I joined Steemit in 2019. In some circles this is considered early. Certainly, if making money was my goal, it was early enough.

I vividly remember the first day one of my posts made one whole Steem. It was 2020. I bought Champagne, paid off my rent arrears and proposed to my girlfriend.

Two years later one of my posts hit the trending page. I quit my job, told my editor what I thought of him and went Steemit Freelance.

Yet 2019 wasn't the beginning. If you started before 2020 you were early but you weren't what experts call an early adopter.

In his recent book How Steemit Blocked the Chains of Corruption, professor GB Thring (Emeritus Chair of Blockchain at Oxford University and holder of the Larimer Professorship for Innovation) defines early adopters as those who were posting on Steemit before 2018. These, he argues, are the people who mattered. The shapers of the modern world.

The Steemit aristocracy...

So who were these early adopters and how did the great Steemit explosion happen?

The early days of Steemit are suffused with myth and rumour. The blockchain was young. Things were murky.

We've all heard the tall stories. That @dantheman intended to have his brain transplanted into a glass jar whilst the cyborg body he had commissioned from @krnel underwent final testing; that @ned went through the preliminary steps of converting to Islam to enable him to simultaneously marry every single contestants in the 2023 Miss World competition.

All nonsense, yes?

Or perhaps not...

In fact Dan did manage to digitize and transfer small parts of his personality onto USB sticks. They were eventually stolen by Chinese intelligence. Unfortunately for the Chinese, they managed to steal the brain function Dan used for microwaving ready meals and singing in the shower.

And did you know that, according to Ned's former P.A., the Steemit CEO did seriously consider marrying Miss America, Miss France AND Miss Russia in exchange for a hefty donation to the Elders in Salt Lake City? The plan fell apart when Ned tried to introduce a fourth lady into the mix , the eventual winner Miss North Korea, and the whole plan fell apart after a spectacular catfight.

Other Steemit gossip abounds. As every schoolchild knows: The Blockchain is Forever. Yet not everything in the early days was recorded on the blockchain.

Did you know the world's most controversial chat show duo who famously hold the record for most divorces and remarriages within one decade (and whose stage names I can't mention for legal reasons) first got together on Steemit? Don't believe me? Check the blockchain in early 2017, and pay special attention to @beanz and @sirlunchthehost ...

Other success stories are less controversial. If you've been on holiday you've probably flown with @heiditravels. If you've been to a 6d holo gig™ you're definitely a @pfunk music subscriber. Most people know that these companies were started by Steemians. If you've listened to the Radio in the Western world you've undoubtedly heard the voice of @fyrstikken. But other things which aren't normally associated with Steemit have their roots in the innovation of early adopters.

Next time you see a policeman, ask to have a close look at his truncheon! On the handle will be the name @walden. Initially a sort of Steemit policeman, @walden left Steemit in 2020 and set up a military equipment manufacturer. In 2025 he sold the firm to a consortium from Russia for 10000Steem and dropped off the radar. Various rumours about his next venture flew about, the most credible being that he was using his vast wealth to build a mercenary army to retake Las Malvinas from the British and that he'd invested 1000 Steem in a new amphibious marine landing suit which would render his soldiers impervious to standard ordnance. Whether this is true or not is unconfirmed, though the fact that by 2027 the British government had increased its budget for the defence of The Falkland Islands one hundred fold to a massive 500Steem per year is testament to their concerns about @walden's influence on the area.

But all of this is still just business.

Yet as we all know, Steemit changed the world like nothing eve before.

What were the politics in the early days and how did the great change happen? How did Steemit fight the banks and the corrupt media and the relentless government attacks whilst still remaining an entertaining platform?

One person knows more than anyone else on this subject. That's why I'm flying to the private island of the world's richest person and also, coincidentally, the greatest Steemian in history.

To be continued...

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(None of the images used in this post are mine. They were all taken from multiple internet sources )