They say every dark cloud has a silver lining and I agree. If you have been on Steem for any length of time you have seen the good the bad and the ugly.

Decentralized DPOS Blockchains are a challenging gig to be sure and not for the faint of heart, Steem is no exception. 2017 was really fun, there was a lot of easy success to be had. We watched our accounts grow and many of us felt confident of easy success. Then came 2018 where we watched our digital assets lose value, earnings were down and Fear was sky high, and many with good intentions started to fight about how to fix it. Some of it was downright ugly.

If you have survived all of that and are still here congratulations! Many who came in seeking rapid rewards or Internet Fame have moved on and those who are serious about trying to build something sustainable are the survivors, and that is the silver lining. Between the price and RC limitations, we also shed many scammers and spammers, but the real users and developers kept on working. We watched some of our community move on to Whaleshares, Scorum, and other sites, but many stayed and continued to work.

While we still have many challenges to work on I think the understanding of needing to create real sustainable use cases in one of the lessons learned. Also, I think most have realized the value of the community and to be more careful when setting expectations with new users.

We have more games, more apps, more onboarding projects and maybe when the next wave of interest in crypto comes we will be better prepared to integrate the new users.

We see SteemIt Inc. discussing making donations to User Controlled organizations like the future Foundation and DAO for the betterment of the Steem Economy. We have a large Twitter presence being funded and encouraged by Nathan Mars, video promotions being created by the community encouraged by @surfermarly. Steem is now available on more exchanges and @birdinc has stated he is building relationships with more exchanges.

All of these things are the beginning of Name and Brand Recognition and they do not pay off immediately. Usually, the effects are seen in slow drips at first and start to build momentum. If the overall market changes from bears to bulls that could change, but for now I expect to see these changes make slow and steady progress.

Slow growth is good growth, but I am not opposed to hoping for another Bull Market.

Either way, Cheers to the survivors of the Bear Market, and for continued progress!

@whatsup