☆ THE DAYS OF EARLY BEGINNING
When we enter into Hive Ecosystem as a fresher, we are confronted with a world so vast to comprehend. We begin to learn the basics of creating original content, posting in communities and engaging with various authors. With time, we learn more about the various communities and frontends on Hive, and then we discover that these frontends or communities have their own world.
This was my story, and I bet it is the same with many of us who were onboarded into Hive Ecosystem.
However, those who came onboard via leofinance.io, Splinterlands or other frontends also experienced something similar when they discovered that the world they are in, is just a community or tribe amongst many other tribes on Hive.
Okay, I am talking too much.
Let’s rest a little.
.
.
Yea, I am back! So, let’s continue.
For those who don’t know where we are:
☆ WELCOME TO THE LEOVERSE: THE LEOFINANCE WORLD
The Leofinance Community is a strong hub for crypto and finance related content on the Hive Ecosystem. It aims at being a strong finance hub in the Cryptoverse where all users (content owners) from different ecosystems can:
- share their finance related content for information, education and for fun;
- read and learn from amazing finance related content shared by other authors;
- gather to discuss (via leothread/comment of post), host virtual gathering (via 3speak) or seminars;
- transfer tokens safely and speedily from one ecosystem to the other, and much more.
The Community has been in existence prior to when Hive was forked out of Steem, and till now it keeps growing.
I don’t know how much it has grown from that moment till now; however, I can speak about the growth from the moment I got to know about the Leofinance Community till this moment. And, in doing this, I will speak about three periods via the following themes:
- Whispers in the Air
- A New Lion Emerges
- The Road to becoming a Lion King
☆ WHISPERS IN THE AIR
I came into Hive Ecosystem in the Month of June 2020, but my growth was impeded due to various unforeseen circumstances. When I got back on my feet in the Month of November 2021, I began the process of re-learning and I got to understand more things about Hive from my great onboarder and mentor @starstrings01.
I heard about a community called Leofinance where you can read and share your finance content. But I wasn’t motivated to join the finance niche because I was more interested in creating musical content and other fun related content. I saw finance as a boring or serious matter, where you need to have a good understanding of Technical Analysis or Fundamental Analysis to survive.
In the first week of April 2022, I came across a Challenge from @leogrowth titled Your First Post on Leo Finance | 500 USD for grabs!. This challenge was posted on 5th of April 2022, and Oh Boy! it was really enticing and tempting. But I still did not have the balls to pick up my pen and write. At the same time, I also heard about Staking Cub and earning massively from the APR. All these sweet offers were enticing but they remained “...WHISPERS IN THE AIR” to me.
☆ A NEW LION EMERGES
A week after I saw this challenge post, I attended a Hive Meet Up in Lagos, Nigeria, on the 16th of April 2022. In this unforgettable event, I had the privilege of meeting @starstrings01 @josediccus @readthisplease @onwugbenuvictor and three beautiful ladies on Hive NB: I chose not to tag them here because the concern is not solely about the meetup.
I sat at the foot of these 4 great Hivians and I drank from their fount of knowledge and wisdom about Hive. They discussed at length about the Leoverse and my head was overloaded with various ideas and information about creating financial content and creating beautiful cover photos.
I remember @readthisplease explaining how to Farm and Stake Cub; @onwugbenuvictor sharing his insight on how to gather information or to find finance related topic to discuss; @josediccus explaining how humans cannot do without finance and teaching us his amazing techniques on creating cover photos; and, finally, @starstrings01 insisting on engagement in the leofinance community.
When I got home, I began processing these information and ideas that I garnered.
Then I slept off……
I think “I woke up” on May 10, 2022 and I wrote my first post via the Leofinance frontend which I titled Wild Thoughts on Financial Uncertainties, and with this post …A NEW LION EMERGED.
☆ THE ROAD TO BECOMING A LION KING
Alright, hold on there!
You’ve listened to this boring story about my Journey in the Leoverse, and you are wondering how it relates to the growth of Leofinance, then and now.
Well, the truth is that I can only say it from my own perspective and so far, I believe you can see it as well.
Now, this period begins from the time I had the balls to write in the leoverse (which will be my “then”) till this present moment (which will be my “now”)
At this juncture, my discussion will be thematical.
● LEOFINANCE FRONTEND
Among the amazing developments in the Leofinance Frontend in terms of Lightning, speed, UI/UX and User Friendliness, one of the notable additions is the introduction of COMMUNITIES.
By Communities, I mean Communities in Leofinance, and the communities includes: Avalanche, BNB Smart Chain (BSC), Comdex, Cub Finance, Ethereum and a host of others.
If you don’t understand, here is the trick: Remember at the beginning of this piece I said that “Leofinance aims at being a strong finance hub in the Cryptoverse.” Hence, with this, there is a great need to classify or categorize different content so that “visitors” can easily find their place or community in the Leoverse.
● MULTI TOKEN BRIDGES ON LEO
I think when I joined the Leoverse, Leo had already built bridges to connect the Hive Blockchain to Ethereum, Binance and Polygon, and vice versa. Hence, with this, LeoBridge allows users to swap from one token to another using the wrapped version of LEO.
- Wrapped LEO (wLEO) - A wrapped version of LEO in the Ethereum blockchain.
- BEP20 LEO (bLEO) – A wrapped version of LEO in the Binance Smart Chain Blockchain.
- Polygon LEO (pLEO) – A wrapped version of LEO in the Polygon (Matic) Blockchain
With this wrapped version and with the Leobridge, one can easily swap from ERC20 tokens to BEP20 tokens with reduced Gas Fees, and from BEP20 to Polygon tokens.
What LEO continues to do at this present moment is to provide sweeter APR so that more Lions can add to the Liquidity Pool to ensure that there is liquidity for the different transactions on different bridges. With this, the transactions can be smooth when swapping from one token to the other.
● LEOTHREADS
On the 4th of August 2022, Leothreads was live in the Leoverse after much development and testing by the team. From that moment till today, we have seen rapid development in this feature. If you care to know, I was among those who made their first thread within the 30minutes of its launch.
For those who do not know what I am talking about, Leothreads is a micro-blogging feature on Leofinance, where you can thread or share your short posts (240 characters).
On the day it was released, only IPhone and PC users could easily access it and thread comfortably. With my Android, I could reply threads, but I couldn’t make any thread on my own, I had to use my PC. However, after some days it became assessible for Android users also.
From that period till now, the leothreads has recorded massive growth in terms of its engagement, speed and user friendliness due to the addition of interesting features. For instance, the lightening/speed has increased tremendously; we now have threads section in every users’ profile where you can see your past threads and other users’ past threads; and the latest addition is the Nested replies. Before I forget, I also saw this recent thread from @khaleelkazi where he was testing image carousel feature for threads. This will be fun!
● LEOGLOSSARY
Leoglossary is a resource center, central bank of words and an educational center. Just like I said in my post on Spice up your Content and be Well informed with Leoglossary:
Leoglossary gives us that technical understanding and definition of words that we cannot find in dictionaries. It explains it to us and keeps us well informed about the subject matter. Hence, it is a learning center, a learning point and one which both authors and readers should get accustomed to reading in order to get a better understanding of the word(s).
Leoglossary keeps improving daily and @taskmaster4450le together with his team is doing a great work to make sure that we have enough words stored in the bank. Don’t also forget that the Leoglossary helps in the Search Engine Optimization of our finance content.
● LEOTASKS FOR LEO SOCIAL ASPECT
It is great to see that @leo.tasks was created (under the control of @anomadsoul) to help the social side of the Leo ecosystem grow and become stronger.
The tasks which are rolled out are tasks that helps @leogrowth to reach out to other blockchains and collaborate with them, and this, in turn, will lead to onboarding them into this lovely leoverse.
Well, I took up one of the tasks and I Compiled 10 Awesome projects that exist in the Fantom Ecosystem, together with their social media and other contact details. These details will help leogrowth to do what it does best.
● LEOFINANCE CONTESTS
Just like I said, at the beginning I was enticed with one of the leofinance Contests from @leogrowth. However, when this New Lion emerged (yea! I am talking about meeeeeee), I could barely see contests going on in the Leoverse except the Leo Power UP Day (LPUD). However, with the emergence of the Threads, @leogrowth began a threadstorm challenge.
At this present moment, the Leoverse now has many ongoing contests. Two of the weekly contests which I love participating in are:
- The @india-leo contest by @indiaunited
- The LEO and HODL contest by @idiosyncratic1 and @hodlcommunity
These contests are great and they have helped me to know more about some features in the Leoverse and also helped me to engage with other amazing authors in the Leoverse.
● OTHER AMAZING DEVELOPMENT
If I decide to go into details to discuss all the amazing development in the Leoverse at this present moment, it may have to take me 5 posts. However, having listed the above developments based on the themes presented above, I also wish to add three short points:
Onboarding in Leofinance is now faster and easier as compared to the previous times. I remember when @jaydr shared the difficulty he experienced in using the leofinance frontend for onboarding. I bet if he tries it this time around, he wont have any issues like before.
We now have Badges designed by @hivebuzz for Leo Power Up Day (LPUD)
The UI/UX of the Leodex has been improved and more amazing features added.
Overall, I have felt great progress and development in the Leoverse. Amazingly, these developments happen concurrently, and you begin to wonder if Khal and the development team ever sleeps.
I am really grateful to them and the hard work they are putting to make sure that the Leoverse sits on top. I will also play my little part the best way I can, especially as I am on THE ROAD TO BECOMING A LION KING.
But, hahahaha.... the road is still far... hahaha
☆ A SUGGESTION
Indeed, the Leofinance team is doing a great work in all ramifications. However, as a form of suggestion, I feel the Leofinance frontend editing/writing pad for posts should have a section were we can Select the thumbnail image or cover photo for our posts. This is because, my desired cover photo may sit at the second or 5th image. Hence, the automatic first image as cover photo won't be favourable.
This post is my entry for the Leofinance ‘Then’ vs ‘Now’ Contest by @leogrowth
- All Designs created with Canva Mobile App
- Screenshot of Leofinance frontend from my mobile phone
I AM KSAM
I may not be your favourite author, but you can journey with me to help me develop my writing skills. I am always open to criticism, correction and learning 🥰.
