Hello, new world. This is my starting block.

in #introduceyourself6 years ago (edited)

Photo credit: CryptoComes Women in Blockchain: Crystal Rose

Hello, world.

SHA-256(„hello world“) = c0535e4be2b79ffd93291305436bf889314e4a3faec05ecffcbb7df31ad9e51a

It's a new frontier. The 'hello world' of my past is being replaced with a hash. 

This is my introduction to the Steemit community. I'm embarrassed it took so long to commit it to the blockchain. Mea culpa.

My name is Crystal Rose and I'm a technologist and entrepreneur. I have circuits running next to my veins, I'm made of hardware and software. Ok, maybe I haven't become a cyborg quite yet, but I do have a power button. (Ask me sometime, I'll show you.) 

I grew up with a computer next to my crib. The sounds of the dial up modem were my soothing white noise as a pre-teen. I started learning to code through an anonymous chat room when I was 11, and started my first company (and college) by 16. I built and sold websites, and entire turnkey Internet businesses, which evolved into a full service digital agency.

It was during this venture where I stumbled across Bitcoin, in early 2010, while one of my developers was using up all of our bandwidth and running his computers overnight. I thought he was downloading pirated software or sharing music libraries. Instead, he was mining Bitcoin. This was back when it was far easier to mine a whole Bitcoin (or many) and it was difficult to understand  how much they were worth (or who would want them). Cryptography was about to be even more popular than The Da Vinci Code.

Bit by Bit

Fast forward to 2015, I entered a large hackathon in San Francisco with my now-cofounder and two friends; talented developers from top startups in Silicon Valley, to compete building a Bitcoin enabled app.

We built a file sharing app to allow content owners to protect the transfer of their assets and monetize them before free use on the web. We leveraged the blockchain to ensure files were only transmitted one time on an immutable ledger, and Bitcoin to allow instant peer-to-peer micro-transactions. 

It was quickly used to obscure suggestive photos* so curious people would unlock them for Bitcoin. We won the hackathon for our category and were happy to have newly filled Bitcoin wallets as a prize.

*mostly of cats 

True Values

When I discovered the technology underlying Bitcoin – the blockchain – I realized what the Internet was intended to be but was missing or broken:

  • anonymity 
  • transparency
  • security
  • privacy
  • decentralization
  • immutable, tamper-proof public ledgers  
  • true peer to peer interactions (no intermediaries)

Today, most of what we do online is reliant on 3rd parties transmitting and storing our data. We use platforms like Facebook and Twitter to share all of our valuable life experiences. We use messengers like WhatsApp and WeChat to connect with each other. The price we pay to use these free networks is the agreement that all of our movements will be tracked and our data will be sold or exploited for profit - in someone else’s pocket. The Internet is now powered mostly by advertising, the purchasing power of user data in order to gain users' attention. This was the compromise we made when we decided the entire Internet should be provided for "free". Now, all of our contacts, connections and content are locked up in centralized services. One of my favorite TED talks describes it best: 

We cannot have a society in which, if two people wish to communicate, the only way that can happen is if it's financed by a third person who wishes to manipulate them. –Jaron Lanier (TED Talk

The Internet has gone through at least two notable iterations. We are now moving into Web 3.0 and I'm incredibly excited to be building tools to support the remaking of the Internet. The blockchain provides a better way.  It’s common sense.

I have found my life's purpose at the intersection of what I love to do, what I'm good at and what benefits society. It is my mission to help connect all the humans together to freely communicate and transact. I am the CEO and Co-Founder of ⚡SENSE, building decentralized messaging on the blockchain to realize the vision of a truly connected free world. 

Immutably yours,
@crystalrose

🦄Until the decentralized Internet evolves, you can still find me on Twitter.

👾Show some love, send a DM to my Ether wallet:  https://ether.dm/0xdc36f82fc3c6331975fb20c74d01b378f1d0eb78 

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Welcome to Steemit @crystalrose!

I wish you much success and hope you find Steemit to be as rewarding and informative as I have.

Yes, I love Crpto too! Lots of detailed analysis on my blog along with some predictions

Here are some links you might find useful.
Your stats on SteemNow
Your stats on SteemWorld
Your stats on SteemD
How does Steemit actually work?

Introbot is hosted and managed with donations from @byColeman to help make your journey on Steemit be truly rewarding. Your feedback is always welcome so that we may improve this welcome message.
Oh yea, I have upvoted you and followed you. Many blessings from @introbot & @bycoleman

Nice post, good to have you on the platform, your background will be a valuable resource.

Welcome Crystal :)
I think that STEEM can definitely offer the values you are looking for, so I guess you will enjoy it on here!!! Resteeming you for some publicity ;)
Greets, @theaustrianguy

Hello World evolving into a hash. Now that’s pretty clever. You have quite the tech history behind you and a long list of accomplishments.

One that particularly stands out to me is where you mentioned you started your first company and even college at 16! I thought I was cool for making programs in C# to sort my files onto my PSP at 16 but here you are building websites for people 😂

At any rate, welcome to Steem Crystal! Sounds like you belong here.

Thank you! Anyone who hacks their world to make something better is categorized as cool. That's the beginning for most great innovation. 🙌

Welcome on board mam . Its really special for ours community that you are here .Hope this community will be more informative with your values ....

I'm really digging the community vibe here. Thanks for the kind words 💜

Welcome to Steem. It wasn't too long ago I made my much belated post on the network. My values and goals align with yours and I began work on dlux.io. It's still in development but we've already demonstrated WebVR served from static files on IPFS, signed with your key/reputation, that have the ability to make state change on blockchain thru a slim API.. WebRTC enables real time social experiences... Make full featured posts from a boilerplate, then store on IPFS that we pin. Can't wait to see what the near future holds with so many like minded people pushing us forward. Open source forever!

Hello welcome to steemit!! it's really nice to have you here enjoy the platform and explore the community.....wish you all the best.

Welcome! It's a brave new world. More like "new" than "brave", but I guess you'll find out about this pretty soon. Just like life, Steemit can be unpredictable at times.

We crossed paths at the d10e conference in Bucharest a year ago, if I remember well. Enjoy your time here (and if you want to gauge your performance, like, you know, financially, have a look at http://steem.supply).

Nice to bump into you digitally. Thanks for sharing that link, very useful. Makes me want to add more steem to upvotes!

Welcome to steemit!!!

Welcome to Steemit. It's really a good platform for the nurturing authors and for the people who want to share their good work with the world. You'll surely have a nice time here. Lots of good wishes and good luck to you!! :):)

Warm greetings from Thailand @crystalrose! Great to see more and more women in tech signing up to Steemit. Looking forward to your future posts.

Wishing you all best as you start your Steemit journey and welcome aboard!

I signed up for Steemit and helped launch @sheos to get even more women on board! 💜