In late 2017 I lived in Europe and had a hard time setting up a Coinbase account as a US citizen residing on the continent. Recently I shared how the same firm made it difficult to buy crypto (which I turned into HIVE), as well as the KYC requirement of my bitcoin ATM.

With the recent drop sale in the price of HIVE, I'm seeing just the latest opportunity to buy in (not financial advice, do your own research). When you've been around here as long as I have, these bumps in the road are just that, because the strength is in the community.

Usually, I either didn't have money, or I had funds when the price was skyrocketing (remember late 2017? I knew you did!). Money isn't the problem now, it's just turning it into HIVE without handing tons of info over to 3rd-party firms that's the issue.

Since not all crypto ATMs are made the same, I may go a little trek this week to see if I can find one that still has the no KYC requirement for purchases under 1K. The one I had been using was a machine from American Crypto, but now I'm finding out there are others that I can check out, so I will.

When I lived in Germany and was prevented from opening a Coinbase account, I used Paxful to turn gift cards into BTC. It was EXPENSIVE, as not only were the fees high, but at times, I had to spend like $30 to buy $50 worth of crypto (it was costing me a small fortune to pickup my STEEM back in the day). I know, insane, right? That only changed once I arrived back home stateside and was able to get setup properly on CB.

That's the thing, the people you see settled in on Hive right now with a big stake, worked their asses off in the early days and INVESTED in the platform. Nothing was handed to them, they took a calculated risk with their own resources and seeded their own future success.

So that small HP number you see on my account is not where I want to be, and we'll see how differently things look at years end. With my difficulties in buying crypto (I prefer Litecoin due to the much lower fees, then turn that into HIVE), I took the small amount that I had and turned it into something that will grow more HIVE.

As we all know, compounding works over time, and it's best to get started as early as possible. Those little drips of tokens add up. I honestly wish that America would catch up to the rest of the world and embrace the power of crypto and the blockchain without all this regulatory nonsense. That future is happening now and we're living it here on Hive.