1. How did you hear about Steem ?
I heard about Steemit after the ETH/DAO disaster from @leoplaw, who pointed out the innovative reward mechanism. So I digged deeper and looked closer.

2. When did you join ?
I joined in January 2017

3. Why did you join?
I never believed in centralized solutions like Facebook&Co. I felt like Facebook is a place, where everybody is his own mule/informant to give all kind of personal information to the government agencies. I was aware of "data-dealing" very early, even before Facebook existed. I was joking around about "MYSPACE" to my friends by singing: My space is not my space, it is their space - to collect data about you I felt that the name "myspace" itself is a lie, because my private space is and always was my own local storage and not some companies datacenter or a cloud-service. The name itself was a lie! So as was aware very early of whats going on behind the cool mega-hyped apps.
And then I found alternatives like minds.com and Steemit.com I was extremly impressed about the STEEM specifications specially the fast blocktime and the fact that they were listed on exchanges. I refused centaliced data-harvesting on one side AND had an artist friend here allready AND the impressive specifications (blocktime, capacity) compared to BTC and ETH, it was these three facts that made me sign in.

4. Have you expanded your crypto life beyond just Steem?
I was crypto investor before Steem, but yes it expanded my crypto life big time. My crypto knowhow has greatly improoved because of STEEM, I learned a lot "by doing". Just from this point of view it was extremely helpful and I am now really much better informed than I would be without being a Steemian. My goal here was never making money with blogging, but to learn fast about all kind of crypto related things and to join a autonomous selfregulating organism as blueprint for the next generation of social media. to be honest: I LOVE THIS IDEA!

5. How would you explain your current interest in Steem and Crypto in general?

I still dream about a decentralized autonomous world without pyramide structure, without polititians or lobbyists, a worldwide web of interconnected beehive-like clusters governing themselfs wisely, uncorruptable, uninterferrable, much better than the crocked system we have today.
6. Are you holding or investing ?
I am holding 80% of my cryptos for the long term, and I am toppling up when the prices are low. And Yes! I am investing when I have FIAT money lying around. I want to buy more Steem and Monero in 2019.