Since the day I joined Hive, I've learned a lot of new stuff. That was in August 2021. I was startled to read taskmaster4450's article about the exponential age because I had never seen such a viewpoint before. It appears as though the author is from another planet. Then, from August 2021 to February 2022, I wandered around Hive without realizing the fantastic possibility that this emerging blockchain was offering. Things didn't start making sense until March 2022. Beginning that month, my learning process on Hive has increased significantly. You know learning and applying new ideas isn’t easy, especially for an aging man like me. They say it’s really difficult to teach an old dog new tricks. Nevertheless, I had several first-time experiences since that month. I think that’s the first and major transition that shaped the way how I grew in my understanding of Hive. Participating in LEO Power Up Day (LPUD), buying CUB, joining listnerds.com and @bradleyarrow’s curation trail, and writing about CENT are the new things I learned since that month. That was one year and three months ago. The LeoThreads widespread adoption effort launched on May 1 is at a different stage of development from the growth I mentioned above. The image that comes to mind is a price increase brought on by a significant trend.  [Photo Credit ](https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-person-holding-smartphone-6802042/) My Hive activity has undergone a significant transformation after the release of LeoThreads on https://leofinance.io/ version 2 (Note: I am at a loss for words to characterize the current condition of LeoFinance). The first thing I now do every day is check the threads. Before, it wasn't like this. Naturally, there are drawbacks to this, such as a tendency to overlook important Hive events like HIVE Power Up Day and writing lengthy content. Before the launch of LeoThreads, I have been describing myself as a “treader” though I didn’t make an official announcement about it on social media. My definition of a treader is inspired by a combination of three ideas: walking cautiously, trading, and reading. For non-native English speakers, these two words: “treader” and “threader” might sound the same. The latter refers to microblogging and I love it because its content is not confined to a single category; it is open to all types of content. As such, threads make engagement spontaneous and online learning more easily digestible. Reasons Why I am Bullish on LEO Serving as an alternative to a centralized microblogging platform like Twitter is a good start but not enough. The 10,000 USD prize pool that will be distributed within five days from now somehow made the Leo community excited. However, such excitement is short-term if not matched with a long-term vision of the growth and sustainability of the Leo projects. Except for the above reasons I mentioned such as microblogging providing an avenue for instant conversation and digestible content, as a Web3 alternative, and the 10,000 USD incentive, the additional reasons why I am bullish on LEO are as follows: Last 05 May, I wrote what I believe to be the benefits of making threads. I mentioned there how I agreed with this idea that the bigger transactions on the chain work to the advantage of the Hive network, the Leo tribe, and our tokens. Another reason is related to ad revenue. If the income from advertising will be returned to the LEO token, in such a scenario, all LEO holders win. A third reason would be LeoThreads operating as a communication hub for all the tribes within the Hive network. As such, threads can be an avenue for your content to find a wider audience. Still, another reason is the potential for micro-earnings. We cannot underestimate the power of small things. All big changes in one way or another started with small steps. Closely connected to crypto earning, I think if the recent idea suggested by @taskmaster4450 about the collateralization of the LEO assets will be considered for implementation, we have a solid reason to be exceedingly excited about the future of our platform. Given the fact that the world is in bad need of quality collateral as TM repeatedly argues, I think the LeoFinance can enter that space to fill up such a demand. Above all, I enjoy the fun of threading in connecting to other Hivers, lions, and other tribes. To conclude this post, I agree with @meitanteikudo’s poetical description of threads: a joyful playground, a joyous meeting where everyone’s voice is heard, a friendly tour guide, a vibrant marketplace of perspectives, and even radiant stars that shine brightly in the LeoFinance galaxy. Grace and peace! What is LeoFinance? What is Hive?

Today’s Threading Activity  I just created a #threadstorm on leofinance.io about the current zealy.io campaign. In my initial post, I accepted my lack of knowledge about what is going on. Thanks to the article of @libertycrypto27 that helps me in my decision. If I would have waited first to completely understand a thing before taking any action, I think nothing will happen. I started the first two days of May not knowing exactly what to do. I logged in on zealy.io and tried to figure out what to do. I had a good start with the help of easy to understand guide like the idea of “Calendar Threading.” Today is 06 May. We still have thirty-five more days in this campaign. I just read in today’s threads about Hivers joining for the first time and asking if they can still catch up. Of course, the earlier you join and the earlier you understand the mechanics of the campaign, the more it is advantageous to you. After four days of active threading, I got curious about the significance of what we’re doing as a community. This prompted me to ask a question about the long-term consequences of threading. I am curious about what way creating threads benefits Hive, the LeoFinance Community, and other tribes. I am impressed with the information provided by the community: @ifarmgirl-leo quoted @taskmaster4450 saying that more transactions on the blockchain benefit both Hive and its token. She also mentioned that those who participated in the campaign will have an “edge.” I am just not sure of the precise meaning and implication of having such an edge. @jossduarte thinks that perhaps the team intended to provide a platform for migration for those who are “fed up” with the dominant social media. @forexbrokr gave the most insightful ideas, and I just want to quote them verbatim: It's good for the owner of the leofinance.io front-end as more page views mean more ad revenue. If he chooses to drive that ad revenue back into the LEO token, then it will be good for investors. It's good for Hive because the more users receive a cut of the HIVE rewards pool, the better spread the governance token becomes. This is key for Hive to remain censorship-resistant. @forexbrokr emphasized the importance of token distribution. If you will just read the threads during the past four days, you will observe that threaders are having fun with what we do. I responded to one comment saying that though the 10,000.00 USD looks yummy, the fun of participation has its reward by itself. If I can receive even just a tiny portion of that amount, that to me is an additional incentive. I am learning new things while threading. If there is something I learn from my study of financial literacy, it is the idea that in focusing your energy on something, your primary concern is not just to earn, but to learn. Most people fall under the category of “working to earn” rather than “working to learn.” Of course, it doesn’t mean that if you fall under the second category, you will take monetary incentives for granted. It does mean that you know your priority and that you are building something bigger than the money you can earn short term. Responding to the insights provided by the members of the community, I thought except for making LeoThreads the communication hub for all of the tribes within the Hive network, all layer two tokens will also benefit from the zealy.io’s existing campaign. I think this is more of an aspiration than an actual description of the status of the tribes using the Hive blockchain. If this will be the case, I think as members of the tribes will realize the potential of the campaign to benefit Hive and all dApps built on it, we will see an explosion in threading numbers. In this sense, we could say that threading is not just a senseless engagement aiming for short-term monetary rewards, but will have a long-term impact on the growth and development of Hive. As such, threading is not a waste of time, but a productive activity. Those who see threading this way will prove it not just by creating threads, but also by meaningfully engaging with other threaders. Big thanks to @libertycrypto27, @ifarmgirl-leo, @taskmaster4450, @jossduarte, @forexbrokr, and all threaders that I engaged but failed to mention. Grace and peace! What is Hive? What is LeoFinance?

I think I'm done with traditional social media. I'm one of the few people I know who never had a Facebook account. Well, in a moment of weakness last month, I decided to create an account for Marketplace and reselling. I used the account for a week, didn't post anything though, and just didn't like anything about it. Facebook actually gave me a really bad feeling, like I just shouldn't be there. It was really weird. By the end of the week, I deactivated the account. It just didn't seem worth it and I felt like a sell-out. The truly strange part was how wrong it felt. I tend to trust my instincts and my instincts told me to get the hell out of there! That's really strange to me. I've never received those sorts of vibes from a social platform or anything internet related. I know some people love Facebook for sharing family photos and keeping in contact with loved ones. It's a great platform for long-distance friends and relatives. There's certainly nothing wrong with that and I totally get it. I really think these social media companies are getting way to powerful though and I'm more than a little concerned about their ability to control narratives and select what we may or may not see. How anyone abides by that, is incredibly alarming to me. My one Facebook post read, "Here for Marketplace if we haven't talked in 20-something years, let's keep it that way." It's a bit cold but truthful. There are very few people from my past I wish to reconnect with. On top of that, I found all kinds of weird stipulations for using Marketplace. I'll stick with Craigslist. I hope it never gets to a point where we have to have one of these social accounts to buy and sell online. Last night, I decided to deactivate my Twitter account. For some reason, I thought you could delete the account when Jack ran the company. Now that Elon took over, I only saw an option to deactivate the account. Is anyone else getting the feeling like these are nothing more than government spy programs? Why can't I delete my data? Pretty sure Facebook is the same way. I've had a love-hate relationship with Twitter for a really long time. It was really my first mainstream social media app. The only reason I signed up was for Crypto Twitter. I instantly fell in love with the community. Plus there was a ton of good trading information on there back in 2013 up until around 2017. I think after 2018, the growth of the crypto community brought with it a ton of scammers, bots, and shady people. The weird thing was that with over 43K followers I've interacted with the same 10 or 15 people for the last couple of years. Rarely would I get a comment or reply from anyone new. My follower counts also hovered between 42K and 45K followers. A couple of times during crypto hype cycles, the account grew to just UNDER 50K. I found that really weird. The account would come super close to 50K then suddenly lose 5K to 10K followers. This kept happening from the start as the account grew in popularity. Definitely strange, and far too coincidental. The Final Straw So I quit Twitter several times over the last couple of months. Each time, I'd just check back in when there was something happening in the crypto market. I really use it as a source of crypto news and a way to gauge market sentiment. I'd end up striking up a conversation or two, laugh at a few memes, and start using it daily again. Then get pissed off by all the propaganda in my feed and quit again. Only to return in the next week or so and repeat the entire cycle over again. Last night, like much of America, I watched Donald Trump give his speech after his indictment hearing or whatever it was. Just shameful, this is going to be a post for another day, probably tomorrow. After his speech, however, I decided to log into Twitter to see what other people thought. I should state right now, I'm an anarchist, I don't really believe in government but politics affect us all and I do like to stay current and up-to-date on things. My point is, I'm NO Trump lover. I think the guy is a bafoon and really bad for our country. He's his own worst enemy, and even if he could be a good president they just won't allow him to succeed. My feelings for Trump aside, I logged into Twitter to see how others felt about the speech. I'll post my thoughts on his indictment tomorrow. When I logged into Twitter I was shocked to see EVERY SINGLE POST being anti-Trump. Pro arrest. There was one post the algo missed that talked about what a dangerous precedent this was setting. ONE POST... Everything else was extremely negative, nothing positive, and just a massive echo chamber. Seriously, I wasn't looking for people to agree or disagree with my opinions and thoughts. What I was looking for was a balance of opinions. Twitter was a very PRO-MAGA platform for a really long time. Many of my followers were MAGA people. Maybe they all left the platform, I can't say, I rarely use Twitter for politics. I do know the last time I checked Twitter for politics it wasn't anywhere near as one-sided as what I witnessed last night. Keep in mind, this is the front-runner for the Republican party. He still has a ton of supporters in this country. What bothered me, wasn't all the negativity but the fact that there was nothing else. This just isn't possible. It was at that moment that I said, "I'm done" and then went into settings and clicked the deactivate button. It wasn't about the stance, it was about everyone having THE EXACT SAME STANCE in the thread I was looking at and no alternative points of view AT ALL. Not what I signed up for. NOT TO MENTION, THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE! Danger So many people rely on social media for news and to keep current. I have a huge problem with censorship and an even bigger problem with propaganda, data manipulation, and narrative manipulation. The idea that a social media company can control the narrative is outrageous to me. The idea that some people are OK with this is even more horrifying. I can no longer participate. In some ways, I think the manipulation of Covid posts was a test run for future narrative control and censorship. Covid was actually when I first realized how manipulated narratives were on social media sites. Until then, I assumed it was all conspiracy theories. I just can't participate anymore. I really hope everyone comes to their senses soon and walks away from these social platforms. They farm our data, spy on us, share it with governments around the world, and sell the data to the highest bidders for profit. The irony is, it looks like people will soon begin paying for the privilege of having their data and political narratives manipulated for them. I don't get it... We have alternatives like Hive that allow us to speak freely. Instead of selling our data, we're rewarded in crypto. Yet, people would rather pay a faceless corporation owned by one of the world's wealthiest men, rather than post somewhere that rewards them for their content and allows them to say pretty much whatever they want. I'm never going to understand the current times we're living in. I have an Instagram page for my Tarot site. Besides that, I think I'm done with Youtube too. I'm going to try and focus entirely on Hive-centric social media like #SoMee, #DBuzz, #LeoThreads, and Peakd. It's time to walk away from these mainstream social manipulators. Frankly, I think they're doing way more harm than good!

https://leofinance.io/threads/@m0rt0nmattd/re-leothreads-7h6dbp #soMee #SME #AweSme

Three "tweets" shared on LeoThreads: #someeofficial There are now close to 39, 000 #bitcoin ATMs globally. https://cointelegraph.com/news/9-years-after-the-first-bitcoin-atm-there-are-now-38-804-globally Saying ‘not financial advice’ won’t keep you out of jail. https://cointelegraph.com/news/saying-not-financial-advice-won-t-keep-you-out-of-jail-crypto-lawyers "JP Morgan has successfully executed its first-ever cross-border transaction using DeFi on a public blockchain." https://cointelegraph.com/news/jp-morgan-executes-first-defi-trade-on-public-blockchain