I joined Steemit in March 2018 when STEEM, the native cryptocurrency, was in the $1.80 to $2.00 range. Initially, I was excited to be a part of the platform despite its obvious flaws. The platform’s user interface was atrocious, the trending topics page was full of spam that had achieved the privilege by buying it, and my earnings were very small at first because I was new to the platform and had no fans. Nevertheless, I quickly learned how to promote a post in order to attract large numbers of readers, and, more importantly, the influential readers who were more likely to vote up my posts with a lot of Steem Power. Sadly, most of that promotion had to take place off-chain in Discord groups, but it led to my involvement in several great communities, graduation to Minnow status, and satisfaction that I had an audience that seemingly hung on my every word.
That last part was important to me because I had lost my passion for blogging. I’ve been doing it since 2006 and found myself in a rut—until I found Steemit.
How I Grew My Steemit Income
Over the course of a year-and-a-half, I was very active on Steemit. Many weeks, I posted every day. Every week, I posted at least three times and my posts fell into three broad categories.
- Being, at the time, editor of an online publication focused on blockchain technology, I wrote about a lot of cryptocurrencies. Many of these posts were satirical in nature and received a lot of upvotes.
- I also wrote and published a lot of fiction and poetry. At one time, I hosted fiction contests and gave away prizes to the winners. I had a lot of fun and took a lot of pride in creating challenges for fiction writers. It made for some great stories and we all enjoyed ourselves.
- Right about the time I joined Steemit, a game called Steem Monsters took root (it is now called Splinterlands). Steem Monsters began sponsoring their own contests for best fictional back stories of the monsters in the game. I entered these contests and won several of them. My first viral Steemit post was a narrative poem I wrote for one of those contests. It didn’t win the contest, but it earned me some respectable rewards from all the upvotes I got. Every time I won a contest, I received several packs of free Steem Monsters cards. Later, I applied to become a part of the Steem Monsters team and became the leader in one of the teams competing for the best backstory for one of the seven Splinterlands. If I recall, our team took second place and we received some free cards for our efforts. Over time, I managed to secure quite a few free collectible cards and purchased some more.
Over time, my fan base grew, my upvotes grew, and my Steemit income grew. Even as the price of STEEM declined until it eventually hit 15 cents. Other things became a priority in my life and one day late in 2019, I stopped posting to Steemit.
Security Can Work For You Or Against You
When I can’t remember my bank account password, I call the bank and they ask me a series of security questions. Once I’ve proven my identity, I can gain access again. Thankfully, that doesn’t happen very often. But it’s not an option with Steemit.
Upon joining Steemit, users get a set of public keys and a set of private keys. If you lose your private keys, there’s no back up. I thought I was being security-conscious, protecting my keys. In fact, I was so careful that I never allowed my browser to remember my logins. When I used the browser extension Keychain, I never allowed it to remember my logins. When I used a third-party posting tool, I never allowed them to remember my logins.
Instead, I kept all my logins in a Word document, which I had saved only on an encrypted thumb drive. The only way a malicious person could get to my logins was to acquire my thumb drive and break the encryption.
One day, I needed to copy something and I couldn’t get the print function on my computer to communicate with the printer, so I saved my document on my thumb drive and carried it to the printer. I printed my document and stuck the thumb drive in my pocket, and forgot it was there. Typically, I kept that thumb drive on my desk where I worked so that I had access to it when I needed it. Otherwise, it was locked up.
Later on, I went with my Dad into town. Because I was wearing a pair of shorts with no back pocket, and it was allergy season in Texas, I had my handkerchief in my front pocket with my encrypted thumb drive. When I arrived home later in the day, I could not find my thumb drive. Today, I have $1,500 worth of Steem in my account, which I can’t access.
This entire scenario could have been avoided if I had kept a backup of my crypto keys. My paper wallet was so secure that not even I could hack it.
Whatever way you are securing your logins, passwords, encryption keys, make sure you have a backup. Otherwise, you may regret it.
DISCLAIMER
I am not a financial advisor, nor do I give financial advice. The above information should not be considered financial advice but is for informational purposes only. Neither I nor Cryptowriter are responsible for financial losses incurred as a result of acting on this information. Please consult a financial advisor before making any financial decisions.
This post is published for Cryptowriter in association with Voice.
If you enjoyed this content feel free to use our ️EXCLUSIVE SIGN UP PAGE to skip the queue and gain full access to our Cryptowriter community.
Follow Our Socials – Twitter– Telegram– Instagram
Follow Me
➡ Cryptocracy Newsletter: https://cryptocracy.substack.com/
➡ Cryptocracy on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Cryptocracy3
➡ Allen Taylor Twitter: https://twitter.com/allen_taylor
➡ Taylored Content: https://tayloredcontent.com
➡ Cryptobloggers: https://cryptobloggers.us
This post was originally published at Voice.