My personal crypto-winter ice is melting.... and the shoots are coming forth.

Photo by Alexandra Vo on Unsplash

4 plus years blogging on Hive - curating, setting & judging challenges, making others much wealthier, posting to @hivelift on twitter religiously.... it did not go the way I had planned. Not at all.

I started Steem-Hive in April 2018 with 3 Best Case Scenarios in mind, and they have sustained me for 4+ years on Hive. Until recently.

Best Case Scenario 1: the Hive price at $5 would have been enough to resolve all my accrued business debt, or buy me (outright!) a nice home and some sustainable land here in Thailand. A pipe dream? Heck no. When @kenistyles recruited me to then-steem, the price was at $8.17. That number is ethed in my brain!! I weathered the Hive price dropping to $0.09 - heck, it even motivated me!! Cos I was creating Hive that would balloon in value. And seeing it accrue was addictive. I was a HODL, HODL, HODL girl all the way!!

Best Case Scenario 2: the Hive price would remain irrelevant. I would continue to produce content and IGNORE the short-term price volatility. As someone with no pension options in any country and already 58 years old, it would be my retirement money in 25 years. Not that I believe in retirement, as an idea, per se. But it would mean that I could choose to work in less immediately profitable ways, at my own pace.

Best Case Scenario 3: Universally functioning as a currency, I would be able to support my unbankable organic growers along the Thai-Burmese border. I realized back in 2019 that wasn't gonna work and was a bit of a dream, when I understood that Hive requires high-end expensive (regulated) gadgets, strong internet signal and stable electricity. Possible, but more in the 30+ year time frame, than in the next decade. In this part of the world, at least.

My HODL, HODL, HODL was working great - my vote was up, my content was getting reach and I was NEVER short of interesting (arguably 🤣) and socially relevant things to post about.

And then came the Plandemic.

Solo Mama, income decimated with 2 years of no-customers and literally scratching by on 5% of our pre-covid income... I reluctantly decided to cash out some of my earnings for food and essentials like rent and petrol. I had to. It hurt, but I KNEW that it was temporary, and although I was depleting my Hive stake, I was also replenishing it (albeit not quite as fast).

Covid started to draw to an end in Thailand, and then the proverbial hit the fan for us.

The Thai government, DESPERATE for taxation revenue, changed the product manufacture and export rules and started enforcing them. I suddenly NEEDED to ramp up my Thai herbal business and apply for expensive FDA licenses etc simply to stay in business, and that came at a time when I no longer had a financial cushion of ANY sort. I was approached by an investor and had 3 AMAZING, exciting and uplifting budget=project planning meetings. Yes, they loved what I do. Yes, they shared my goals and believed I had an incredible chance to change the world and produce very substantial income through my social enterprise business. But then came the clanger: they asked for a more stable & resilient (bigger) staffing model and demonstrations of increased cashflow before they could-would invest.

And so I had to make a TERRIBLE DECISION (I then thought) to cash out my remaining Hive stake, to PAY FOR the things that needed to happen in order to have "investability". My tiny stake of 5000 Hive might not have looked like much in January of this year, but with the then higher Hive price, it was enough to upgrade our leased premises sufficiently to become an FDA certified production facility. It was enough to pay critical staff(2 people) for 3 months through that process, which matters in a country with no social welfare system and buckled under a collapsed tourism industry. The powered down stake was also enough to enable me to secure 3 FDA product licenses - for our x2 neem based insect repellent products and our Beeswax-based tattoo aftercare product. Those three products alone are now the basis for the cash-flow via export that our prospective investor has asked for. And we have recommenced our investment dialogue for the construction of the Organic Frontiers Eco Center in Mae Sariang, Thailand - a commercial, off-grid production center for our herbal products and a center for teaching organic sustainability..

I started a Hive blog post on June 3rd about our first visit to the mountains in 26 months and it's still half finished in draft mode, cos something in me is exhausted. Sidebar: posting tomorrow. 😁

Why? I have come to understand that the (fallacious) work-hard-win-fast idea I started Hive with is eroded by the need for the Hive price to stay high. That the win-the-lottery model in my head is a gambler's idea, and that real crypto winners, long term, are about social change and not gambling.

I've needed TIME to not post, to drift about and consider WHY I do, and what I'm aiming and hoping for. As I've been reading about bitcoin and the actual crypto winter, I have felt my own emotional crypto-winter and my stash is depleted and I'm starting over.

I'm incredibly grateful to @riverflows - a Hive friend from the get-go - who has messaged me via Instagram regularly and kept in contact. She has been the most stable Hiver I've ever seen. My cynical self has niggled at me from time to time that it's EASIER for her as a teacher with predictable income and social security safety nets, not to mention a husband, and that it's EASIER for her to post when it's not coming from a place of desperation.

It was THAT last thought that led me to understand my own personal, recent crypto-winter, and to reconsider all the reasons I started on Hive, and what's still, of not more, valid.

In the strangest of ways, my recent downward spiraling Hive journey is an arguable BEST USE CASE for Hive!!

• I HAD the equivalent of a Golden-Egg under my metaphorical mattress, when I needed it;
• I WAS able to withdraw what I needed to create a strong foundation for future sustainable real-life business income, using just my Hive;
• I COULDN'T access any government support and I didn't have to.
• I DIDN"T ever spend anything to BUY Hive - I earned all of it it simply through blogging and engaging. So I have actually lost nothing and gained a lot.

It sucks somewhat to Hive today, knowing that my once 0.60 upvote is languishing somewhere around 0.03. 🤣

I have learned that the desperation to earn Hive is probably the WORST thing ever for Hiving consistency. That online Hive relationships MATTER. And that wealth comes ultimately from reading the trends and commitment.

So, 4.5 years on, HIVE had been a financial USE CASE WINNER for me.

I'm back to the same Best Case 1 & 2 Scenarios: build up my stake, HODL as I'm able and think of it as a much-longer game. I fly to Netherlands on 27th July, via Cyprus, to take my daughter to university. Friends have put up her first year's tuition costs and our flights. The income I will generate from my newly repositioned company structure here in Thailand WILL enable her to have a first class university degree (Physiotherapy from Hanze University of Applied Sciences in Groningen, Netherlands) and so my Hive power-down actions have benefited not just the lives of myself and my 4 Thai staff (who continue to be paid and have fair trade jobs) but also the future of my half-Thai daughter, who will have a word-class education, debt free.

Sometimes, HODL is held up as the only way on Hive - the best way. It isn't always the case and it's a simplistic way of looking at the world.

Gotta say, I've felt resentful, shamed, vulnerable and singled out by @arcange when my power-down has been publicly reported. It's not a great motivator. I felt like a naughty school-girl being reported to the teacher. 😭 And yes, I'm allowing this Power-down to run its course so we can actually EAT during our up-coming European trip. Get over it. Decentralized means many goals, and many reason for what people do.

The last days I've been reading a lot about Bitcoin, the future of currency, freedom to act outside government structures and the future of crypto.

I remain incredibly committed and optimistic. Arguably more than when I started Steem on Day 1 with a slightly lottery-like disposition.

It feels EASIER to blog today - and to plan my blogging schedule for the days and weeks ahead - knowing that my staff's ability to eat is no longer contingent on the Hive price. I can pay them from my actual business revenue, which was enabled by me spending my Hive. And that feels GOOD.

It feels freer. And freedom leads to creativity.

I look forward to @traciyork announcing the Hive Power Up Day at the end of August. I will be back from my European adventure by then and participating. My powerdown will have completed and I look forward to rebuilding my Hive nest egg. Since the last one served me so well.

Hivers in Netherlands and Cyprus - hit me up in the comments if you're available for en biertje. Or a coffee. @karinxxl - see the comments for rough dates-locations - I'd SO MUCH like to see you!! @riverflows - hugs and wine and my eternal thanks - my guestroom in Thailand is yours, always.

Gratitude for the Journey, the Experience and the Growth. Hive on!!

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