@htooms.@htooms is a Steemit Whale who hosts #takemyvotes, which gives minnows a chance to win whale voting power for a night.I was attracted to Steemit via many many twitter posts that said '--Steemit"
The blogs I opened looked strange, that is to say, no advertising!
The experiment. When they started flagging the small user in order to 'teach' whales not to upvote with large percentage votes. I thought, "Well that is all backwards. They could make a code not allowing whales with 400m vests or more to place 100% votes."
Whales could still use all their voting power. The would just have to vote on 400 to 600 blog posts at 5% each rather than plopping down one $200.00 vote on each blog. That kind of voting drains the reward pool and kills all curation rewards for 90% of the other users on Steemit.
I now routinely watch for those who were downvoted / flagged by 
I found that I alone cannot undo all the flags. This account was created to bring some positive energy to the platform. If I can give away my mouse clicks for a night and stop one person from leaving due to frustration, it's worth it.
#takemyvotes is something that was going to come to Steemit in the hard fork anyway. I just brought it a couple of weeks early.
Crypto allowed me to retire in my mid forties.
I was in on crypto from the very beginning. I mined $6 worth of coins per day - those same coins translate to $2,500 per day now. Back then my friends laughed at me for paying $1000 per month in electricity to earn $180 per month worth of bitcoins ($75,000 today). Now my friends understand that they are still working all day every day, and I am playing.
When the news media was at Charlie Shrem's bar in NY asking him about bitcoin, I was being interviewed by a few small newspapers. Then when Charlie was thrown in jail for once having touched bitcoins that were later used for drugs, I decided to go low-profile. I don't need the notoriety.
What I am least excited about is that every media company or start up claims to have something new that is on "The Blockchain" which is misleading at best. There is no blockchain in that context. It's all a lie.
That is like saying, "I will put you one Airforce One" when all I have is a 1965 Cessna
"The Blockchain" is Bitcoin and it is full enough with Bitcoin transactions - no company is putting anything on THAT blockchain. If they have "A Blockchain", it is not worth anything without global adoption and participation. These same entities likely have no machines mining their blockchain - they are hyping their blockchain when it doesn't exist yet.
There are other blockchains which are in development ie; Litecoin, Dash, and Steem. They are nowhere near as large as Bitcoin's blockchain, but they are getting there and some are much more developed related to speed and efficiency than the Bitcoin blockchain is.
When you hear "Get your stake in Blockchain" - disregard it. A blockchain is a patch of dirt. If it is in Malibu, it's valuable. If it's in the ghetto, not so much.
What is exciting. Dash for its governance and marketing model. Bitchute for its decentralization of a video platform (youtube must die for their censorship). I am an avid trader and the coins that are trading over 1000btc in volume per day are the ones that are worth looking into.
Come up with something original and continue posting until you get noticed. Play to your strengths. If you can, invest some money. There are people who are successful on their posts alone, but as the platform gets more crowded, that will become more difficult. It takes effort as does youtube and twitter (where you do it all for free). You become popular when you are a real person who is really entertaining, the one with fresh new ideas and content.
New users tend to try filling the page with something so they can get a post out, then cross their fingers for votes. The biggest mistakes new users make are:
Titles like "My bad day" "My rose garden" which are like high school reports.
Poorly written or wordy paragraphs that are not proof read before posting will not succeed in the long run.
Attempts to copy what another user is doing.
Making a game. Even games take time to develop well. Constant work.
I made it big with Bitcoin but I am disappointed in the recent lack of funcionality (slow confirmations). Now there is Dash which made me as many dollars as Bitcoin has. If Steem gets included in the shapeshift.io list, I may steer my clients into steem for free, fast, interactions. The main restriction is that all need to spend into bitcoin in the end. Currently, I sell them Dash, they transact with others in Dash, then when they need to buy something on-line, it's a Bitcoin QR they see. My clients pay cash for crypto. I refuse to sit for two hours with the client's money in my lap waiting for my Bitcoin transfer to arrive so we can shake hands and go our separate ways.
For PC
I prefer the core wallets (for security and private key access)
I use Electrum for speed, no waiting to update the blockchain. It's open source, private, has clean code.
For my phone, I use Coinomi which allows me to go into my Dash wallet, scan a Bitcoin address, hit send and seamlessly send from any crypto to any other crypto without thinking about it. Beautiful.
Shapeshift as mentioned above.
Localbitcoins.com provides the best service for all countries and brings more new crypto users per capita than any other. Second (for exchanges) is Coinbase which is the only U.S. based company of its sort that has managed to survive in the acid which is American law.
I also use a service that allows me to pay my bills with Bitcoin, or even order a wad of paper currency delivered to my door next morning. However, their horrible business ethic causes me only to mention them without naming them.
I prefer not to place crypto-currency on any website. I got my coins off of MtGox before it failed. I got my coins out of Bitstamp and Bitfinex before they were compromised too. Depositing money on any website is pushing your luck.
My favorite was Bitfinex until they asked me to verify my identity - at which time they lost me as an investor. I am against government intervention into peoples lives.
I currently use Poloniex, though I would use Bittrex just as soon. I keep my holdings under 10,000 as it would take five days to withdraw my funds if something were to happen. Ten days for $20,000, etc.
That is a hard one. I discover new favorites daily. Fifty percent of my day is spent on Steemit. I actually read the blogs and vote on them myself, except for when I am loaning out my SP to #takemyvotes winners.
Anyone can go to steemstats.com and put my name in the upper left. You will instantly see what I am voting on and how much money I have kicked their way based on what each has posted.
I would stop the indiscriminate flagging of really good blogs by several whales. They feel they are raising the reward pool for everyone, which is true, but they are punishing the wrong users who are not part of the problem.
To fix it, we must, hard-code a limit to prevent any whale from putting more than $3 on one post.
Yes, I have rebutted all whale arguments to the contrary.
Steem is priced in Bitcoin. Therefore, it is a relative thing. Bitcoin has been volatile.
The price in dollars, is a triple back flip from the exchange prices. Plus the dollar is in decline.
My gut? $30+ Steem if the team does not knee-jerk the Steemit economy over and over.
I am all set. I don't want anything else. I have found debt free economic freedom. That is plenty for one life-time.
@htooms for this interview, be sure to follow his blog and participate in #takemyvotes. 