A few days ago @anomadsoul issued a challenge to the community to introduce themselves or in the case of many here, reintroduce themselves to the community.
Who is Beggars?
To some of you active in the development community, you will already be familiar. I was a member of Steem for two years before moving over to what is the next generation of that existing blockchain. Like everyone else, I started out blogging and writing quite long-form content. I went through periods where I became disenfranchised with the way things were operated and contemplated quitting quite a few times.
My username is derived from an album by my favourite band Thrice. If you follow me elsewhere like GitHub where I use the username Vheissu (also the name of a Thrice album) you might notice the reoccurring theme with my usernames.
The real "me"
While you know me as Beggars, outside of Hive I am known by my friends and family as Dwayne. I am a front-end developer and I've been working in the webspace for eleven years now professionally. I manage a small team at a company working in the insurance space, specifically building tools for brokers and insurance companies.
I hail from a country notorious for its natural disasters and constantly changing weather patterns. Flooding one day, burning down the next and another being assaulted by a cacophony of cyclones and other violent weather phenomena. If you didn't guess correctly, it's Australia.
I am married (5 years and together 14 years) and have two kids, a boy who is 4.5 years old and a girl who is 14 months old. My son is at that age where he keeps my wife and I on our toes, he is a bundle of energy. Our daughter is calmer, she loves to sit there and flip through books.
It doesn't always translate well (I've been told I am hard to read), but I am a bit of a joker. I was the classroom clown, I have always liked to make people laugh. For a limited period of time I wanted to pursue stand up comedy, but the thought of being a "starving artist" was never at the high of my todo list.
I play the guitar, I have been playing for 15 years now. I also play the drums as well, I've got myself an electric kit and have been playing properly for about two years now. I am still a beginner at the drums and just play them for fun, I've considered creating a little music project when I get the time.
My favourite genre of music is metal, I love anything heavy. I used to be actively involved in the Australian metal scene in its early days. I had the pleasure of seeing Parkway Drive play house parties in Byron Bay when they were an unknown and struggling metal band like everyone else. Their timing was horrible in those early days, but they could always pull a crowd and their music was different than what others were creating at the time.
I am an overly optimistic person, it takes a lot for me to give up on something. A great example of that is the numerous DIY projects I have done around the house, they take me forever. I eventually get them done, but the final cost usually ends up more than what the cost of a professional doing it would have cost, ha.
I got involved in cryptocurrency and blockchain back in 2015 when Ethereum came onto the scene. As a developer, the thought of being able to easily build applications for a blockchain was quite appealing and this was at a time when blockchain and cryptocurrencies were starting to gain traction.
Initially, I started consulting with local companies and helping them write their smart contracts, mostly for ICO's. In those early days, there were not a lot of developers in Australia who had experience with blockchain or Solidity. I got paid in a mixture of fiat and cryptocurrency, which I then used to buy Bitcoin.
In the amongst rising popularity of Ethereum and Blockchain, I helped a few smaller blockchain projects try and get off the ground themselves. Ethereum inspired a lot of people to create their own projects forked off of Ethereum, Bitcoin and Litecoin. None of them got anywhere.
After the great bull run of 2017, I discovered Steem. The simplicity of the Steem blockchain and its speed are two things that greatly interested me. Litecoin used to like to tout itself as the faster alternative to Bitcoin, Steem was an actual faster alternative to everything (it kind of still is).
I started out blogging, then moved into developing libraries and becoming involved in the ecosystem. From there, my involvement and interest grew. I started helping out with some bigger projects, contributing pull requests and participating in discussions on various Discords.
Then in 2019, I got involved with Steem Engine a few months after release. Initially, it was small tasks, which then grew to lead the front-end side of things and helping build an entirely new fully-featured exchange built on the side chain. When things started to seem hopeless at Steemit HQ, Steem Engine got me excited again. Custom tokens including NFT''s, it was something Steemit promised and never delivered.
Then we find ourselves to the recent debacle of the hostile acquisition of Steemit by Justin Sun. After hostility towards the community and failing to find common ground or solution, I find myself on Hive now. It feels like those early days of Steem when I first joined like many have the opportunity to make a difference and build a community.
So, while in many ways I have been here for a while now, too many I am somewhat new because I wasn't as actively involved in the Steem now Hive community in the early days. Let's make Justin Sun regret the way he handled things by making this place what Steem should have been.
Welcome abroad! Nice to meet you :)
Hi @beggars, how did you go from front end developing to writing smart contracts? Just curious.
Nice to meet you
hello Dwayne good to see you :)
oh and thanks for the pet rock... except that you sent it to someone else. Maybe should have talked to you about insuring it first lol_
Will get you sorted out on Hive Engine ;)
It's nice to meet you! Wishing you and your family success, health and happiness!
Nice to meet you again my friend!
I'm sure our paths have crossed in the past in that place that we dare not mention 😂
I wish you well in the Hive!
DC 🙏🎼
hey, it's nice to meet you. I hope we can get along on Hive and make great things happen.