In my opinion the best events that this Silver Gold Stackers Community have ever pulled together were the old Monster Raffles of 2018 and 2019. Going through some of the older stuff in my stack this week has me feeling a bit nostalgic about that time and reminding me just how much excitement and fun we had back in those early years when we were first building up SGS. It made me realize that we’ve added a lot of newer members since then who have no idea about what the Monster Raffles were and how important they had been in building up the community we enjoy here today.
From my perspective it all started in the first half of 2018 when we were trying to get our community curation project off the ground which today is known as 
It was pretty inspiring, but it also felt like this was a couple of legends doing all of the heavy lifting and it’d be great if the broader community got behind the idea. So we expanded the idea of the fundraisers to get more members contributing….and that’s when the idea of the Monster Raffle was born. We put the call out for members to donate something towards a bigger raffle and they responded admirably - building up a veritable treasure chest of prizes for us to hold our first Monster Raffle in June 2018. Check out THIS POST and see for yourself all the diverse goodies that went into that prize pot. In the end it was over 47 Troy Ounces of Silver which at the time we thought was worth over $1000 US Dollars. Just wow! Personally I was blown away and super proud to be a part of it.
That first Monster Raffle was such a success not just because it raised needed funds for the community curation project but it really brought the community together and attracted a LOT of attention and support from OUTSIDE the SGS community. We held the raffle draw LIVE in the SGS Community Discord and that place was literally buzzing with excitement from the members present while the draw was playing out. It was only a few months later when we went again with Monster Raffle 2 in September 2018 and we had another 35 prizes to give away that day.
Monster Raffle 3 followed in November 2018 and there was another 30-something prizes raffled off and then 7 months later in June 2019 we went again with Monster Raffle 4 which topped something like 61 Troy Ounces of donated Silver. I encourage you to click on those links and have a look at the pictures of all the cool stuff that raffle winners got to choose from and see all the names of the generous members who donated. It was an awesome time and a lot of us still hold some pretty unique and special silver from those events that we would never have picked up otherwise.
Today I inevitably get asked the question – What happened? Why did the Monster Raffles stop?
The answer is a bit tricky and maybe even controversial but here's my take on it. In early 2018 we were on STEEM and the STEEM price was peaking so we all were pretty cashed up, but the broader Crypto space went into a savage Bear Market – especially in late 2018 and in 2019 there were a few issues emerging on the STEEM platform itself so some people (myself included) did get a bit disillusioned. We lost a number of members in 2019 and then we had the big fork that split STEEM and HIVE right down the middle in early 2020. A lot of us didn’t know whether we were coming or going and in my opinion we’ve kind of been trying to rebuild to get back to our former glory ever since.
The silver lining of it all was that the curation project we were fundraising for had been built up and was in reasonable shape. It’s a project that still continues today and is going OK, so there hasn’t really been any urgency to raise more funds and the mood around the place since that big bust in crypto has been a bit more frugal. However, the Monster Raffles to me were not just about the funds because there was a community spirit that came from those big events and the generosity shown by members really set the standard for what I think the community wanted to be about. In some ways I think we’ve lost a bit of that, but I do hope that one day we’ll get back to our best and the Monster Raffle will return.
On a personal level I think we kind of owe it to our newer members to share our history and show them what we stand for. Maybe the time is not yet right to bring back the Monster Raffle, but I feel like it’ll be soon. Stay tuned!
