I woke up this morning to find that a post of mine had surpassed $100.

Then I scrolled down and found another one.

STEEMIT, Introduce Yourself @shayne -- Past Due!!

STEEMIT vs YouTube: Analysis Of My Introduce Yourself Post

Last summer...

I remember seeing posts on Steemit that were reaching hundreds of dollars per post, some even thousands of dollars. I remember thinking -- that's no joke, but probably not something I can do unless I'm willing to jump on any trendy thing that comes around (makeup tutorials) and pray I get lucky, or buy a bunch of STEEM and power up my account, which I didn't want to do.

No way, I thought, could someone just post regularly and actually make any money doing this.

Well, I'm here to tell you that -- at least for now -- I was wrong.

You CAN make money on Steemit without investing a single penny

PROOF

Here are the calculated pending payouts for my account for the last 7 days, using the SteemViz Pending Payout Calculator tool by @ausbitbank

Now if we use the currency calculator on coinmarketcap.com to figure out what that's worth, we get this:

I know, I know...

This world of cryptocurrency is volatile.

There are ups and downs, and right now, Steemit is in an upswing. It's fun to ride, but it won't always be like this. In the near future, my payouts will decrease. I realize that.

I mean... I hope this will continue for at least 2 months. That wold be a Godsend and an answered prayer. This is already an answered prayer.

But even despite that -- even despite when things swing back down -- this has proven to me the power of blockchain technology and innovative development to liberate common, everyday people from the wage slavery and fiat banking nightmare that they've been suffering under for all of recorded time.

This is truly a new era, and I'm so happy to be right here, at Ground Zero, watching as it all unfolds before my eyes with wonderment and delight.

Follow me @shayne