I thought it would be a good time to write my first post, as becoming an orca on Hive - or steem at the time - has always been my goal. For those who don't know, orcas are users with more than 100 MV, which is approximately 51,500 Hive Power at the moment.
I first heard about Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in January 2017, from a random youtube video. Curious, I started looking into it, and it instantly clicked. The technology, its consequences, the price history, being a relatively early adopter. This all made me think crypto had huge potential, that it was a once in a lifetime opportunity.
I still remember the feeling of excitement after each Andreas Antonopoulos talk. Unlike my university degree, it felt like I was really learning. It took me months of research and price tracking before I invested with all the savings I had - as a student who made no money, it wasn't much.
Since then, crypto has been consuming most of my time and money. The amount of weeks spent learning about new things has exceeded everything I have done in the past. I went from being a naïve "long term investor" to swing trader, then day trader using leverage, and then even running arbitrages across exchanges.
My portfolio went through swings I could never have imagined. First going up more than 10X, then crashing 90%. 3X again, followed by a 95% loss because of leverage - yep, a tough lesson... Crypto has been a long learning experience, and I know it still isn't over. It has pushed me to learn about technology, economics, investing, trading, programming, and handling my own emotions.
I discovered Steem in a youtube add from 
Steem was so much more than it seemed like on the surface, it was a huge ecosystem, and it quickly became one of my favorite cryptos. Not knowing the rules, I started self-upvoting, and my account ended up on a blacklist. I then created this account, and didn't repeat the mistake.
Hive is still probably my favorite crypto. I have been accumulating with every dip since 2017 - and there were tons of dips, almost nothing else.
I have also made over 1000 comments on chain, a proud milestone, since most of them are about improving Hive, discussing ideas with so many wonderful people I met on here. Seeing decentralized development taking place before my eyes is simply amazing.
Dapps have been doing a great job, and I can't wait to see more adoption. Hive has the potential to revolutionize big industries, like blogging and gaming, and it hasn't been easy to always hold on to this vision.
The 2018 bear market and Steemit, Inc layoffs, crashing more than other coins, the whole Justin Sun thing and the fork, it definitely wasn't easy. The crypto market also doesn't help, hyping up random coins with future promises while ignoring working solutions that have a few problems.
Well, that's it. I wanted to write an introduce yourself post, and becoming an orca felt like a good time. Real adoption takes a long, long time and I'm ready to wait for it.
