Is there a good excuse not to join?

I feel like I am forgetting to do something - do you ever get that feeling?

I don't know what it is. I have been flicking through tabs seeing if anything triggers a memory, but no. Perhaps I don't have to do anything at all tonight. Well, there is one thing I have been meaning to do.

Sign up for HiveFest!

You can do yours here: https://hivefe.st/

It is virtual, so no tickets required. Last year I was unable to participate and I was a bit annoyed, but hopefully this year I can make an appearance.

I will look like this, which other than not rocking a "dad bod" - is a pretty decent representation of me, which I am guessing some people who have met me in Poland in 2018 can attest to.

That was a fun week and I met some great people, ate some great food and listened to a lot of people talk Steem HIVE.

It is funny thinking back to the first night there - sharing an AirBNB with five guys, meeting a lot of new people, having some drinks and ending up at a strip club at 3 am. And, that was the night before the event actually started. I am still in contact with a few people from those days and, some of them I talk to near daily.

I remember on the first night, someone asked me how much I had staked and I found it a weird question, but surprisingly common among some of the crowd there - most of whom are not around anymore. There were quite a few who had made their way to try and suck-up to whales for votes. I didn't get much of this though, as I was no whale. At that stage, I had about 25K staked and STEEM was circling around a dollar, after being at a high of 8 dollars some 11 months earlier.

Price has never been the major focal point on Hive for me, but back then, there was far less going on and far more people were only interested in getting rich on a pump in crypto. Many seemed to equate the market cap of a project to the value of a project, without factoring in all of the other things that are required for longevity. I have always looked long and I got into some "friendly arguments" a couple times with people who were saying it is all going to collapse - We are still here as a community, but they may not be part of it.

Most are though and many of them are doing very well here now, despite being much smaller accounts at the time. I think that once people got to interact in real life, talk with people who are actually creating applications and get some vision on what the future might look like, even while the token was circling the drain, they were buying bits here and there, but more importantly, interacting on chain more too.

For me at the time, we as a family were coming off a pretty hard couple years and it was great to be able to get away for a few days, though I would have liked to have had them with me. It just wasn't possible for my daughter to travel due to dietary restrictions, so they stayed at home. Plus, money was very tight at that time, which was par for the course during those years.

It is strange to think that it was only three years ago though, as it feels like an eternity since, as so much seems to have happened. In that time, the entire crypto scene has changed form and of course, the Hive blockchain was born. What I do like to see is that a lot of my predictions form the early years about the course of the future have turned out to be pretty accurate and they are mostly on chain for verification. But in general, the expansion of usecases and the move of focus onto communities, interfaces and experiences have been happening. Hive houses a wide range of gateways now and they are growing in number all the time. It will be interesting when that crypto boom of mainstream comes.

Billions of people will be entering onto blockchains in the next five years or so, and while the current sentiment is still mostly all about making money, the future is going to be about building, having and owning experience. That is where I think Hive is going to excel, as it is a gateway between daily life and the digital realms. It is because of this that these events are so important, as while most other communities rally around price, Hive gathers around people.

Speaking of people, here are some of those who will be having their voice heard from the VR stage:

So - since this event is in the virtual world, there is very little excuse not to sign up and see who you might rub digitals with. The actual even is on the 12-13 of November and there is free registration until the 5th.

Hopefully, I will see you there!

I still haven't remembered what I have forgotten to do....

Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]