The old Steem days
Here comes a bit of my personal history with the old platform "Steemit". Back in the early days, when I was still a little minnow and writing every day on my old account on Steemit, I kept bumping into shiny posts from the Silver stackers community and remembered feeling jealous that I could not buy such a silver round when a new Steem round was presented.
Back in these days, we were still in survival mode financially, trying to recover from what was taken from us before we left our home country. It was hard because we moved to Budapest under some really nasty false promises by recruitment and if we'd had known what we signed up for, we'd probably made a different decision and tried to find another solution.
But what's done is done, right? We survived and that's what matters. It was hard though, while I was lucky to find early support from big accounts in the first years, I needed most earnings for real life costs, paying back debts that weren't even supposed to be debts but I was done fighting against our government. It was an endless battle and when they even blocked my passport renewal request, I knew I just had to suck it up and bow for them and get on with it.
I felt supported emotionally
I can truly say that I don't even know how I'd have survived these years being so traumatised, trying to heal and build a new life in another country while barely making ends meet financially as things didn't quite turn out as promised. Writing on Steemit saved our asses, I tell you! It opened doors that were probably kept shut other wise and the best thing about it is that it made me see that I'm not alone in this, people all over the world are being screwed over in the way we did and until reading other people's stories, I really felt that we were alone. Sharing these feelings helped me process it all.
Long form content
I came for the earnings and stayed for the community. This is true, like most of us, I found my way to the platform because of the possibility to earn a bit, never realising that writing would become such an important part of my life. I think I can safely say that several years in a row I had very high expectations of myself while pressing the publish button.
My content usually had 2000+ words and came from the heart. Writing became my therapy for all these years, instead of paying a therapist, I earned a bit from it. I was not satisfied easily about my content though, I had very high expectations of myself to keep earning well. It took me years to wean off from that behaviour learning that even content that is amazing and 2000 words will often stay at a few bucks of votes and time became too precious to constantly aim for the best.
Adapting the content
Slowly I adapted a new way of writing because the earnings weren't the priority anymore at some point. I could start building my stake instead of taking it all out. This was not possible the first years after I joined. I can't keep spending 2-3 hours a day writing long form content, editing it and creating images along with the content and then earn 5-10 bucks tops for it, of which only half goes to me. Real life needed my attention and so I started using the platform (which is now Hive) more as a diary instead.
Silver has been on my radar since Steemit
And although I could never join such a community at the time because I simply had no funds to invest into silver, let alone gold. I told my boyfriend from the first time that I saw a Steem silver round that I wanted to have one. He understood and he thought I should make it happen somehow. I was too shy to try and see if it would have been possible so I kept dreaming instead.
When we forked to Hive, Steemit faded to the background because my focus wasn't there anymore but on Hive. Yet, I always found it a shame that I did not get a Steem silver round at the time because it's simply part of my personal story.
The design
So as I was not a part of the community in 2019, I had no clue who designed the 2019 Steem silver round. I did some good old googling and found this post from the @ssg-community account and with the info I was looking for, I also read an interesting conversation in the comments where apparently Smooth was sponsoring 10 rounds in a community contest.. I like reading back sometimes to see how the old days were and who connected with who exactly but that was a very long thread to read so I stopped after some messages.
Looks nice doesn't it? I mean, dolphins, whales and sea horses are always cool but the total design is just very cool. When I opened the package I was super excited to check out this coin first because now I finally have a round from the Steemit days in my collection as well as one from the Hive years, so at least part of the story can be passed on to my kids.
I also love the community in the edges in different languages because this community is a real strong (although small) community. They are a great bunch to hang out with!
It was hart to capture how shiny it is without getting anything in the reflection :)
Certificate of authenticity
The round was sold to me by @goldrooster, and I'm very thankful that he wanted to part with it because to me this one has never been about maybe selling it for the silver value in the future but solely because I wanted to have something to hold and remember the old days where my Hive journey once began.
Getting number 288/1500 and the 2019 edition was funny too but I will save you the details here. If you're curious anyway I will give you a hint: I love numerology.
Here it is one more time for the details, I really love it and I'm so happy with it. I'm so grateful to finally have one. That's it, I'm calling it a night and heading to bed, wishing you all a great weekend!
For the SSG OG's reading this, how many of you have this round still in your collection? Let me know in the comments :)
All pictures above are mine, minus the screenshots (see source)...