Greetings Hivers,
it's been a while since I've posted and maybe some of you were wondering where I've been or what I've been up to. Rest assured I'm still here, the last few months have been interesting though, to say the least. So, here we go.
- After much debating, I'm putting inji on hold and instead am working with Splinterlands.
- My Hive witness nodes are running smoothly and I'm shifting more time onto my different witness-related projects. οΏ½οΏ½ to everyone who's voting for me.
- With SPS validators coming soon, I'm planning on supporting the platform with my know-how and a node.
As you might know, for the last 2 years I've been working on a project called inji.com, a social media platform supercharged with Web3. Quite frankly: the biggest project I've ever done.
As happy as I am to see that people use it daily and as proud I am to have actually built a social media platform from scratch, there are some flaws in the concept based on the timing I started designing the project.
Do you remember the time when SMTs were still on the horizon, Hive wasn't even heard of and NFTs weren't mainstream yet? Lots of things were different, but it was then when I started working on inji.
With the progress HAF and Hivemind have made, it does raise the question of whether storing content on a centralized database makes sense anymore. I'm not sure, but the honest answer is probably no.
To be honest, I've also been questioning if I want to work on a social media platform for the next few years and the answer to that, as much as it sucks, is no.
But what do I want?
Games had always played a crucial role in my life. Being a bit shy in nature, games were the safe space I could go to in my youth. Whether as a child on the Gameboy with Pokemon, on the PC with Stronghold/ Warcraft 3, or MMOs like World of Warcraft or Guild Wars. The last actual game I played was Red Dead Redemption 2, what a gem.
Nowdaays, I don't really have the time anymore to play besides casually periodically, but when I do (hint) I want to earn. ;-)
In 2017, before hearing about Crypto & Steem/Steemit, I tried to learn Unity to build a game (similar to clash royale). Once I stumbled upon crypto though, my focus shifted and I wanted to learn as much as possible about this new topic. Then Steem happened and well...
Then at the end of 2019, I once again wanted to build a game (similar to AutoChess), this time with NFTs, did that for a month but lacked resources, so I worked on inji instead.
Now, 2 years later, after seeing the immense growth of crypto gaming/play2earn, I'm once again at the crossroads where I'm being pulled into the gaming space. And quite frankly, I had the right idea about gaming + NFTs in 2019, but just didn't follow through.
The question now is: what do I do?
I've spent solid 6 digits and a lot more via opportunity costs on inji. I even pitched the idea to Gary Vaynerchuck via FaceTime who was curious but sadly didn't respond to the followup-mails. (no hard feelings)
I put my heart and soul into this project, gave it my everything. But what would happen if in 2 years' time NFT gaming is mainstream I'd have to say: "I knew it but I didn't follow through".
So 3 months ago, after inji's NFT event ended and I realized that it didn't go nearly as I hoped it would, I chose to continue the game I started in 2019. What was different this time though, was that I didn't want to do it all on my own again.
My first thoughts went to Splinterlands and I talked with 
I actually started working at Splinterlands last year in September but switched back to inji after a few weeks.
This time though, it's different. I enjoy my work there and while the team has been built up tremendously - especially over the last half a year, it feels professional but still startup-ish enough that a free-spirit like myself really enjoys working there.
Last but not least, I want to give an update on my witness. I guess no news, is good news, because the servers have been running smoothly and I've been mostly waiting to spring into action if needed.
With the upcoming SPS validator nodes, I also want to mention that I'm planning on supporting the SPS network with a node and my know-how of the recent 4 years of running a validator on Hive.
With this said, a big π to everyone who's been supporting my work as a witness and my various projects. Thank you!
Hive on!
Wolf