We have a number of people posting urging people to vote for Steemit as Crypto Influencer of the Year.  

What an interesting turn of events.  Just a month ago, we were ready to hang Steemit and it's leadership upside down from a flagpole and now we are voting for them.  

Of course, I echo the sentiments since there were things that Steemit did do well and the blockchain did experience a major step forward in 2018.  The fact they are streamlining their focus heading into 2019 tells me we will see more advancement in 2019.

![steem.png](https://ipfs.busy.org/ipfs/QmTFe3ANvj5mCpajghBTc2KYuu9fXTb11MWhXfpgiWtdrc)

There is another project which is familiar to most Steemians that is also worthy of a vote.  It is @blocktrades.  This is an exchange that is tied to Steem which allows for easy conversion into both STEEM and SBD.  

I know a lot of people use other exchanges for a variety of reasons and that is fine.  One thing I do want to point out about the Blocktrades team is they were the ones who stepped up not long after the Steemit news broke.  They make a proposal to @ned to handle the conversion of the database structure to enable much smaller nodes running.  

While that proposal was rejected, it is comforting to know we have backup on that end.  If Steemit cannot achieve what they set out to do (I believe they will), there is an alternative.

In addition, while they do cater to other markets, their focus remains upon Steem.  If you listened to the State of Steem call from the other day, you know the Blocktrades project was represented.  

As most of you are aware, I like projects that are continually updating and growing.  I realize this is more difficult in the bear market environment since many programmers had to take other work and turned into part time on Steem.  This slowed down the process and even eliminated a few projects.

Blocktrades is still adding.  In fact, the just made a major improvement to allow the trading of many other tokens.  This is not available to those of us in the United States (thank Jay Clayton and the SEC) but those outside it can utilize the service.

Here is the post about that:

https://steemit.com/blocktrades/@blocktrades/blocktrades-accounts-now-upgradable-to-trade-in-more-types-of-coins

I realize some opt to use other services because of pricing.  That is a legitimate reason.  However, I like to support those who back the projects I am in.  At this point, I am full blown into Steem.  My belief in what I see here and the project forming is amazing.  Now we see the community taking on different online tasks to get Steem projects ranked.  

This is wonderful.

Therefore, I will toss out the notion that everyone should vote for Blocktrades in the Best Crypto Web Tool category.  One only needs to scroll up above where the Steemit vote is to find it.

Even if you do not use this application, the project team repeatedly showed their commitment to this blockchain and their willingness to step up where they could.  

![steem.png](https://ipfs.busy.org/ipfs/QmQTiiBYvymqFfSKGGG2bFUncsEamP5KLp4KnW5kBbUuCp)

Most of 2018 was under the realm of the developers on Steem.  Now we are seeing areas where the rest of us can participate and do our part to add to the ecosystem.  It takes only a few seconds to go to the site and vote for these two projects.

https://www.cryptoinfluenceaward.com/#/?ref=best_project

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![image.png](https://ipfs.busy.org/ipfs/QmYRwbaYkV7kubaAqefvGi6kxW25EdzUdZRP8XWsRWXKTj)