The Intro of Michael Sullivan Smith as @cryptoknot

I'm bringing you an art too esoteric for the 1960s when I created it, but ready now in Steemit's time, where I'm making it Cryptoknot.

Steemit intro.JPG

I'm Michael Sullivan Smith and I've been relating art to the digital future since making knots into circuitry to create conceptual art a half century ago; more or less making my life into the wait for what I'm jumping right into in introducing cryptoknot's story here today.

My second post is already ready. That post will be about my guess at what is the real value being built by the Steemit platform, and why I feel that my past and future relationships with digital art have a place in Steemit's trajectory. Following that, I'll tie you up in this gripping story of cryptoknot.

For this intro, now, we'll start with the origins of a system for propagating a cryptography idea, way before crypto was dreamed of being what it is today. Over the years I've stuck with this system, giving it's “graphy” side ample presence in galleries and, after the Graphic User Interface hit the Internet, on blogs, web sites, and social media, making sure it resonated with my less enigmatic interests as an inventor, artist, and author, to keep it alive while waiting for its moment to arrive. Until now, though, I couldn't make this much more than crazy talk to most, and even as I spread it freely around for anyone to pick up on, there was no one else as crazy as I was seeing it. For going on half a century I've continued to let this identify me as a bit weird and eccentric... something I've grown to appreciate in others. You can Google my name or my land art sculpture, “The Great Knot”, to see the ways these intrigues of the knot have been variously represented in the 21st century, and even in the Internet Archive (Way Back Machine).

In brief, I've fashioned the knot into a cryptographic surrogate for unique material objects, making these into plans that only exist in a graphic registry. I realized this registry concept was the best I could do when confronted with the potential of an infinite number of individually unique knot objects in a never ending systemic sequence of identifiable forms. Back in that far, far away world of the 1960s, I'd made the knot into an art that functioned like blockchains add blocks now: immutable and as certifiably unique as any cryptographic key can manage to be.

Now, fast forward to the present day, when I've realized this is understandable as a surrogate to value, referencing a token or a CryptoKitty, and no longer absurd. By fitting this original conceptual art into a recognizable relationship to the blockchain, a way exists to formalize it.

What I am doing here in the Steemit community is seeking an honest viewing of this on its merits, in a place that is at the vanguard of becoming comfortable with the concept of cryptocurrency. What is now this Cryptoknot concept is planned to be developed through autonomous participation, exactly like Bitcoin's proof-of-work, only with a next knot designed to fit a sequence, not mined. It's all on my web site, built as a “white paper”. And, actually, I'm here to recruit participants... but that's a bit further down the timeline.

It's more than serendipity that Steemit caught my interest. When the distributed ledger hit TED Talks I suddenly had this hopeful feeling. When I got to Steemit in my constant rounds of surveillance of the blockchain topic, I heard what I'd been waiting to hear: a mix of technology savvy and, I guess, a hint of the heady artist community I thrived in a half century ago in lower Manhattan when this art was conceived.

Everyone on Steemit seems to want to demonstrate that mixing it up in a cutting edge sandbox of ideas will change the world. So I just figure that I can give you, as a community, a story that no one else has been, up to now, ready to relate to, and get some honest attention to it, and attract those who are really ready to move it along in the way I've imagined it for so long.

On that note, I'd like to end this introduction to this story with a thought on Steemit as a community. We have a common story, as human beings, that comes down to the reason we search... that the potential of finding something enables hope. In a world where constant change means constant challenges, searching empowers hope. I see this Steemit community being like me; hoping that among those constant changes, a new method, or a new process, or a new spark of insight that matches the trajectory of our hopes is found in these many searches. If those Up Votes are a bond of hope that inspire us to put our own writings and videos here where we know they will be searched out and found, then we can give our own source of hope to the world.

My hopes are with my art finding participants here on Steemit, but I am equally excited to have the opportunity to play a part in growing Steemit's potential. So give your Up Vote for all our ambitions, and “follow” me to not miss the next installment in this story of the past and future of @cryptoknot.

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Hello cryptoknot! Welcome to Steemit! Hope you'll like the community here. As a start, here are 5 tips that we believe will be helpful to you:

  1. Keep your passwords safe: Unlike conventional sites, Steemit has 4 types of passwords. Each offers varying degrees of access to your account, so know where and when to use each of them. Also, make sure to keep them all safe and secure.
  2. Get Steem rewards: When writing a post, you'll have the option to choose how to receive your reward: "Default 50%/50%" or "Power Up 100%". As of this moment, choosing Default 50%/50% is the better option. But this can change over time. Check our post to know more.
  3. Upvote wisely: When upvoting, wait at least 30 minutes after the post is published to maximize your curation reward. Also, make sure not to upvote too much too fast so as not to drain your voting power.
  4. Know your Steem, Steem Dollars and Steem Power: Steem and Steem Dollars are the 2 main currencies here. Convert and power up more Steem into Steem Power so you can have higher values on your upvotes.
  5. Have Fun and Enjoy!

For a detailed writeup, check our post Getting Started: 5 Essential Tips for New Users.

Good luck on your Steem journey! Follow us if you like to receive more helpful tips and maximize your Steemit experience.

Hi and welcome to Steemit @cryptoknot!

To find all your Steemit Stats, I developed a tool for you called SteemTracked

Welcome to Steem, @cryptoknot!

I am a bot coded by the SteemPlus team to help you make the best of your experience on the Steem Blockchain!
SteemPlus is a Chrome, Opera and Firefox extension that adds tons of features on Steemit.
It helps you see the real value of your account, who mentionned you, the value of the votes received, a filtered and sorted feed and much more! All of this in a fast and secure way.
To see why 3119 Steemians use SteemPlus, install our extension, read the documentation or the latest release : SteemPlus 2.18.2 : Post and Support.

Since I know this is a bot I think I'll try dropping an image into the reply and see what happens. Thanks bot.landingpage.jpg

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