I've been seeing a number of posts answering the challenge from @snook to answer the questions:

1. How did I get to Steemit?
2. Why am I still on Steemit?

And so I began to reflect a little bit on my journey into Steemit and cryptocurrencies in general.

Blast From The Past: My Steemit Introductory Photo

How I Found Steem

Before June of 2017, I had no idea that this world of cryptocurrency existed. I had heard of Bitcoin, but I didn't know very much about it; just that I had missed the boat on it - although it would turn out that the boat was just boarding. But woulda, coulda, shoulda, right?

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For a couple of years leading up to that point, I had been getting interested in homesteading and self sustainablility. It started with tv shows like Alaska: The Last Frontier and Mountain Men. Until then, I had never heard of the concept of "modern homesteading", and I started thinking about how cool it would be to move out into the wilds of Alaska and give it a go. Of course, I wouldn't have lasted a single night, but it' was fun to imagine!

Then, I began discovering homesteading channels on Youtube. One of the first such channels that I ran across belonged to @mericanhomestead. They were putting out really awesome videos, and I thought it was really cool that they were homesteading in the same state that I was living in. It hadn't even crossed my mind that an off-grid homestead could exist in Arkansas. My interest deepened, and before we knew it, my wife and I had decided that we wanted to get out of the city and start living a bit more self sufficiently. I was pretty pumped, so I wanted to try and share our journey in a blog. I tried starting a couple of free Wordpress blogs, but I quickly got bored and abandoned them. I didn't have very much to write about because our house was taking longer than expected to sell, and we were still stuck in the city. Instead, I continued to live vicariously through the folks that I had found online.

But, it was around that time when YouTube began cracking down on videos depicting firearms and other homestead related activities. Many homesteading channels began looking for alternative places where they could post their content. An American Homestead began talking about moving to a relatively new site called Steemit.com. Steemit offered the opportunity to make money in the form of cryptocurrency just for posting and being involved on the platform, so I decided to give it a try.

Signing Up

I began researching Steemit and cryptocurrency in early 2017. I wanted to make sure I wasn't signing up for a ponzi scheme or some scam that would open me up to identity theft. Finally, in June of 2017, I signed up for Steemit.com, and it was SO...

Anticlimactic

I was informed that I would have to wait until my account was manually reviewed and activated. Well, that took a few weeks, and by the time I was an official Steemian, I had kind of lost a bit of interest. I also found the whole thing to be a bit intimidating.

"Here are five different keys to your account. Don't lose them or you'll be locked out of your account FOREVER!"

Oh, cool. I'll just save them in my browser settings.

NO! Never save your keys in your browser!! If someone gets them, they can steal your account, and it will be lost FOREVER!

It took me several weeks before I finally felt confident enough to make my first post, and that is when the hook was firmly set!

I remember logging in several times that day to check my upvotes and comments. Not gonna lie: I felt like a bit of a rock star. I figured I'd be lucky if anybody even glanced at my post, but I ended up with 20+ comments and upvotes, and I even made $0.50! It was awesome! I couldn't wait to get started on my next one!!

We were still living in town at the time, so I really didn't have any kind of self sufficiency content to post, so I broke out my camera and started taking pictures... mostly of bugs. I was having an absolute BLAST! Whereas my earlier attempts at starting a blog involved me trying to force content, now I was doing things that I enjoyed and posting about that. I wasn't making much money - a few cents here or a quarter there - but I didn't have to because I was having fun.
Then, I got my first whale vote on a macro shot of an orchard orbweaver. That post paid out $7.49! When I first started tossing around the idea of starting a blog or YouTube channel, I figured it would be years before I ever saw my first penny, but I had just made almost 8 bucks on a single post!

Not much later, I discovered @steemstem. I am a science teacher, so this was right up my alley! I started posting articles about science and nature. My favorite posts were the ones where I was able to find a cool bug, photograph it, and write up a nice sciencey article about it. I started making $40-50 on posts regularly, with a few making over $100!

Why Am I Still Here?

For me, looking back over those early posts really drove home the reason why I'm still here. From the very beginning, I was welcomed to Steemit by people who are still active on the platform and whom I still interact with. I honestly didn't even realize until just now that many of the people that I follow now were some of the first to pop in and say hey when I arrived. It really makes this place feel like a community rather than a blogging platform.

And, it's not just the homesteading community that makes this place special. There are tons of other interest groups on the platform that are just as dedicated! From science to education to stacking precious metals, if you have an interest, it is probably well represented here on Steemit. So, even though the prices are currently down, those of us that remain are here because we've found a community (or two or three) that we feel like we belong to, so it's not just about the money. However, the fact that our communities are so strong and the way that new uses for Steem are coming out all the time lead me to believe that there is quite a bit of unrecognized value in Steem. I really think that the long-term outlook is super bright. In fact, I've been wanting to buy a few Steem Monster packs, but I'm afraid I'll look back and realize that the $2.00 worth of Steem I spent is now worth $20 or $200! It might not happen until years down the road, but I believe in Steem.

And THAT is what keeps me here. It's the combination of the tight knit community-like atmosphere coupled with the sky-high value ceiling. Steem is the future, and I'm in it on the ground floor.