News, Rants and Recent Thoughts on Steemit Happenings
First
Second 
Thank you all for your comments and words of encouragement yesterday. I see quite a few qualified hopefuls. It is really difficult to decide on the next winner!
Hopefully, we will have someone chosen to take the helm tomorrow evening. Keep an eye on your replies. I will let you know by responding to your comment from yesterday.
I am sorry for not upvoting your comments. I want to, but I have to use a ton of self-control and let my voting power build up after each winner takes control. My voting power is still recovering from yesterday's free-for-all, currently at 88% and climbing.
This means I don't get to upvote many of my favorite blogs, but I think Steemit needs the smiles produced by #takemyvotes - voter and vote recipients both seem to have a great time.
I believe in sharing the wealth, bringing engagement , fun, community, and excitement to the platform. My curation rewards are low when running this contest, but your votes make up for it! Thanks.
A little history of #takemyvotes
The title is "I'm not going to upvote you 🐋 Do it yourself!"
It is something I started back in March to precede the promised delegation of voting power. People seemed to like the temporary fun of voting with a lot of SP behind it. Here are the posts I started with. . .
What I am looking for is someone who holds Steem Power, is involved in blogging and curation, is social on the site, and needs the boost that this contest provides.
Third
I am a bit concerned about the disappearance of Steem from shapeshift.io The last time I used them, it seemed that they were having difficulty keeping the Steem hot-wallet topped off from minute to minute. I really hope Shapeshift does not drop the ball as the world comes to digital currency. I have been checking all day to see if I can send Steem and receive Ether because I recently sold some. as of the time of this posting, it's not appearing in the list.
Edit:
Shapeshift did get back to me on twitter...
Let's hope things get back to normal.
End Edit
Poloniex is only allowing 800-900 per day to be withdrawn, which is a consequence of the price increase. The $2000 limit was allowing 2100 Steem just last week. Yes, I do stay within the 2k per day limit in order to remain anonymous! This is important as early adopters become millionaires. I am talking to you! The person reading this. There was a day when I held only 300 bitcoins and their total value was $900
Do you have 300 Steem?
With Steem price on the rise, it is starting to look and feel like Bitcoin did back then, like Dash did last November. This is definitely a Good thing. The platform is getting the recognition it has deserved for a long time. The New list of posts is really getting busy.
This is our time to shine! But we also need to curate what we want more of, and take a pass on the blogs that are spammy or copy/paste.
Fourth
In a world where...
The paper markets, matrix-dwellers, investment bankers have over 500 trillion in notional derivatives just waiting to collapse...
and Coinbase can have 40,000 new sign ups in a single day...
and Facebook can censor opinions....
and Youtube can manipulate views, likes, and ad revenues....
Steemit is going to thrive!
and all we need to do is care for our platform, upvote what we like, comment, and prosper.
Thanks for taking time to read and resteem! 👍
Long time 🐟 turned 🐋 to have a voice.
📞 You're invited to steemspeak 📞