Rags to Riches

avatar

btcrollercoasterspotexponential.jpg

image.png

wut?

Top of the list, eh? So weird.

I remember when I first got to Steemit at the end of 2017. Believe it or not, Google sent me there many times during my research into blockchain technology. Bitcoin spiking to $20k was a real wakeup call. I knew it was bubbled, but I also knew I needed to jump on board and figure out what all the fuss was about.

I read very informative posts on crypto back then. Information that I couldn't seem to find anywhere else. I saw the dollar payouts at the end of the posts... and I'll be honest, it didn't really click. I had no idea that Steemit was a cryptocurrency platform. How meta is that? Researching crypto on a crypto network and not even realizing it's a crypto network? Perhaps there's a hint of irony in there somewhere.

As someone who remembers thinking, "Wow, Bitcoin hit $1 parity, that's pretty cool, I wonder if it can go higher," it's pretty weird to see how it all played out. Bitcoin is becoming the thing it was always meant to be, but in a way that no one really anticipated. The evolution of this entire space is rocketing forward, and most users are so entrenched in a scarcity mindset that all they can do is stare at the red and green candles, basing their opinion of the day based on number go up or down.

Proof-of-Brain? More Like Proof-of-Circle-Jerk.
Published: Jan 2, 2018
Payout: 70 cents

When I first came here I said a lot of stupid shit because I didn't 100% know how it all worked. I thought I could come up with a system that made upvoting (and more importantly downvoting) more fair and equitable. It was a pretty convoluted system that may have even required some kind of crazy hardfork. The best ideas are small ideas. Less is more. Permissionless is best. I've since come to realize that we could easily build consensus mechanisms on the second layer that handles all of these issues.

Steem spot price: $8.19

I just realized that this post was published the exact day that Steem spiked in value to its highest value at $8.19. Wow, what are the odds that I would have picked this one so randomly. Weird.

image.png

Looking at the progress made.

Looks likes @revisesociology was upvoting me even when I first arrived here. Wow, and I still don't follow him. lol... fixing that right now...

Back then my upvote was 1.5 cents. My account basically had nothing in it except what I had earned the week prior, which was hardly anything compared to the 4-digit payouts of that wild fomo cycle. Using some napkin math we can take my current $4 upvote and multiply it by x16 to see that if I had my current stack back then... my single 100% upvote would have been $64. Wild.

bitcoinrollercoaster.gif

Decentralization is happening quickly.

Hive is decentralizing faster than all the other networks as far as I can tell. Look at how far I have come. Look how far @revisesociology has come and everyone else that was onboarded in 2018. Look at how much money has been kicked out to Venezuela and Nigeria and all the other places. That's not a thing that happens on something like Bitcoin or Ethereum. As far as I can tell, it's not a thing that happens anywhere else but Hive. Is Steem kicking out rewards to anyone other than the people farming and dumping it? Even the shadow of ourselves isn't doing what we are doing.

Tinkerbell: is it just me or did my ass get bigger?

image.png

This would have been a $26 upvote in early 2018.

Not only have trustworthy people been accumulating stake here, but toxic people have long since dumped their bags (a lot of it during late 2020). Those that haven't dumped have fallen in line by curating actual legitimate content that won't get downvoted, rather than trying to 100% upvote themselves. The system we've built is clunky, but also works shockingly well. And we are about to get one of our biggest upgrades yet with HF26 this month. Exciting times.

ricketyrocketmoon.jpg

Wen moon?

Notice: @null

In the month of September, @null was almost the top "earner", all of which were beneficiary burns. You'll notice that all my rewards are technically "beneficiary" as well. That's because LEO frontend had a bug for a long time that wouldn't allow me to 100% power up my rewards without doing it this way. I've since recently learned (on accident) that this bug is gone, so my rewards will no longer appear as beneficiary.

If I'm being honest... seeing zero actual burns of liquid assets to @null is so strange to me. I thought for sure by now there'd be several dapps on hive that burned our debt, creating new assets in the process. Just shows you how early in the game we are I guess. The whole Ragnarok model is going to do it, but we've yet to see others follow that lead. All in good time I suppose.

image.png

Here's a thing that should also give everyone pause.

BTC spot price is down 75%... but hashrate keeps making new all time highs? Seriously though how is this even happening? The reward for mining was x4 higher last year than it is today, but competition to get Bitcoin just keeps increasing. Something isn't adding up here.

I think it's quite obvious that Bitcoin price is being artificially suppressed by the legacy economy implosion. As soon as that pressure is taken away? What happens? When will it happen? Nobody knows. This isn't a thing you can trade around without insider information. This is why we DCA. Obviously now is the time to be DCA buying, not selling.

But that's the problem, isn't it?

Everyone knows when to DCA buy, the actual problem is that no one speaks up when it's time to DCA sell. The FOMO kicks into high gear and everyone assumes the market hasn't peaked yet. DCA then becomes akin to "impermanent loss" and nobody likes to lose, amirite?

Eat my shorts: Point of Guaranteed Return

I am on permanent record of saying as much on March 2, 2021. BTC was trading at $50k for the third time ever (up/down/up). And I basically said: this is it... this is DCA time if you're smart. Was I smart? I was not. I did not take my own advice. Silly me.

Then again Hive was trading at 30 cents, and I hardly had any Bitcoin back then. In fact I had just traded most of my BTC for Hive a month or two prior... so DCA selling wasn't really an option for me personally.

But also think about it... think about how nervous you would have been to sell BTC at $50k in March 2021 and then look what happened. Up to $63k down to $30k up to $50k down to $40k, up to $69k down to $35k up to $45 down to $30k down to $19k. Imagine holding USD for over a year all the way to now. Who does that? Hardly anyone. The trading game is not easy.

All of the predictions I made back then were completely bogus. The only thing I was right about is that it was safe to DCA sell at that level, and I didn't do it. Oops. Live and learn. Although now that the doubling curve is at $40k the new DCA selling point is at $80k right now. $100k at the end of the year (more like $90k if you want to trade around the unit bias and laser eyes). You heard it here first... then again it's more than likely that we never make it to those levels in such a short time given the current economic climate. In another year from now it will be $200k. Weird thought.

Old posts from early 2018

Identifying Successful Blockchains

Payout: 13 cents.
Yeah back when I was actually researching new projects I thought I had it all figured out. Now I realize that every ICO I put money into was a complete waste of time & money. Oops. Hard to research things when the people marketing the thing are selling you a product to pump their own bags.

image.png

GAH!

Check it out I still have that shit saved in my new text document.txt Wild.

ApplicationDecentralizationInflationSpeedCommunity
nobodyfuckingcaresaboutthis
Made My First $57 Mining Ethereum

Payout: $7.12

Wow... baller payout.

image.png

Both @ausbitbank and @scaredcatguide upvoted me. I'm almost certain I had absolutely no idea who they were back then. Shoutout to Minnow Support Project. Always exciting to get a payout as a new user.

Using my GTX 1060 graphics card it took me about three weeks to mine 0.051 Ethereum. 0.05 is the minimum payout on nanopool.org. I made around $2.50-$3.00 a day.

LOL I still use this exact same graphics card.

Wanna know something funny? The fan on this graphics card has been broken for years and I didn't even notice (or rather I forgot about it until now). I've been astoundingly lucky with the computer parts I've purchased from Newegg.com and Amazon.com. Wen new computer? Cyber Monday me thinks.

I really should have kept up with the mining in the middle of the bear market when everyone was selling their hardware for cheap. I bet I could of found some good deals. Alas, I was pretty obsessed with DPOS and mining reputation/information rather than digital lottery tickets.

Steemit is Crap; Steem is Amazing

Payout: $3
Always fun to find a post people can still appreciate today.
Steemit was indeed crap, wasn't it?
Lost the brand but didn't lose the community.
Let's be honest the brand was trash and we are doing just fine.

Pay it forward

When I first got here I took one look at the trending tab and thought: "I can easily create better content than most of what I'm seeing here." And you know what, I don't think it's very egotistical to say that I was right. It's actually much easier to create quality content than it is to stay consistent and build those critical networking connections. At least this is true for me, anyway.

Many look at the declining price of the token and think it's no longer worth it to post or otherwise interact with the network. This is a terrible assessment of reality. I can guarantee for a 100% fact that the bear market is by far the easiest time to get noticed and build a following/network.

image.png

Hive: if you can't handle me at my worst, you don't deserve me at my best.

In a lot of ways it really is like that. Those who stick around and consistently show up will get noticed a lot more than the bandwagon jumpers looking for handouts. I'm ready to pay it forward. No Lambo for me. I don't look at a potential x100 on Hive as an opportunity for me. I look at it as an opportunity for the world. So on and so forth insert hippy tree-hugging statement here.

Conclusion

Would ya look at that, I guess I made it.
And all it took was five years of consistency.

People are always going to have bad things to say about Hive and crypto in general. No matter how good or easy we have it, there is always a new thing to complain about.

image.png

Okay... show me a better blogging platform than Hive.

Medium is a mainstream well-known website... and the top writers only make $1000 a month? haha... wut? No one even knows about us, we are in the middle of a bear market, and I'm making over double that? Do the math. Even just as a blogging website, Hive is superior, and we can do so much more than write these words here. I don't know... call me crazy, but I'm wildly bullish even with the imminent global economic implosion on the horizon. Permabulls gonna permabull.

Posted Using LeoFinance Beta



0
0
0.000
40 comments
avatar

Look at how much money has been kicked out to Venezuela and Nigeria and all the other places.

Romania too ;)

Everyone knows when to DCA buy, the actual problem is that no one speaks up when it's time to DCA sell.

A few months after the halving.

Up to $63k down to $30k up to $50k down to $40k, up to $69k down to $35k up to $45 down to $30k down to $19k. Imagine holding USD for over a year all the way to now. Who does that? Hardly anyone. The trading game is not easy.

That made me laugh and showed me once again what a dumb fuck I am for not taking profits, not selling the damn UMA airdrop I got, and cash out everything...

Both @ausbitbank and @scaredcatguide upvoted me

You've taken Mitch's name into the desert :))... It's @scaredycatguide

"I can easily create better content than most of what I'm seeing here."

10x better.

Okay... show me a better blogging platform than Hive.

At least to me, there isn't any...

0
0
0.000
avatar

@scaredycatguide

Hey it's still not as bad as when Taskmaster accidentally tagged him as @mealmcspadden

0
0
0.000
avatar

:))
I didn't know that. Thank god he didn't tag me :)).

I accidentally wrote Australia instead of Canada, while thinking of Canada and Trudeau in a post a few days ago where I was calling Australia(while thinking of Canada) to be the new China when it comes to applied communism. Luckily someone noticed that...

0
0
0.000
avatar

To be honest you've done a lot of hardwork before getting to where you are today. I believe if someone is Consistent something good will come out from it. It might be soon or not.
This really motivate me to keep aiming the target one day I will have a successful story to tell later.

0
0
0.000
avatar

It's good stuff and I'm bullish on the ecosystem and the developments. I can see a clear path for the ecosystem to really thrive. I don't know if that path is the same one that will be taken but it will be interesting.

I think my main concern is that there are really only a couple creators that were able to make any significant gains and earnings within these ecosystems. Even if spread across all these STEEM clones / forks and everything at arms length associated with it the road is very rocky.

There have only been a couple paths to success on here and it is such a small percentage of the people who have arrived here.

@scottcbusiness just did a breakdown of his monthly earnings and having a significant Twitter and YouTube following with high quality videos and spread across all these clones it was basically $85 for the month. We aren't complaining necessarily about the earnings and we are going to keep digging up every little bit we can but in my opinion this whole ecosystem hasn't gotten close to its potential and I would say there are less than 100 people getting a decent return out of all this between bloggers, curators, witnesses.....etc.

Again a lot of good things have happened here but can it become what it truly has the potential to be? It can do the gaming, DeFi, lending ......etc. It should be able to fund itself and promote itself and be self sustainable. The ramps to the BSC and Polygon are critical. HIVE and HBD need to be tokenized on all these other chains.

Lots of positives but tough for new users to grasp everything that is happening here. I have been here since 2016 and in crypto since 2013 and I don't know everything going on.

0
0
0.000
avatar

Whale experiment 2.0?

0
0
0.000
avatar

You have come along way and I think many of us have just by staying active and doing the best we can.

0
0
0.000
avatar

https://ecency.com/hive-133987/@arcange/hive-statistics-20221002-en

Statistics point that this community is failing. Authors and comments are going lower and lower, but wait for hf26! Fundamentally, hive is Splinterlands.

0
0
0.000
avatar

Nice ironic usage of the word "fundamentally".
A hammer often gets used on nails, so fundamentally, a hammer is a nail.
Top notch logic really.

The stats you show are bullish. People see what they want to see. Half of the whales on the platform are inactive and not milking rewards? None of these metrics are really that useful in determining where the platform is going. Go ahead and give your history lesson, all that matters is if we are becoming more centralized or more decentralized. It's obvious we are becoming more decentralized. The rest is noise.

Oh cool story bro, you've been here since the beginning so you know what you're talking about. This place is doomed. But, you know you're not the captain, right? You don't have to go down with the ship. Why are you here? Actions speak louder than words. Still here? Bullish. Noise is noise. Your cynicism has been noted in my log.

0
0
0.000
avatar

Fundamentally a hammer is steel and wood. Fundamentally you are what you don't shit out. Fundamentally the overwhelming demand for hive is from Splinterlands, but lets not draw conclusion based on facts and statistics, let's equivocate instead that hammer is nails as the overwhelming majority of demand for hive is from a card game.

0
0
0.000
avatar
(Edited)

Oh cool story bro, you've been here since the beginning so you know what you're talking about. This place is doomed. But, you know you're not the captain, right? You don't have to go down with the ship. Why are you here? Actions speak louder than words. Still here? Bullish. Noise is noise. Your cynicism has been noted in my log.

Cynicism comes directly from you, claiming I implied I'm the captain or that why am I here, if I express concern? The most hilarious part, you claim that it's noise, as if the Authorship falling, the comments and posts being largely with no engagement and spam, and that somehow, the only thing that maters is that the coins are even more distributed across accounts than ever, because that equals decentralization, hilarious bro, even in a complete echo chamber with only one approved opinion and no critiques, its decentralization being more decentralized, don't mind the spam, its not noise, but ignored, as you can see by the lack of interaction, its just the sound of hard working decentralization (looks at top ten, tries to keep a straight face).

0
0
0.000
avatar

BTW, top trending posts are showing that this place is empty and getting mad at me for pointing out the facts won't change anything, but keep reeeing at reality, I'm sure you'll shut me up with your dimwitted "why are you even here" logic.

0
0
0.000
avatar

The first initial spike was the first adapter flood, then you can see that most of them cashed out, fast, the dismal payouts next were from reluctant whales who controlled the payout because of the curve n2 placed on vests vs linear as we have now, and that next steady and sudden climb was when the whale experiment was ran, basically whales had formed a majority who vowed to not vote and/or to downvote all other non compliant whales (and orcas, and some dolphins might have been involved) which increased the dolphins and minnows votes by about 10x. The whale experiment stopped more or less in June, where you see that dip, which was right around the time that the excitement of the whale experiment, meant to last only a couple of weeks, carried out into people going out there and getting linear passed. https://steemit.com/steemit/@sflaherty/know-your-voting-power-because-hard-fork-19-comes-tomorrow

With linear passed we were riding high, look at the difference, we haven't gotten there since, bar the spikes from the influx of people who had heard or learned about us because the price went crazy, not even 3 months after the HF. We gotten over the crazy circle jerks and bidbots yet having unleashed free downvoting has pretty much guaranteed that those exciting times when people were thinking "anything is possible" or "so much opportunity" on here will never manifest again, and instead with authors dwindling and posts and comments numbers which are largely driven by spam its pretty much cemented the notion that this place has seen it's Glory days, but do continue living in "to the moon", I'm sure hypemaster extraordinaire and the kp team will concur that this is just a lul before the next event. Hf26! Yay!

0
0
0.000
avatar

Of course you're right and reality will hit hard soon. Those 5 or 6 main guys will hardly be enough to keep this place going.

Posted Using LeoFinance Beta

0
0
0.000
avatar

The Hive elite should do everything in their power to get the steemit.com domain back from Justin when he inevitably gives up.

There is MASSIVE value there.

Posted Using LeoFinance Beta

0
0
0.000
avatar

That's really telling that one can't make $ on medium; it's basically the lie too many like to believe: that making money on web2 is easy. "Hey, look, all of these guys are making thousands of $$$ so I can do it too..." But then you realize that there are only a couple of people in every niche that actually made it out of like hundreds of thousands of other content creators... Hive really shines here, even though it can always get better. And we shouldn't forget that getting even like $10-30 a month can be massive in countries like South America or Africa etc.

0
0
0.000
avatar

It's disgusting how most crypto people use medium for their shit rather than actual web3 they preach.

0
0
0.000
avatar

When I think about where I'd be right now if I hadn't lost my keys, I get sick. I joined Steemit in March 2018. It was right after the hard fork, probably within a month, when I lost my keys (and I thought I was being careful with them, but one simple mistake and they're gone forever!). It took me a while to get back in the saddle. I had a reputation of 65 at the time, as @blockurator. I'd probably be at 75 by now, three years later.

As for the difference between Hive and Medium, one works on compound interest and the other doesn't. There is a maximum to how much Medium authors will ever make. On Hive, there are other dynamics, dynamics you'll never see on Medium. And those authors making $1,000/month had to work just as long and hard to get there as you did to get where you are on Hive.

Thanks for reminding me where I've been, and where I'm going.

0
0
0.000
avatar

Congratulations on making the climb up the Hive ladder, bro! !PIZZA and !LUV all the way!

It's a hard path at times but worth it I think. Recently I had a hive turn-off, but I love the platform too much to give it up 100%, so I am back as well, working my way up to!

Anyways, just wanted to say congratulations and keep it up!

0
0
0.000
avatar

“People with goals succeed because they know where they are going.” – Earl Nightingale

Posted Using LeoFinance Beta

0
0
0.000
avatar

This post has been manually curated by @bhattg from Indiaunited community. Join us on our Discord Server.

Do you know that you can earn a passive income by delegating your Leo power to @india-leo account? We share 100 % of the curation rewards with the delegators.

Please contribute to the community by upvoting this comment and posts made by @indiaunited.

0
0
0.000
avatar

Another piece of trivia to add is HIVE is one of most underrated places for SEO. Every time a link is posted to HIVE, multiple front ends immediately start linking to that website.
!PIZZA
!CTP

Posted Using LeoFinance Beta

0
0
0.000
avatar

Well, congratulations for being on the list of top billed author. It is fascinating to see how you made progress along these years and embraced many odd things of decentralization on the way. But, anyway when sustainability is raised and manipulated properly, then the chance of winning multiplies in a moments time.

Good luck for the future ahead. 👍

0
0
0.000
avatar

Well if that wasn't a breezy 2K words that didn't read like a long post. Kudos to the writer for his conversational style.

@edicted was new at one time? I thought you were like one of those Great Bristlecone Pine trees that had been around seemingly forever. :)

Good Lord, 2017. That fall I was living in Germany studying business, with no way to open a Coinbase account due to being a Yank overseas. Not that I had much money mind you, but I eventually found an expensive way to buy the first of my then little patch of STEEM tokens.

That was the year Ned gave me a huge upvote ($35?) when someone downvoted me (and many others) for saying I was happy to be there. That was also the time that somebody from Australia gave me my first big upvote on a comment (0.25 I think) which primed my pump and I've remembered it ever since.

It's illuminating to think that you joined just a few months after me in 2017 and look where you are now! It just shows what keeping at it can do over the long term.

I've stayed here through all of the ups and downs both in the crypto world, my own personal finances and life in general. But you know what? Nothings dimmed my enthusiasm and belief in the future of crypto, and I just keep right on building. Never one of those guys to just pick up and bail when the price drops. I'm still here now and will be for the long haul.

Posted Using LeoFinance Beta

0
0
0.000
avatar

Same. Everything you said here is me but at a much smaller scale lol. I remember being on steemit for a long time before I knew it was a crypto.

Posted Using LeoFinance Beta

0
0
0.000
avatar

Well you do have a particularly unique style and well deserved to see you in top authors I think!

Thanks for the mention. I've done pretty well out of Steem now Hive over the years, it's just about the grind. My earnings are down now on what they were around a year ago, but that's fine, good to spread it around I think.

However, my earnings on here pale in comparison to my ad earnings on my main blog, but they're different beasts, and that's talking about current prices of Hive.

It's been a bonkers five years or so, here's to the next five!

0
0
0.000
avatar

Yes I saw that you just got a big bonus on those ads. Kudos.
But yeah also it's going to get very weird around here if Hive starts spiking up.
Weird to think that we haven't even gotten back to Steem's ATH of $8.

0
0
0.000
avatar

I'm actually pretty happy with Hive just bumbling along at the $0.50 mark.

I can't imagine what it would be like at $5 thinking about $8 rather than $0.80.

I did actually buy Steem at $4!

But a lot more at $0.10!

Is Hive cheap at $0.50 I can't even tell anymore!

0
0
0.000
avatar

Aye! Legendary Minnow support, I loved the initiative.

The day I found your blog, I can remember spending more than 3hours diving deep into it without even realizing I’d spent such time, it Spoke to me, spoke like me, for me, in me,….I learned so much, still do. Greatly influenced me and my writing a lot, I don’t even care about getting your upvotes, they’re welcomed, but, your post a day, keeps the doctors away” ah!

Posted Using LeoFinance Beta

0
0
0.000