Surf's up - 2017!
All big waves start small, even in the cryptosphere. If you're here reading this right now, let it be known that you couldn't have been more at both the right place and time. This little wave right here just recently cruised past #8415 in global traffic ranking. In order to continue its march into dominating the attention economy, Steem and its ecosystem will need to focus on strengthening its core value of being the gateway into freedom.
There will be a million and one different communities / apps / tokens in the future. People will need a platform to discover the ones that are suitable for them, seeing that the beating heart of the capital world is now snowballing into a globally shared pool of assets through smart tokens, each with varying flavours of function and distribution. It's just blockchain technology taking on a life of its own, manifesting itself as many different kinds of tokens out there, to appeal to as many people as possible. The way to achieve this level of adoption is principally through social means, so Steem is in a great position to make this happen and be the center of it all.
This may all sound quite delusional, but is it really?
Huge chunks of the attention economy are in fact, captured by platforms like Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, Weibo, and so many others. These are all at their core, social and trust networks. That's the layer of the Internet that Steem is in position of improving, all by enabling the sharing of value creation. I can only imagine the expansion of Steem's capabilities further down the road as we experience growth in adoption. It could even become a decentralised exchange, the mother of community tokens, a place for app discovery.
So after spending the past couple of months diversifying my crypto assets, it just dawned on me today that it seems rather odd for anyone not to be dividing up their cryptocurrency holdings proportionately to their time and attention. I've seen users going big into other coins they never spend time in, and weirdly, light on the platform they're investing most of their attention into like Steem. In that sense, it's pretty much full Steem ahead for me now because it turns out, I'm hardly using any other coins at all. But of course, not everything in one basket. It's just that I'll remain heavy on Steem since I happen to gravitate towards it!
"And that, I think, was the handle — that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply PREVAIL. There was no point in fighting — on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave..."
"So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high water mark — that place where the wave finally broke, and rolled back.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
We will never know where this grand experiment will take us
But I believe that the future of decentralisation is already on its way to distributing itself far and wide into many good hands. Massive changes will happen with the coming of the Big Wave, and you may soon find yourself resisting from within, hanging onto your board before the wave breaks. Ride it out, and you shall be free.
Similar to when you finally find a word to describe something that you have been doing for a while, but were unable to describe as you did not know what it was called. This is what this article has done for me. I heavily invested in ETH from the start of my crypto journey one year ago. Then as it gained value I sold out and diversified into many different coins, often buying and trading coins, only after reading short articles, or viewing a chart and seeing possible room for growth. About one month ago I realized that I knew very little about many of the currencies that I was investing in, breaking my number one rule, "Do not invest in something that you don't know, or understand." At the same time, I had rediscovered Steem. I now hold very little in other cryptos and most in Steem and Ethereum, which I know the most about and use the most. Thanks for another great article. BTW, Vaporwaver f***ing rocks!
I sold a couple hundred ethers for steem when it was 2 bucks - somehow regretted that move since ether mooned quite hard after, but i guess its okay, I'll take the latent value of the currency as we build it. Been diversifying a couple btcs here and there especially for index coins like TaaS, BCAP, Ethereum rivals like Lisk, and recently on some IOTA too, using the 80% 20% rule for my holdings. Thanks, share out the music!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle - Needed to a reminder of the 80/20 rule. IOTA has some very interesting capabilities. Plus, Bill tends to be right on things! Just saying.
80/20 rule rules! It works in almost all aspects of life. With only 20% of the effort you can usually get 80% or more of the result.
One thing we know for sure - It's Hard to not keep all Eggs in one bakset, when an opportunity like Steem comes along!
when there's enough people then it'll be quite safe :) but still, dont go 100% lol
hey my friend , Follow me back , thank you
Wavi
the gateway into freedom
nice dream...
so, lets make this dream come true and spread the juice ^^
selling the dream ;) lol spreading the juice! sounds so wrong
hahahah
you make me feel dirty now ^^
where's my whip?
Haha
Good analogy Kevin, because like a wave, it swells forward and backward; remember this time last year? It was swelling, and now it is again! I get a feeling it is more sustainable this time; I think it's about to break over the banks of the internet. :-)
Cg
Plenty of metrics should that it's indeed more substantial than we were at last year! I'm already getting 10x more IRL friends recently asking me about cryptos in general and that's quite a sign..
@kevinwong & @cryptogee... YES... Agree with You Both... it seems there is now a "critical mass", a significant, dynamic/scalable Crypto WAVE that is currently encompassing the entire planet while each country's domestic currency suffers from decades of over-printing.
"FASTEN Your Seatbelts"... because this summer I believe there will be a surge of MONSTER Waves that is building right before our eyes... (( This scenario is explained pretty well in this YouTube video link below:))...
ALSO... IF You like the feeling of actually being "Inside the TUBE"... see one of my latest posts from the North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii... ( This is a shameless plug... >> : ~ ))
https://steemit.com/photography/@sacred-agent/exceptional-photography-by-clark-little-with-short-video-intro
Click the link above for an incredible photographic view of being "Inside the TUBE"
This is a metaphor... those that are holding Bitcoin, Ethereum, Steem & other viable, functional, useful & practical crypto... WILL Be Riding the Crypto WAVE... instead of being CRUSHED by holding fiat currencies in various forms of stocks, bonds, real estate or savings accounts.
Thank You again Kevin for Your insightful, ongoing Posts...Have a Great Week !!
Thanks for the link :) We'll see how the game turns out to be. But what I think is people with plenty of capital could finally see there are great ways to distribute their wealth in cryptos more effectively.. well that's what i think about what's happening, with Bitcoin being that first blackhole :)
Kevin, You're more than welcomed... You really create some Great Posts igniting the minds of those who read Your posts.
I believe You are correct and the "proof is in the pudding"... Total Market Cap went from around $20 Billion to $100 Billion in about 60 days... of course, it took about 9 years to get to $20 Billion.
HOWEVER, now we see the Market Cap at $115 Billion with a normal pullback, resting/waiting period for the NEXT WAVE to reach $150 Billion... most likely to "appear" within the next 30 to 45 days.
Time as we know it... is being compressed, so that each consecutive WAVE tends to come FASTER & FASTER... because of the decades of abusive GLOBAL fiat currency creation.
Thanks Again Kevin... Great Post / Great Metaphor !!
Yes, me too! Although I do think that is more linked to the much publicised boom in Bitcoin recently. Though there is definitely splash back onto Steem because of it :-)
Cg
Yeah, great article @kevinwong
I am on Steemit for ten days, but I see the potential in it, and I already started investing in myself by promoting my posts. The only thing about promotions here, that bothers me is that your promoted posts get in the Promoted bar.
I dont think that user will be clicking on that bar at all, they will check Trending and New posts tabs, but I highly douby anyone is going to click the promoted bar.
I think promotion must be somehow more widely shown, not just to users in the Topic they are viewing, and especially the promotrd bar.
Best practice I think, would be showing your promoted posts to everyone, just like it is on Facebook, just without the target audience. So when I promote a post, it be shown on the homepage of all users, and maybe there should be some rates announced, like for 1SBD your posts get shown in the feeds of 1000 people or less, but there deffinately should be some rates, so we know exactly what are we paying for.
Okay, this is just my thoughts on this subject. It went a bit lenghtly, I maybe should make a post about it.
As far as I know, there are people definitely looking into the Promoted page, even upvoting stuff there! In any case, promoting actually burns steem dollars, so it'll raise the floor price in general. So far, I think it's far better to engage with other users and figure out what people would like to value first, before going for the stuff that really interests you :) Yeah make a post bout it! All the best.
Okay, I am trying my best to engage and comment mindful stuff, but its hard for us the little sardines. I appreciate your upvote on my comment. Even though i never made a good post, with enough reward, i know that i can always make a buck or two while commenting.
Try to lessen the resteem and shortposts at the moment, try to build a meaty blog in the beginning, so when a whale comes by they'll see what your blog is about. You can be more casual once you've built rep and all - but that's just my suggestion!
Yay !To the world filled with little Stitches like myself !!!
Hope this wave lands to a paradise island one day.
No one controls the wave, but we can try our best to steer :) and smile like that lil fella in the pic lol
Yaaaa !!! 😁😁😁
You let the wave do the work.
You don't fight the wave.
You can't fight these big waves.
-Big Z-Surf's Up movie .
Great post, @kevinwong!
I have been on Steemit for a little more than a week and I'm already hooked. I'm not yet able to spend a lot of time here due to other obligations, but I will in the near future.
I owned a few bitcoin at some point but had to sell them to take care of an emergency. Right now, I may not be in a position to invest in Ethereum due to the price spike. While my intention is to write and earn some steem, I may also look into investing in Steem once I have money to spare.
Thank you for your post. It motivates me to spend more time here.
BTW, loved the analogy.
The platform is free-to-use. Although it'd help to buy into Steem Power, it certainly won't require you to actually invest in the currency since you can earn it. Investing time is legit too :)
I know it is. I would like to invest more time and move ahead. Just that, reading all those blogs about Steemians who had invested and are now making huge sums of money.. can be tempting. Thanks for the reality check. :)
Omg wth those waves are massive! I feel I have to much in Bitcoin right now. I'm probably going to moving some of my holding to steemit tomorrow!
I have only 1.1 BTC now lol, some in cold storage. If you've been having fun using the platform, why not? I feel it's a tad expensive right though.. but then again, it's low compared to other coins in the top 10. All the best!
I have close to 1 ether and I am considering converting in to Steem Power. But as you said, it's tad expensive at the moment, so I will wait a bit to see if it will go down in price :)
Similar thoughts..
I can watch the Steemit blockchain live at Steemviz.com to remind myself that this crazy idea isn't vaporware. Nor does it lack enthusiastic users.
Wow been a long time since I went onto Steemviz, don't even know what's really going on with the community anymore, except for the circles I'm in. I guess that's a good thing :)
I think this next Hard Fork that is happening in 6 days is going to be huge. A huge surge could happen after that!
It could go the other way too! Let's hope the rollout is smooth!
I feel like it will be. People didn't like the unfairness of the platform and it didn't make sense for investors to bring in outside money because their vote still wouldn't be worth enough before.
The "experiment" was a good idea and helped a lot I feel this will be a step forward as well. Hearing that this was being addressed honestly raised my hopes. I feel like it is all a big reason for the renewed interest in STEEM and this platform.
Yes I think the linear rewards thingiemajig will work wonders, the effects of it can already be seen to a lesser degree in recent months :)
I sure hope you're right about it being the gateway into freedom...
Plenty of new stuff to learn just being around the platform. I think it made quite a significant effect on me ever since I changed my daily feed from facebook to steemit last year..
do you think the steemit platform is here to stay for a while? your response would be appreciated :)
I've been using it for a year, my first online community so I'm definitely in the bubble and will say that it'll stay around for quite some time. People are looking out for each other too on this platform, and that's quite valuable imo.
thanks for your input...I am a minnow :)
Nice surfing analogy... these days though, so many people seem to be just waiting to see if the wave is big enough to catch or take them all the way to the shore. Nobody wants to paddle out far to ride the full extent of the wave and it's the brave ones like us on the forefront! Congrats and good writing!
I think Steem power and seeing the numbers go up upon upvoting seems to be the kind of feedback that users need to start getting involved instead of waiting it out right? I think the new update in a week will make the majority of users feel more empowered with their votes.
am a keen surfer and am keen to catch the big ones
Not a surfer here, but I'd take the big waves :D
That's what I'm talking about... STEEM can change your future, Let's go make it happen peeps! :)
It's happening!!
@kevinwong I'm still new here, your platforms looks awesome... I have yet to use them as I'm still learning but only heard great things about them so far. Will be using them in a few days 💪🏼🙌🏼💯
I think you've made a pretty keen observation about where our attention and value align
Thanks :) I think the recent rush into ICOs made me realise that people are just throwing money away, but not spending enough time building stuff on their own. I think Steem presents a good use case for anyone to build just by being social. No technical skills required.
I like this quote from the Bible
You know I never thought about it. But what you said about people heavily investing in coins they don't use and not investing in the coins they use most often is really very true for so many people.
Steem has already made great progress and I think that it will continue to grow so I think is a good move to invest more here. Espcially since you use it!
Good to see you still around using the platform :) i think its great the platform is entirely free and non-obligatory. Hopefully that will turn out to be a valuable arrangement!
Honestly, I wish I would have been around the last two months. But I had other issues that had to be taken care of. I'm glad to be back on the platform!
@kevinwong awesome shot of that wave and I really like the way you set out your post. Thanks for sharing and hopefully I can learn from you.
Very inspiring. Thanks to users like you, who not only believe in the value of the platform but also convincingly see its bright future, Steemit will move forward.
Thanks for the kind words @natord , it just so happens there's nothing like it. very surprising there's no clear competitor for this platform atm, even after more than a year.
Yeah, let us ride wave and see where it takes us!
Man I can't take my mind of "spreading the juice" :D Thanks @chrisx, I had a great laugh :D
hihi you're welcome ^^
i still feel dirty, if that is helping anyone ^^
Yes, thank you, it helps immensely!
^.^
Surf is up!!!!! Big wave coming! I See it! Fork 19!
Is this the music you're hearing while surfing on the blockchain? :D thanks for sharing
Thanks for posting! Very well written! I'm excited!!
Thanks @michael14876 we're all excited :)
keep the flow going .... thanks for posting this and making us aware...
Thanks brother the flow never stops :D
Yes it flows on n on... :)
For the time being, Steemit is the community that i want to belong. In a way, it seems like a calling.
If you find yourself coming back just about everyday, then maybe it is :) I'm still surprised there still isn't a clear competitor out there
Totally agreed with you.
Very inspiring! Good surfing analogy!
I actually just wanted to post that music video, but ended up writing something on it haha..
Resteemed by @resteemable
Awesome post - is this @surfermarly in the visuals :-)?
Hahah no! Maybe next one!
Haha, you can catch her in NY these days - in September i will let her surf on the Munich Isar waves lol - but psssst - she is not ware yet
A very inpsirational post. I am glad to be able to watch all of this happen.
Glad you're around using the platform :)
I have been watching my wallet increase in size I still don't understand it but it sure is entertaining.
Hahah.. always a good thing. Which part is it that you dont understand?
Ha ha, I understand it but it seems a little like magic you can make something out of nothing. Hey I don't know if I told you already but I got my son to start posting he is a great artist and has some really interesting things up. @danepatterson he is also into music but so far has just been posting his art.
This is why I have no problem with Steem as not only my largest cryptocurrency investment, but my largest investment overall. Like you said, why not invest most into the blockchains you use most?
It's a tricky balance between that and diversification... That's actually a big struggle for me as a whole, I spend 50% of my writing time on non-steem projects, even though they're way less fulfilling and earn similar or less money, just out of diversification. But maybe patience is the key.
Excellent post! The way I see it if you look at history, it's really the dot com bubble all over again. Out of that bubble came some of the biggest companies today, from Google to Amazon and more. I think the Crypto bubble will continue to grow before it bursts.... but also think the burst is a good thing, it will weed out the weak and from that we will see the entities that will become titans continue on.
I think might be a little different this time though since these tokens revolve around communities. Like we can have 10 similar coins in the markets, but just appeals to different sets of people.
Perfect 100 COMMENTS!
:P
Nice wave Kev!
101! Lol. How you've been doing buddy?
Surfing, Trading, and STEEM N ON!!!
I caught your "Ride The Wave" post!
"LIFE" is an experiment and Riding the Wave up and down is FUN!
Can you guess what size board I ride???
;)
Do you surf? :D
Congrats @kevinwong on your 3000 Follower Milestone!!!
:D
Thanks! What's with the post with those wall of texts??
Lol, this should answer that question!
https://steemit.com/franks-surfing/@cassidyandfranks/work-memo-last-one
100% agree @kevinwong
and i wish at that time steem community will on top of all of them... thanks for nicely written article...
This is awesome! Love it
I am excited for the ride. Like i ride a wave in a huge swell, thus i will ride the sets of steemit. Only to get bigger.
And hopefully better!
Awesome pictures!! 🤙🏽
And you shall be free 🌈
you make some great points here, I agree with everything you said...upvoted, followed!
Wow.
Thought this was appropriate.... :P
Good stuff! I'm currently trying to shift 50% of my focus onto Steem while the rest are leveraged across other operations.
Steemit is the way to ride on the wave.
Amen brother, amen.
SDG
@kevinwong nice you can look into my story too
https://steemit.com/story/@diverse-thinker/100-words-1-story
Awesome analogy, @kevinwong! I have never thought of Steemit that way! I have just upvoted your awesome post.
https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@animatormatthew/iota-a-new-world-currency-promo-video-amazing
@kevinwog thats nice article upvoted
can you do the same please
https://steemit.com/story/@diverse-thinker/100-words-1-story-stop-being-cruel-to-animals
Hey there! Nice post :) - I just started a new project that maybe is also interesting for you as a traveler! I would appreciate your support by resteeming or maybe even doing a post with that hashtag. https://steemit.com/travelmap/@lizanomadsoul/travelmap-the-new-travelguide-for-our-steemit-community-created-by-you
Check it out and let me know if you like it :)
loved ur article kevinwong, have u heard of sick building syndrome I think this article is important https://steemit.com/health/@whitedolphin/is-your-building-making-you-sick#comments
awesome music video... thanks for that inspiration!
You are totally right. We are at the right place at the right time. Just being in crypto currencies will get you the advantage of dollar value increases asthe market share of cryptos goes into the trillions in the near future.