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It has been a while since I've posted and I don't want to get into it much but basically, life circumstances and a few other factors had kept me away. But here I am once again.

let's get right to it. Here are a few topics I wanted to share.

## Alt-Coins

With the recent bloodbath in the **alt-coin** markets recently, we are seeing crypto evolve.  Let's enjoy this parody music video from **Lil Bubble** ( [@TheCryptoBubble](https://twitter.com/TheCryptoBubble) on Twitter) :P

https://youtu.be/M3TzVgGyBFs

## Regulations

I know for many in the crypto community, the recent new regulations across the globe is having an impact. I am no expert, but I think this is really good as it legitimizes crypto-currency and allows it to mature.

One of the big reasons that kept me away from crypto and Steem was I foresaw the impact of how new regulations will have and I happen to be in a region specific location that some of these regulations have had an impact on. The main exchanges that I could access to trade Steem and other tokens before are no longer allowing their services to anyone in my jurisdiction and others as well. This would include Steem's main partner exchange Bittrex. This made it harder for myself and others to not only invest in **STEEM**, but also to want to use the platform and earn rewards. 


## Steem

I have been keeping tabs on the platform in the background and I've feel the Steem platform had lost it's way a bit and became saturated with all these projects and tokens for the sidechain. I know for a lot of newer users that came to the Steem platform, it has gotten complicated. **KISS**.

I hope to see a Steem DEX launch soon because as when I mentioned earlier,  I no longer have access for the most part, to exchanges to trade Steem. A DEX would be nice to have and am little disappointed to see how many other blockchains that launched after Steem, already have their DEX up and running. I know there are other DEXs out there that list STEEM but there's hardly any volume and the price can be a lot lower than other markets. Hopefully those will change soon.

There are so many Steem Dapps now and I find it hard to choose which one to use at times. I like many of them, but most of them I think are "money grabs" to get users to transact on the Steem blockchain to collect a percentage through the beneficiary feature. There's nothing wrong with it, but I feel it took away some of Steem's, steem. 

It was more enjoyable to me when posting content on [Steemit.com](https://steemit.com) and try to earn a vote from "whales" on the platform. It was exciting making posts and coming back to be surprised and see I had gotten a vote from a whale or a curation trial. It seems now, it's more about using  bid-bots or a Dapp, and investing in that Dapp to earn a larger upvote, dividends, and the content really doesn't matter much. This is where I felt things got a little boring and took my and many other's focus away. Especially seeing there are other competing blockchain platforms.

I've heard there are plans to bring back curation trails and I think that's a good thing. Anything that incentivizes content creators and users to focus on actually using the platform than just throwing their delegation and STEEM on Dapps is a good thing.

It's great to see the platform grow so much and with the alts taking a hit, this seems like a great time for those on Steem to continue using whatever **Dapp** they are using and accumulate the tokens they can. Markets go through cycles and many of us that have been here on Steem from back in 2016 has seen this price before. As low as 7 cents... Hopefully, some good economic changes can happen with the next **Hard Fork** and things can turn around. 

I figured I'd go a little *"old school"* and blog on *Steemit.com* to reminisce of the days when things were a bit more simple...