this very much. You should definitely experience this
You made a great trip here dear friend @themarkymark congratulations
Happy third anniversary
Congrats. You went pretty quickly from newbie to witness, but your efforts are appreciated by many. The anti-abuse has been vital, but too many people don't realise what a difference it has made. They just have to look at Steem now to see how much the various anti-abuse efforts achieved. I have a post in mind about how this is still something we need to be conscious of on Hive.
Hive five!
Tomorrow will be the date I wrote my first post since 2017.
I had my account in March of that year.
What a journey you had.
Congrats!
You are certainly not alone in your commitment to keep the #Hive clean, I admire the work you do in this regard and I understand in depth that you have been targeted, I myself have suffered from being one of the Hispanic contacts of jaguar.force. I think about the ideals and beyond seeing this platform as a business, one of them is based on defending the well of rewards, despite the bland misunderstanding. Not all of us were born to be popular, and leadership is a cost you have to be willing to bear. Hence my admiration for the people who get to do the dirty work that no one else wants to do. Hence my eternal gratitude. Congrats for you moon.
happy B day marky :)
Gratz on surviving another year!
well i can say that you did a lot more than me and it is only 6 months difference :D
does it feel like it was more than 3 years?
Some days yes. Most of the time, no it feels about right.
sometimes it feels like years ago. especially when i remember someone that is not on the chain and was when i started.
Congrats on 3 years service!
Happy cake day!
Happy 3rd year! I had mine a couple days ago and I felt like we have already gone through a marathon.
Congratulations Marky. I also just celebrated 2 years - Exiting times ahead 🤘
Happy 3rd year. 🎂
I am sure this platform will come to better places in the future thanks to valuable people like you.
You and I joined the same year and month. My Steemit Birthday is July 25, 2017.
I think the difference is shown in the fact that you kept at it and posted daily. I also love the fact that you invested not only your time, but also your crypto funds, going all in on the platform.
It's a story I hear from every Whale. They took the risk and are now reaping the rewards. Nothing was handed to them. I consider your success well-deserved @themarkymark and find it inspiring. Who know, if I keep at it, someday I might just join you!
Congrats! :)
source
Posted Using LeoFinance
Happy anniversary bud!
Congrats, I have completed 3 years on the chain on 27th June.
Beautifully done! Happy hive celebration!
I actually think I remember the boosting reading post. Happy 3 year birthday!
Happy 3 to you @themarkymark and wish you many more successful milestones. Your journey is very inspirational. Good Luck and Best wishes
Hivey Birthday and hopefully year 4 is more up than down.
Imagine being such a n00b, catch up bro I am 1 moon older than you 😆
Also please tell me you actually like Elton John and that was not just there because of the song. I love his music.
Anyway, A huge congrats dude it has been quite the journey and a lot of hard work which is showing. Keep it up!
I do like Elton. Been listening to him a lot lately.
What's your favorite song by him? It has to be "Your Song" for me.
I'm still standing and Your song.
Good taste! Fun fact, Elton played his first ever gig in my home city! He is actually doing a fundraiser show on YouTube and it is one of the Scotland gigs he done, It starts in 26hrs from now.
You are old.
Happy third Anniversary! To more anniversaries to come!
Can't agree more on this.
Hats off to you for managing to pen down everyday. I've been here since Jan 2017 but I have hardly close to 300+ articles under my name I think. It isn't easy coming up with something good everyday or this could probably just an excuse I give :P.
Thanks for all that you do to keep Hive clear of junk and happy 3rd anniversary @themarkymark!! :))
Congrats on the the new candle, this place would be very different without you.
What came of the steem sent to the exchange by robin hood?
They still holding on to it while it is being discussed.
It's unfortunate how far ned would go to exact his toll.
I want to piss in your face. Believe me, you will like this very much. You should definitely experience this
Congrads! It has been a wild ride with you and I'm glad to have gotten to know you we have many more times ahead!
Happy Hive day @themarkymark
This caught my attention because I noticed that you started blogging on my birthday ☺️☺️☺️☺️
I wish more years on Hive if you're willing to stay. All the best.
Congratulations ❤️❤️❤️
Beckie
You are right on engagement. I can’t believe we joined at about the same time. I think I’m actually older than you in hive years by a month :-O
Good on you for investing. I couldn’t for a while but I started as soon as we split to Hive.
I never run out of ideas about what to write about and I love writing. I just gotta make sure I don’t get lost in it and forget my 3D life
Happy birthday! 🥳
Congratulations! Hive is awesome😍
fuck yeah! congrats @themarkymark