Yesterday, the final of 13 segments of my recent power-down completed... leaving me, once again, a lowly Steemit "redfish," to use the parlance of our strange little ecosystem.
I won't get into the specifics of why someone who often rants on about the value of "long term holding" in Steem was powering down... suffice it to say that it had nothing to do with the place and everything to do with a particular form of "violence" known as taxation.
At least, a number of the "Freedomists" around here would call it "violence" because I'm not giving up something voluntarily.
Fiery winter sky
But Enough About That
Anyway, as the last vesting withdrawal completed, I found myself down to 472SP, as of this morning... the lowest it has been since sometime in March of 2017.
A couple of days ago was my 2nd anniversary here, although February 1st 2017 was my first post.
Funny (sad?) thing was that I was pretty sure this place would keel over and die within a year... and hinted at as much, in my intro post. Way to show up, with guns blazing!
My introduction post got almost 550 upvotes and earned $40+ in rewards. I hold the distinctly "odd" Steemit record of having had my very first post @curie'd. I had no idea what that meant, at the time.
By my 4th post, I was earning $0.00, just like everyone else!
It has been a bumpy ride.
I made it to "Dolphin" fairly quickly, because I was posting extensively and powering up at a time when Steem was 7-10 cents and it was not uncommon to get 100+ SP for a single good post.
Spring dreams....
On January 29th, 2017...
The price of Steem was $0.1683. Today it is $0.2790
The price of Bitcoin was $921.99. Today it is $3,419.23
On March 11th, 2017...
The price of Steem was $0.06953
On January 3rd, 2018...
The price of Steem was $8.57
I was a very active poster and curator at both times.
In Another Time...
I've actually had three posts organically make it to the first page of the now infamous "Trending" feed... purely on their own merit.
Although I am pretty broke now, I've actually earned somewhat in excess of 14,000 SP, purely from authoring posts. Which adds up to a helluva lot more than I have ever gotten from any other content creation venue... save for a $10,000 year in my first year (1999) on epinions.
At its most "valuable," my Steemit account was actually "worth" US $21,327.00. That's a slightly scary thought, in today's market. This morning, it was worth $127.92.
I have actually made it to "dolphin" status twice; majorly powered down twice, mostly have lived here as a "minnow," now am back at the lowest end of the food chain... but I expect that to be short lived... and hope to make it back to Dolphin before I grow old and blind!
It's easier when you've done it before...
Bird on the fence...
I'd Like to Send a Shoutout to...
... the only other person who joined on the same day as me that I've been able to track down — and who made any kind of mark here: @tarazkp.
I mention him because I want to give him a "Happy 26 Moons" shoutout, but also because he represents — at least to me — the potential of this community. What you can do, if you put your mind to it.
Neither of us ever considered "gaming the system," as many do... instead taking the "hard work" approach. It has actually been a pretty fun ride.
I could list a bunch of other people here, but I'm not trying to give an Oscar thank you speech, so I'll refrain.
But a lot of you matter to me, a lot, and we have become friends across the airwaves. You know who you are.
Thank you!
(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for Steemit)
Created at 190202 01:42 PST
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