(this is one of my favorite GIFs i made in early steem days)
Hi, I am Stellabelle and I'm from somewhere on the internet (prefer not to say which country, lol).
My very first encounter with Bitcoin was in 2011 when I was doing soul-searching and went on a journey which started by me typing into Google this question:
"Who is Changing the World?" This led me to Vandana Shiva, Monsanto, a film called Scientists Under Attack that was banned in my country, these things led me to Bitcoin. I posted about Bitcoin back then in 2011 on Facebook, but i was dead broke at that time, and didn't have a spare dollar. I was doing slave wage jobs, and then in 2013 i lost everything and was on food stamps, and couldn't find a job even after applying over 300 times.
When I first found Bitcoin, I remember feeling intrigued, but I didn't do a deep dive (unfortunately). Being broke and depressed didn't help at all.....
Fast forward to 2015 when i wrote my first book, Un-Crap Your Life, and shortly thereafter, I became a science/tech writer for Interesting Engineering. During one night when i was researching a story, I accidentally stumbled onto steemit.com, this was June 2016... It took me an hour to figure out how to upload images, because at that time only markdown was used, there was no image uploader....LOL.
I'll never forget how Dan Larimer greeted me during my first post: he was nice but he said that my formatting needed some work. LOL. I was thinking to myself, "jesus christ, i just spent an hour figuring out how to upload an image and you're telling me that my formatting sucks?"
Anyway, I fell into the rabbit hole and just never left. I guess it's safe to say that if steemit hadn't been invented, i probably would not know as much about crypto as i do.
I am grateful to Dan and Ned (begrudgingly,LOL) for making Steemit, but it is Hive that I feel has a chance to really help people become more free (that's my main motivation to be here.....that and to be able to learn and create, instead of doing some slave wage job.
I would enjoy hearing stories from @jeninacrypto and @fabiyamada and @juliakponsford and @yusaymon.
You've been into the system since 2011. Wow thats a long time. What a story this is. Glad to have you on hive.
well i didn't enter the Bitcoin system in 2011, but that was the year had a slight consciousness of it...as i said, i didn't get any bitcoin because i didn't do a deep dive back then (shame!!!!).
Hi @stellabelle,
Who would have thought this Google searchwould lead you to Bitcoin?
Very interesting story as you went through the whole Dan, Ned and Steem History.
I also believe Hive can actually succeed where Steem failed if the whales on top manage to delegate some of their power to good Hivers.
I see a lot of developer activities and a lot of excitement, this has to continue in order to sustain our current momentum.
Thank you for sharing your story, I really "enjoyed it" and I hope you are much better today than you used to be before crypto.
Sincerely,
@vlemon
thanks so much for your reply....yes, crypto has changed my life for the better. I am a believer...and i share your positive outlook of Hive, I think we can do it now.