A Dose of Optimism

@ned dropped a bomb yesterday. I think it’s pretty well-known thus far across the Steem blockchain. Everyone is talking about it.

I have to admit, this caught me completely off guard. I had no expectation to see this yesterday and I kind of didn’t believe it at first. Maybe I just didn’t want to believe it.

At first, it seemed like this could be a huge blow to Steem. It seemed like this could really drag down not only the STEEM price in the short term, but also the long-term potential of the Steem blockchain.

That’s why I purposefully took my foot off the gas. I didn’t write a post about it right when I read the news. I wanted to take the opportunity to get a good night’s sleep and wake up in the morning, read some other peoples’ opinions and more fully come to terms with my own opinion.

This brings us all back to today. If you think that the Steem blockchain is dead, then you’re dead wrong. The blockchain is strong. The blockchain is stronger today than it was 1 year ago, regardless of the price and regardless of what happens at Steemit, Inc.

A lot of people still misconstrue the idea of Steemit, Inc. They don’t fully grasp the difference between the Steem blockchain and Steemit, Inc.

Steemit, Inc. is the company behind the Steemit blogging DApp (Steemit.com) which is built on top of the Steem blockchain. The Steemit, Inc. team also works hard to contribute developments to the blockchain itself (The Steem Blockchain).

If Steemit, Inc. were to disappear, I’m sure it would cause mass confusion at first, but the people who really know what’s going on understand that the Steem blockchain is a decentralized entity. Steemit, Inc. and the Steem blockchain - although closely tied together - are not the same thing.

The DApps would continue to develop. The individual developers would continue to code. The community would continue to post. The witnesses would still keep their servers. The sun would rise the following day.

Not the End of the World

A cutting back of the Steemit, Inc. team is not the worst thing in the world. In fact, it’s what many other crypto projects and orgs are doing at this very moment and have been doing over the past few months.

When organizations go through rough patches, they need to do what they need to do in order to survive and come out the other side.

An Opportunity for a Stronger Future

I’m sure you’re familiar with the saying that you must take a few steps backwards in order to take several steps forwards…

Well, that’s what I believe is going to happen in these times. In this “crypto winter” as people like to call it, every project is going to have to bundle up and band closely together in order to survive.

Not everyone is going to make it. People may be laid off, people may have to go elsewhere for warmth — that’s just the nature of survival.

Something that I’ve often talked about on my blog is the idea of growth through hardship.

This idea of growing by facing ever-greater challenges is present all throughout life. I am reminded of it on a daily basis. The recent news from the Steemit, Inc. team is yet another in a long list of challenges that we will overcome and persevere through and come out the other side an even stronger community.

Every challenge and every hardship is simply an opportunity to grow and adapt and evolve.

I believe - and I know others do as well - that this hurtle is yet another opportunity to make the Steem blockchain a better and stronger and more prosperous ecosystem.

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Didn’t Get Enough Optimism? Here are a few great posts that I've read today:

1. https://busy.org/@therealwolf/we-are-steem
2. https://busy.org/@timcliff/witness-survey-v1-timcliff-s-responses
3. https://busy.org/@steemmonsters/million-match-milestone
4. https://busy.org/@jrcornel/is-bitcoin-dead
5. https://busy.org/@dana-edwards/it-is-time-to-make-steem-an-economically-self-sustainable-business
6. https://busy.org/@exyle/2ve77po8

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“Each morning we are born again. What we do today is what matters most.” --Buddha