![image.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/clayboyn/otKMiQj9-image.png)
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I have been thinking about this topic throughout the last couple of days after seeing @theycallmedan's tweet about this initiative.  The only way for me to really approach this topic is to explain a bit about where I'm coming from and the years of my life that I dedicated to advancing STEEM and why I've never been more excited about this community than I am right now.  This will probably be a long one, but let's jump in and see where it goes.

It's first imperative to understand that while I have evolved so much over the last nearly four years of being a part of this community, I am still somewhere deep inside the same person that decided to quit his job and go all in on STEEM when it was trading for $0.09 (the first time) because I believed we had the potential to build something that could change the world.  Throughout the last several years my struggles and conflicts with trying to reconcile my dream and expectations with the challenges we faced on STEEM were publicly documented here on my blog, so I'll avoid retreading on the past because it matters little with where we're going, but it's important to understand my mentality going into this for me to answer 'What does HIVE mean to me?"

To put things quite simply, HIVE and this community means more to me than money, fame, or power as those things have honestly never been my focus.  I see HIVE as the opportunity to do things better and with much more insight than any of us had going into our journey on STEEM.  We have the potential to learn from the shortcomings and lessons of the last several years and make HIVE what I feel many of us always wanted STEEM to be, which I think can be summed up adequately as potential for something more.

I want to see HIVE evolve into a truly decentralized and community led project that enables anyone the opportunity to come to the platform and find a welcoming community where they have the potential to share and create something of value, be that art, literature, code, business, or whatever interests them.  I believe the foundation is already solid and the potential to keep growing and improving is abundant.  This won't be easy, but anyone that is still with us after the last two years is clearly dedicated to making this thing work.

The vision that I have relies heavily on the DAO being utilized to its full potential.  In the past we were seriously hindered by many projects relying on Steemit Inc playing an angel investor role where they would pick and choose projects to support with little to no accountability and abuse was rampant.  Many projects would use delegated stake in ways that were unproductive to the platform and often were little more than thinly veiled attempts to extract value from our ecosystem and then move on when the easy money dried up.

Our DAO is a much better tool for having a consensus led funding vehicle for development, work, and services that we need to better the community without having to rely on a centralized authority to make decisions on what to pursue for us.  Essentially the blockchain can now decide for itself, through stakeholder voting, what its future will be.  We definitely won't always agree, but I can assure you that this system is much more fair and rewarding than relying on Ned or Justin Sun to dictate our fate to us.

So to sum things up, what does HIVE mean to me?  It means that there is still hope that we can overcome all of these hurdles and keep the dream alive.  There will be many challenges and it won't be easy, but when has the easy road ever been truly rewarding?  Will we succeed?  Will it all be worth it in the end?  Do we truly have the power to change the world and create a digital voluntary society where people have the opportunity to better themselves and the world by working together collaboratively to build something new?  One thing is absolutely certain, as long as I'm breathing, I intend to find out and keep working to make it happen.
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