I am going to walk you through my Scorum journey so far, the ups and downs along the way, the great people I've met here so far, and to put it all into context, I'll start off by outlining my experience of Crypto Currencies over the years. From when I first heard about the Daddy of Cryptos Bitcoin all those years ago, through to my discovery of the Scorum platform, my new favorite little corner of the wicked wide web.
It was February 2013
It was February 2013 and I had recently had a great chat with a good friend, who also happens to be my cousin. It was a family wedding and as is customary at an Irish wedding, the beer and wine were flowing freely and the craic (definition of craic: fun and frolics) was mighty. We were outside having a smoke and we got talking about investments and strategies and all that good stuff. So a few months later, when he heard about this unusual phenomenon called Bitcoin, he decided to send me an email to see what I thought about it. After all I was the techy guy, so I should know, right? RIGHT?
He included a link to a youtube video, which I likely had a quick look at before dismissing the premise as a fad, a pyramid scheme most likely, and if I remember correctly, I told him that I'd steer well clear.
Yep, I can hear that collective intake of breath as you read this, and the question on the tip of your tongue may well be, what price was bitcoin trading at back then?
$22!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Did you say $220 dollars @ablaze?
Ah you mean $2220 right?
Nope, you could have bought a full bitcoin at this time for just $22.
A hypothetical scenario
Join me on this little hypothetical journey, if you will. Let's say my cousin decided to invest a few quid into Bitcoin back then, say a nice round figure of $1200. Let us also assume he had the good fortune to get out near the top around Christmas 2017, when the price almost reach a staggering $20,000 a coin, but we'll say he cashed out at $19,000 to make it somewhat plausible. Well, my friends, he would now be a millionaire!
Fast forward over four years
That same cousin eventually bit the bullet and get in on Ethereum early on and watched it go up and up and up like so many alts in those crazy days and after having a chat with him one of the days, I said that I'd test the waters myself.
I started to read up about blockchain technology and started reading whitepapers for coins which interested me, and then acquired some that I liked the look of.
You're telling me I can make money from likes or upvotes!
It was around this time that I discovered Steemit, and I was amazed at the prospect of making money from just writing blog posts and commenting on and curating other peoples work. I remember looking at the trending pages back then, and there would be multiple €1000+ posts trending, and I thought to myself, I can do that, so I set about joining the site.
My first step was to pick a username. Would I use my real name? Would I use a quirky name related to Crypto, which was why I was there? In the end, I decided that I was going to pick a name that began with A, so that I would turn up first on people followers lists, I tried a few words and they were all gone, so I gave up on that strategy.
Then it occurred to me to pick something related to light, a subject that has always fascinated me. We would not be here with light from the sun. Light gives colour to everything in our world. Light is the langauge of the cosmos, a subject that I'm passionate about, and even my day job revolves around light - I'm an Optical Transmission Engineer by trade, so when the handle ablaze just popped into my head and it was available, I was delighted, and as you can see that name followed me across to Scorum.
That was January of this year, and I worked really hard to get the account up and going and still use it today, but not as much as I did up until recently.
While on Steemit, I met some great little communities, from @mariannewest and the #freewrites to @jayna and the #fiftywords crew and everything in between.
It was one of the people I had gotten to know over there @pete who I first saw mention Scorum, and straight away I thought, that could be something for me, and for whatever reason, it went out of my head again, and I just ploughed away on Steemit. I think that was maybe June or July of this year.
Two months or more passed, and I read again about Scorum, and again I thought, yes that really is for me, and this time, I actually got off my ass and did something about it.
On 3rd Seotember 2018, I joined Scorum!!
I was a little bit late to the party, and I wished then that I had come over here sooner, but alas I had not, so I said I would just get to work and try and build up my account from the ground up organically. That takes time and effort, two things I have poured into Scorum since becoming a member.
I set about planning my first post, it was about Liverpool's new keeper Alisson Becker and other similar keepers, who dribble and do some crazy stuff that you really don't want you keeper doing. When they pull it off, it looks amazing, when the mess it up, it looks foolish in the extreme! Here is that first post.
https://scorum.com/en-us/football/@ablaze/liverpool-s-alisson-becker-and-exuberant-goalkeepers
I typed it up, hit post and sat back to watch the upvotes flood in. Minutes passed, no upvotes. The day passed, no upvotes. After the full week had elapsed, I got a solitary upvote from a guy called @viprosol, who must have left soon after, as his account is still valued at 5SCR. That's a pity, as I would have liked to have thanked him now that my account has grown.
I was well and truly a minnow, and just kept plugging away each day, and luckily I tracked down @pete who gave me my first good upvote, and that really changed my outlook and my trajectory. Was it not for that early encouragement from the encouragement king himself, I may have given up, and gone back to Steemit, where I had already built up 1000+ followers.
Contests
Every chance I got, I would enter a contest, and for every contest I entered, I always upvoted the post, as I think that this is the decent thing to do. Indeed, it is very seldom I make a comment on anyone's post without giving them an upvote, I just find it a bit rude, but that's probably just me and my outlook.
The first contests I entered were all for predicting soccer scorelines, and I started to get a few right, so started to win my first few SCR, which started to bolster that early SCR-scarce account of mine.
Soon I discovered some other amazing more thought provoking contests, where a crystal ball was not necessary. All you needed was some time, effort and some basic story telling acumen. I will cover my favorite three below. I still try and take part in these three most weeks, if time allows.
Happy Moanday with @pete
This was and is a great contest, as there are prizes for 1st, 2nd and 3rd, and sometimes even consolation prizes too. But, there aren't just prizes, there is also the promise of a full or 50% upvote from @pete, who is a power player and his upvotes can catipult you to the trending page and if your content is good, you reach more eyeballs, and eyeballs are the name of the game here on Scorum.
I have won this a few times, and finished in the places, and this was a big help to me starting out, and I still use it now, as sometimes I struggle to think of a subject to write about.
If you are new here, or you are really wanting to grow your account, visit @pete's page every Monday and join the fun.
Here is a link to this week's contest for your convenience:
https://scorum.com/en-us/wrestling/@pete/happy-moan-day-november-19th-2018
Hall of Fame with @liuke96player
This is another great contest that I found. Here @liuke96player picks a different sport or game each week, and we users have to write a story about it or our experience of the given sport. I have been lucky enough to be quite successful with my entries into this great contest, and I am very grateful to @liuke96player for the ongoing support.
Here is a link to this weeks Hall of Fame, where the chosen subject is Tennis:
https://scorum.com/en-us/tennis/@liuke96player/scorum-hall-of-fame-week-6-winners-and-tennis-60-scr
freaky Friday with @pete
That brings us to last but not least, the brilliant Freaky Friday, which often has insane prizes relative to anything else I've seen on Scorum, for example this week the top prize was 174SCR!
The concept here is very simple, where you just write a story about the photo, and put yourself in there somehow, as a player, manager, spectator, dreamer. It is really cool to see the direction each person heads off in and I've met some firm friends through these contests, like @bamamama, @mr-sarriball, @austino, @stanleyasokingz and @kolumbus to name a few.
Here is the contest for this week for those that may be interested:
https://scorum.com/en-us/poker/@pete/wow-freaky-friday-november-23-2018
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Hearty thanks to the contest organisers, supporters and contestants. These contests have been a huge catalyst in my quick growth from minnow to pro.
I'd also like to thank the following users who have been very generous towards me in my short Scorum journey so far:
@mikey, @fnemoto, @nhl, @awd2, @btb, @hassan, @Primetimesports, @kryptokeeper, @direct88, @sashank, @izge, @eoghan.mcmonagle, @fraste, @clt17, @paulao0506, @talesfrmthecrypt, @cryptokitty77, @satoshi, @brandonk, @bjempire, @alextazy, @scorum-fans, @fitness.life, @fussballchef, @whynot, @onswitch, @ready2sh, @andrew, @jekahm, @fluegergeheimer, @electro-scr, @ignatoff, @yuliyama, @grizerg, @xpss, @sahkan, @b2b, @sambatt, @interpaul, @sportsgeek, @deathcloud, @dsuh9, @tosyne2much
It is with upvotes and support from you that I have grown to Pro status, so thank you all so much! It can be dangerous making lists like this, as you always leave people out, so if I've left you out, I'm sorry.
My style on Scorum
I try to be as informative as possible with my style and bring that little something extra to my writing, that might be some humour, some little aside or anecdote or some interesting information which I believe others may not know about.
I also understand the importance of throwing some images into the mix, and the more interesting and sharper the image the better. Posts that have too much written language, without some images to balance it, can sometimes not work very well. Indeed, I have seen a few such examples here on Scorum, where the style and diction were top class, but the post didn't attract the rewards it deserved, and I would put that down to a lack of colour and interaction, which photos bring. The expression about an image and one thousand words is certainly true.
Photos help to tell your story
So, throw in that interesting or quirky photo.
It may be the difference between someone reading the first two paragraphs and someone reading right to the end, and what's at the end? Yes, the upvote button, and for writers here that is probably the most important thing. Keep readers with you right to the end if at all possible.
Use sub headings
That bring me to headings - these are great. It gives people the option to speed read through the content and only fully read some sections based on the sub headings. If you have one big long essay type effort, people may just skip past it, as time is often of the essence for people on Scorum. I know that is certainly true for me, I never seem to have enough time to do all the posting, commenting and curating that I would like, so any help you can give your readers may well pay dividends for you in the long run.
What does the future hold?
None of us really know, but I'm really looking forward to the journey. Where will it take us? $1 Scorum could be life changing for some, $10 Scorum would be life changing for many more, but who knows where the price will go.
What we should do, is keep the quality of posts up, and be dogged in our defense of the platform. Power users @nhl and @philnewton are already doing great work in this regard, so it is up to us to help support them. If you see plagerised or clearly copied material, call people out on it, and explain that they are in the wrong place, if they think they can get away with that.
We all welcomed the new Betting Exchange this week with open arms, and it will certainly interesting to see how it develops over time. I have not tried it out yet myself, but I plan to give it a whirl soon, and see first hand what all the excitement is about!
22nd November - a special day!
To finish up my post, a few days ago I reached the holy grail of 1000SCR and I now have my very own shiny new slider. My target has always been to reach Pro status, and it certainly feels good to have reached my target! Time to set a new target now!
The slider is going to be a huge help with my engagement, as I can now upvote more comments and posts per day. Initially only being able to upvote 4 things a day without running down your Scorum Power was very tricky to manage and it meant I did not always upvote posts that I wanted to. The slider will now allow me to upvote so much more by breaking up my votes.
Thanks as always for taking the time to read and I look forward to continuing my Scorum journey with you all over the following weeks, months, years and beyond!
Peace Out.
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