Okay, I am not a writer nor ever blog. Heck, I am not even active on facebook or any social networking platform except a few messaging apps. It's only when I started investing in crypto currency a few months ago (when Bitcoin was at around USD 5000+) that I found myself immersing into the likes of Telegram, Discord, and now Steemit...

I must admit that I know nuts about Steemit when I bought about 1000 coins due to FOMO a couple of months ago. I think it was a technical analysis done by Haejin predicting that this coin will "moon" due to a "cup and handle" chart pattern. The coins got stucked in Bittrex for almost 2 months after my account was disabled (story for another post), and when I finally got a human support to re-enable my account, the value of my investment reached 5x :)

This is where I am now, evaluating if I should cash out my steem coins. Having watched the "All-in Coin for 2018" video by Jerry Banfield, it intrigue me enough to dig into what steemit really is. After some education, I decided to transfer the coins into this platform, and maybe buy more?

While this post is not about any valuable content for the community, I do understand that steemit rewards not just the author but also the curator, and I after converting my steem to steem power, I can now upvote any post, including comments to my post. So, I decided to try the "lazy" way out by asking questions here in hope of having some quality replies, so that in turn, these may benefit others who may have the same questions like me - from an investor/trader perspective.

Please don't get me wrong, I know how to use the search engine, and trust me, I've watched many hours of videos before making this first post. Hey, it means I've done some homework having been able to deposit steem from an exchange, convert them to steem power right?

Okay, here goes:

1. Since I'm gonna HODL steem, I should not keep them in exchanges. So, am I right to say that the "wallet" in this platform is a secure way to keep my steem coins? At this point, it seems to me it's just another centralized platform where the owner will have access to my private keys?

2. Are there other independent steem wallets out there like Exodus or paper wallet where I can store steem? I guess I'll miss out the steem power thing even if there are.

3. What are the risks for keeping all my coins here? Again, will this steemit website be closed down one day and there goes all my coins? Is there an "owner" for steemit.com, and the website subjected to being "cease and desist" by authority sometime in the future, when for example, they use excuses like having terrorist/racist content being distribute or promoted?

I like the idea that once converted into steem power, it'll take 13-weeks to cash them out weekly thereby preventing flash dumps and encouraging long term hodlers. However, it's affects liquidity and again, it's wise for me to find out answer to the above three questions. Maybe more to come.

That's it for my virgin post :)