I have been in the blockchain for about 4 years now starting in then Steemit and then disappearing for some stretches of time either because busy working or getting lost in the world of video games when life turns to shit. Video games has always been my form of escapism.
Yet I always go back to Steem and then I transitioned over to Hive when I read the hostile takeover and how Steem - Hive - and Blurt forked and I made a choice to not cross-post as I felt that Hive closely resembles the ideals that I have then.
I have always seen this platform as being able to share ideas and encourage people to adopt and learn more about the technology and its use. From the decentralization of power and knowledge to its economic and social use ( I am still waiting for the blockchain use in electoral votes to if not to completely remove electoral fraud to at least mitigate it to some degree.)
The technology has continued to gain different use case and utilities. One aspect that really caught the attention of people were Play to Earn games like Splinterlands and Axie Infinity. I have a distinct advantage in Splinterlands as I was one of the first pioneers that were active in writing the lores, joining contests, playing the game.
Axie Infinity at the time of the pandemic opened economic doors to a lot of my countrymen as they went full throttle and invested time, money and resources as from simple players it morphed into these so called "academies" and "cooperatives" that created managers and players often called scholars who would split the ingame tokens of SLP. This further created entrepreneurial breeders who saw the demand for the monsters bred their way into thousands of dollars.
At one point it was said that the player base of the game constituted 40% from the Philippines. It was wild.
Then the game updates and nerfs happened and turned a lot of people away that only saw that it put a dent in their profits and investments but did not understand the game mechanics why there are a constant need for balances and changes or else the game will become stagnant. Anyway, that deserves a different kind of analysis.
At this point cryptocurrency and its technology has captured the attention and use of a lot of people that if asked 4 years ago would have said that it is a scam. I have come such a long way from getting duped into get-rich quick schemes and double your bitcoin scams to reading whitepapers and DYOR. It is here to stay.