Steem Basic Income is a social experiment to bring a basic income to as many Steemians as possible. Members join by sponsoring others into the program. Steem Basic Income is delivered through providing regular upvotes to member content.
To provide more interaction within Steem Basic Income (SBI), we are continuing our interviews with prominent members of SBI! We hope to bring a greater sense of community, get to know our members, and gain a better understanding of why Steemians are choosing to be a part of SBI.
Greetings, again fellow Steemians, I am @wesphilbin; This will be my fourth interview for the Steem Basic Income group. My first interview, @eturnerx and I spoke of the importance of community and the interaction with Steem Basic Income. He had several initiatives going when we were performing the interview… it was really a great eye-opener. For my second interview, @ecoinstant talked about decentralization, stewardship and the importance of sustainability… both in the agriculture mindset, as well as our Steemit’verse. I was lucky enough to catch @jonnyla08 for my third interview; we probably had enough information to write a book!
But I hope you can see that there is a multitude of prominent members just waiting to share their stories. This will be my fourth interview; I caught @rishi556 in between wrestling bots and working on his @giftgiver service… he’s a busy fellow, but I hope you enjoy the following interview.
You might know him as the “Guy U Like” from his Steemit account profile image, or the “man behind the curtain” at his current project https://giftgiver.me
I started to realize the impact he was making; on the @steemitbasicincome initiative, but also helping new and current Steemians as they sail along the Steemit’verse ocean.
@wesphilbin: So… tell me a little about yourself, so these fine Steemians can get to know you!
@rishi556: Uh let's see, who I am. I'm young, I'm dumb and I like to have fun. A student who ventured into crypto wayyyyyy back in the days right after bitcoin hit 1k. Bitcoin was my first crypto and I enjoyed it, and wow, it got me hooked. I liked the tech behind it, the idea behind it and the financial power behind it. Back in 2014 was my first bitcoin receiving event. 0.00008561 BTC and BTC were worth $584.04 at the time (and we are complaining about bitcoin not being 10k). I think the humble bundle was the first place that I spent bitcoins. Bought some games. Get more BTC, buy games repeat. Honestly, I was a broke kid looking for free games. It's come a long way from there…
@wesphilbin: Broke kid looking for free games lol… and look at you now! So tell me; run us through your start on Steem… when exactly did you start?
@rishi556: My start on Steem was back in 2016. September 10th, 2016... As if that date even existed. My first couple of posts were absolute crap. Not real posts at all. I was still after the free games and just saw this as another way to do it. The technology behind it seemed cool but didn't matter to me as much as it does now.
Back in those days, posts paid out twice; once after a day and once again in 30 days. I managed to do it a few times, but Steem was worth so little and I didn't make much that I was considering quitting. Until I wrote a post that got voted by block trades. That was a nice one but didn't matter as Steem was still valued very little. I quit for some time. THANK GOD I SAVED MY KEYS.
I quit all things crypto in that time. It was about 6 months or so but it was basically a cleanse. I came back, and so much had changed. The 7-day payout, Steem was worth so much more. 13-week power-downs rather than 2 years. I had gotten about 80 liquid Steem during the time I was away from the power down and the first thing I did was sell it. That plus some more crypto I had... bought me a year's worth of Xbox Live Gold. (Free game kid :))
@wesphilbin: I have a feeling you like video games lol. You started, then you went away… then, you came back. Things had changed in the time you were on a break… Now we have @josephsavage and the @steembasicincome group… which reminds me; how did you discover @steembasicincome anyway?
@rishi556: I got involved in SBI thanks to the upfundme thing that used to be around on Steem; basically crowdfunding. One of the guys in the community decided to give people SBI, and that's how I found out about it. And I liked the idea and I started buying some for other people.
I kept at it, getting more units for more users... I was addicted. I knew a bit more about it than the average person and so when the dedicated SBI discord server was created, I was asked to be part of support... and I accepted. I just got more and more into SBI. I was learning how to program on the side and when I saw a way to help SBI, I took it and made the SBI discord lookup bot, which I know a lot of people use.
I also made a little discord upvote bot that got modified some and brought into the SBI server too as the upvote room; it was really, really cool seeing stuff I've made being used by so many people. I run contests and sponsor contests at times too, to get more people into SBI. My latest one is getting users to 40 SBI… I've gotten a lot from the Steem chain and I've attempted to give back.
@wesphilbin: You are certainly into helping the community through the @steembasicincome initiative as well as new and current Steemians… that is obvious. Are there other programs or projects you are doing currently?
@rishi556: My latest thing is @giftgiver, giving new Steemians some delegated SP when they run out of RC. That's been consuming a lot of my time recently, as well as some other side projects and some paid work (gotta keep the servers on)... I've helped out a lot of people (or at least attempted to) by providing technical skills to people who don't have much of it. Back when @platforms (something like @oracle-d is now, to try and build communities) was a thing. I helped set up back-end stuff when asked, including auto payout for some stuff and all that.
The owner of that has basically gone very silent on Steem, so my presence there declined and is now at zero. After that I made a few bots for people, I don't know if they will all want their names stated, so to protect privacy... I'll keep off that.
@wesphilbin: Making and monitoring upvote bots, providing technical support and an initiative to help with delegation; you are indeed a busy man! So I have to ask… looking at the current state of affairs, where do you see Steem and @steembasicincome in the future?
@rishi556: Everything keeps changing, and evolving and so will SBI/STEEM. I'm sure in even a year, so much will have changed. I remember the days of 24-hour payout and it's already 7 days. Change is good though, it keeps people evolving. There are some people who are resistant to change, and I hope I'm not one of them. I hope that Steem grows and is able to get more users fairly quickly. A big hope of mine is reduced speed block production, which will allow for more actions. Steem needs to be used more as social than as earnings. Zappl, a Twitter clone, which was around for a while, was cool; but you could only post once every 5 minutes, that was a big problem. More and more users are what I hope happens to Steem.
@wesphilbin: Change, is indeed… inevitable. We touched a bit on your @giftgiver initiative… anything else you’d like to mention about that?
@rishi556: Yup, biggest thing I've been working on is GG or @giftgiver; helping people in a way I see that I can. Recently, I hit 1k SP with the account and have some pretty great ideas with what to do with it… the biggest one right now being curation. It's manual, and that's how it's gonna remain.
@wesphilbin: Well… after several days of chatting with you, I have started to see the “Guy You Like” persona really come out. I remember when I first got involved with @steembasicincome, your name was in various channels, or rather… your “alter-ego” name. Little did I know what a powerful impact you were, and still are, making on the Steemit’verse. So… in closing; after all, we have discussed, is there anything else you’d like to add… besides “I hate interviews?”
@rishi556: "I really hate interviews"
All kidding aside… I appreciate the opportunity to share my passion for giving back to the community, and talk about my @giftgiver initiative as well as my impact on @steembasicincome… back to work; catch ya later Wes!
Interview Conclusion
@wesphilbin: With each interview I complete, I see a common thread; Steemians involved in both personal endeavors as well as endeavors involving @steembasicincome… @rishi556 is quite involved with @steembasicincome, as you have witnessed by this interview… but also, still trying to help others… pay-it-forward if you will. Do check out his @giftgiver initiative, if you haven't yet! I thank you all, once again, for taking the time to read my interviews… stay tuned for another article showcasing prominent @steembasicincome members!
Until next time…
Wes
Enrollment
If you want to get involved, or to increase the level of basic income that you receive, enrollment is pretty straightforward:
Just send 1 STEEM to @steembasicincome. Include the name of a Steemian to sponsor in the transaction memo (preceded by @). You and the person you sponsor will each receive 1 unit in the program. You can sponsor any active Steemian (except for yourself), it does not have to be a current member.
@steembasicincome's twelfth member interview!
@katysavage
@wesphilbin 
@eturnerx and I spoke of the importance of community and the interaction with Steem Basic Income. He had several initiatives going when we were performing the interview… it was really a great eye-opener. For my second interview, 
@ecoinstant talked about decentralization, stewardship and the importance of sustainability… both in the agriculture mindset, as well as our Steemit’verse. I was lucky enough to catch 
@jonnyla08 for my third interview; we probably had enough information to write a book!
