congratulations on hitting 10,000 HP
I've always been of thinking that powering up in the blockchain and staking is an important thing to do in order to gain another stream of support or income. Slow and steady wins the race.
I would never begrudge those people that continuously power down in order to exchange it for fiat for their daily needs. In my country I have seen firsthand how people have lived a hard hand to mouth existence and while it may look selfish that they would not invest it is something that they cannot think of because they are busy trying to silence their hungry bellies.
Having never powered down has afforded me to ba at almost at the target I set out when I was still active when everything transferred to Hive and me deciding to power down on Steem and not cross-post yielded me some dividends that I was able to make use in investing in some Play to Earn platforms that provide another stream of income.
Lately I have been active again which some members thought it was because of the recent spike in Hive value but it is more tied to my mental state as writing has always been an outlet.
At this point I don't think that cryptocurrency is going away or even failing as now even big corporations and some countries has adopted it.
In a way Crypto was the internet before that some people thought would be just a novel idea between geeks and the military but now we can't even imagine not having the connectivity that the internet brings.
I do not think it is wrong to power down and use the proceeds for living. I do think that the excuse of I need hive to live on is a very short sighted excuse. Prior to a person finding hive they had no Hive so at that point they did not need it to live on.
Having found Hive if they left the auto powered up potion alone, they would be much better off 2 years later, the 50% that is not auto powered up would be a lot more if they had left the auto powered up powered up. Instead of a cup of coffee they could be buying a lot of food for the pantry and eating at home.
I think the people that give the advice to always power down are wrong. I also do not think it is necessary for people to power up everything. Once the rewards are powered up I do think people should use it as the savings base, a person vote power will grow as they power up thus providing more curation rewards, and thus more food on the table.
During on and off periods of mine I move delegations and power up rewards while moving some to hedge and do some minor trading to increase value. Nothing big but satisfying to see your fund grow.
I got surprised with my Splinterland stakes though but had not rented out cards before times of hiatus but now I have done some of those for incremental earnings. Each penny count!
Those that completely powered down and did not utilize Hive really missed out on something.
It is good that I saw how it could be a long-term haul rather than short-term returns.
Onward and upward!