I too have been here since 2016 (June). I put in around 9 BTC at all time high prices (aroudn $3, $4) and watched STEEM go to $0.07 after that. It sucks. That said, I also didn't purchase something without understanding it first. I researched DPoS, witness voting, proxies and such. You've been here a long time. Were you aware of what was happening and how the chain was being actively attacked?

I hope the proposal system works out and you can participate in the airdrop. I think there are some code updates that have to be made to get it fully functioning on Hive (still plenty of work to do, from what I understand... the devs have been working like crazy). So it may take a while. In the meantime, I hope you can be patient and ensure people understand you do not support centralization so the current Hive token holders will not see your stake as a threat to the Hive chain.