Hi! My name is Guillaume Cardinal aka @teamsteem. I'm a French Canadian Steemian. I'm 33 years old. I practice the non-aggression principal towards all sentient beings.

More About Me

• I joined Steem in May 2016
• I'm active daily since June 2016
• Steem witness since September 2016
• I'm currently top #33 witness
• I'm the top 34 most followed Steemian [link]
• I've learned about cryptocurrencies in July 2011
• I've received my first fraction of a Bitcoin in 2012
• I've read about cryptocurrencies daily since 2013
• I've learned about Steem from coinmarketcap.com
• For 6-7 years, I've listened to 20-40 hours a week of educational video, audiobooks, articles, etc.

I Don't Know What Brought You Here

There's an infinite amount of possibilities. Sometimes we act as if we knew everything.

- Jake Kotze

The Perfect Moment Is Now

I wish my actions and writings were perfect and would alleviate all the suffering there is in this world but then reality wouldn't be what it is. Everything that exist makes reality what it is and challenges and suffering are part of it.

Maybe someday we'll create a conscious super AI with which we all merge in a perfect symbiosis.

Maybe this conscious super AI comes to aggregate all existing matter* and the whole universe becomes conscious and omniscient but for now, life is pretty much a challenge, a challenge we should celebrate and we should all be okay with because such is life.

Just to clarify, I'm not sure merging with technology is a desirable thing.

*I know entropy would most probably prevent such a thing to happen among a myriad of other things.

My Vision

I work for a future where everything is done on a voluntary basis. This is a work in progress with no real end in sight. There would be no governments as we know them today. People would unite only under mutual agreements recorded on blockchains.

No forced taxation, no forced enrollment, no forced anything, unless someone is causing some serious prejudice to someone else.

Culpability will be determined by a trial where judges or juries would be chosen on a blockchain. Trials will be recorded on blockchains.

Everyone will be invited to record their life's ambitions on blockchains and everyone will be invited to vote for those with which they agree the most. This will facilitate cooperation between everyone.

There will be no copyrights laws as people realize those laws are slowing the evolution of humanity.

The Future Has Arrived — It's Just Not Evenly Distributed Yet

Because the efficiency of decentralized technologies are slowly making the use of national currencies obsolete and because all centralized form of governance and cooperation can be outperformed by decentralized one, I tend to think this is the future we're heading in.

In this future, human will still produce more than at any point in history but it will have become more profitable and easier to cooperate with one another than to cheat one another.

"We'll come to a point where no one dares to be a government official because they would be be excluded, because they would participating in the initiation of violence against others."

In this future, there will be enough for everyone's needs but not everyone's greed. Somethings just never change.

Steem Is First And Foremost A Code

Without passionate coders Steem wouldn't exist. Thank you to all the passionate coders! Your work is positively disrupting the social fabric!

https://github.com/steemit/steem

Steem

• is a store of value
• benefits all of its users
• is the fastest growing social media
• censorship-resistant
• allows real-time stake weighed voting on any matters
• still under the radar of most
• is constantly evolving
• is attracting top notch developers and content creators

Without Witnesses Steem Couldn't Operate

A Steem witness is a person who operates a witness server (which produces blocks), and publishes a price feed of STEEM/USD to the network. The servers compute every actions Steemians take and record them in blocks. New blocks are created every 3 seconds. There are 21 witness slots.

5 Most Important Aspects Of Being A Steem Witness

Vision

• Without vision Steem has no known purpose
• Promoting or working to fulfill our vision

The Steem Code

• Steem is an open software made of lines of code
• Steem development and management must be supported
• Steem is not only the code itself but also the whole environment
• Steem UI, SMTs, RPC nodes, Seed nodes, Steem wallets, Steem tools, etc.

The Basics Duties Of Being A Witness

• Running a witness node
• Maintaining a pricefeed
• Setting block size and account creation fee
• Running RPC nodes and seed nodes according to needs

Love, Hard Work And Steem Incentives

• Love: Without it nothing in life make sense
• Hard Work: Without it nothing can be achieve
• Incentives: They determine each of our actions

Trust

• Trust: Without it none of the above matter

What I Do To Fulfill Those Aspects

Vision

I continually refine and re-evaluate my vision and actions and publish about them. I make sure they're in line with how I feel.

The Steem Code

• I keep up-to-date with all Steemit Inc publications
• I keep up-to-date with the Steem and Steemit.com github
• I moderate the #steemdev tag everyday
• I support many Steem devs/coders throught upvotes, witness votes, brainstorming, SP delegations etc.

The Basics Duties Of Being A Witness

• I run a witness node on a 32GB dedicated server from @privex
• I run a backup witness node also from @privex
• I maintain my pricefeed using conductor developped by @furion
• I change block size and account creation fee when needed
• I haven't been running a seed anymore for 1-2 months but I'm currently looking to get one back up or finance one with another witness depending on needs
• As most witnesses I'm not running a RPC nodes but I'm open to financially help those who do. You're welcome to ask.

Love, Hard Work And Steem Incentives

Love

• Love guides me in everything I do. Without the love I'm receiving and I'm giving, I wouldn't be here.

Hard work

• I spend at least 40 hours a week on Steem. (I wouldn't want it otherwise.)
• I follow 1300+ Steemians among them the top 400+ largest STEEM holders
• I go through my feed everyday
• I've helped found the Minnow Support Project with @aggroed, @ausbitbank, @canadian-coconut and many others
• I help the Minnow Support Project everyday
• I'm on MSP Waves Radio almost every weeks [My latest appearance]
• I support the openmic contest by supporting @luzcypher and following the votes of the judges
• I support the rap challenge by @rondonson
• I help the MMORPG steempunk.net / @steempunknet
• I moderate the #vegan tag

Steem Incentives

• I constantly discuss and think about Steem's economics incentives
• I've invited Steemians to share their opinion on the current reward curve and ways it could be improved upon [link]
• I keep in touch with @patrice about the @spaminator project and anything related to abuse. [link]

Promoting Steem

• I've been promoting Steem on Twitter since December pretty much everyday with awesome results [@TeamSteemLive]
• I upvote and encourage every great effort from Steemians to promote Steem
• I support and mentor many influencers like @brianturner, @therusticvegan, @pressfortruth, etc.
• I support newcomers. (I upvoted more than 100 introduction post in 1 day with more than 1$ each.) [link] [link]
• Helping with Steemcamp.com

Trust

• My actions and convictions have been congruent with one another over time and thus I've shown myself to be trustworthy.

Other Achievements

I've created multiple posts giving in-depth explanation on how Steem works. The ones below are still very much up-to-date.

• Steem: An In-Depth Overview! - (Explains pretty much everything in layman's terms) [link]
• What Are Steem Witnesses [link]
• How To Create An Introduction Post [link]
• How To Use Steem - collections of tools [link]

I've written: "The Ultimate Steembook"

Introduction

Whenever we’re reading, we’re allowing someone to put words in our consciousness. We’re suspending our own thoughts to let someone else generate words that goes in our mind and influence or inspire us.

We’re focusing all of our attention on that part of the universe to the exclusion of the rest. That’s quite a statement coming from the reader as well as the writer. People strive for what’s best and I make sure to keep this in mind when I’m writing.

Inspiring others and letting others inspire us is at the very heart of who we are. Everything we do has an impact, let it be a positive one.

My Latest Series Speaks For Itself

1. What Truly Matters!
2. How National Currencies Are Created And Who They Profit
3. Cryptocurrencies: The Best Investments Of All Time
4. Understanding Bitcoin [if you know better let me know]
5. Understanding Bitcoin Cash
6. How To Buy And Secure Your First Bitcoin
7. Empower Everyone, Decentralize Everything!
8. Doing Away With Governments: How And Why
9. The Only Meaningful Measure Of Success Is Joy
10. Cryptocurrencies Stats And How To Invest
11. Steem: Where Money Talks And Kindness Rules!
12. Technological Abundance
13. In The Name Of Freedom

"Understanding Bitcoin" is a very excellent post to fundamentally understand of how Bitcoin works and cryptocurrencies in general.

5 Months Ago, In August 2017, I wrote

Today January 11, 2018

The market cap of cryptocurrencies have reached high of $829B and currently sits at $703B as the third largest "company" market cap in the world and around the 19th largest economy (M3) in the world.

Good money drives out bad money and I've giving many reasons as to why cryptocurrencies are currently driving out national currencies.

In May 2017, I Wrote

@finnian said "In The Name Of Freedom" Is His Favorite Post I've authored

Here's how it begins:

"If national currencies are so obviously created out of nothing for the sole benefit of a small elite at the expense of everyone else then why isn't there a more cohesive opposition to this system?"

My 2 Most Powerful Posts

They are for the most part collections of quotes by Dan Larimer the inventor of DPOS one of the main innovation which Steem is build upon. The first post is also my best performing tweet. Here's 2 excerpts.

Thank you Dan Larimer! You are a great mentor! [link]

"Going forward I hope to leverage the work here with Steem to build markets, insurance, mutual-aid societies, and justice systems that empower our community to disempower government. I believe that properly organized social pressures can be far more powerful than any standing army or government bureaucrat. Through blockchain technology we can organize ourselves and hopefully achieve our liberty."

"Only by working together can we maximize the life, liberty, and property for all. Resorting to violence is a shortcut that can only destroy life, liberty and property. I am honored that so many of you are here and helping me realize this dream."

Dan Larimer's quote predating Steem [link]

So I see this creating self reinforcing virtuous cycle where the more people that join and participate and start doing commerce entirely on a blockchain merchants and consumers never having to leave back to the fiat world.

Those start to see a growing snowball effect until it gets to a point where no one dares be a government official because they would be be excluded, because they would participating in the initiation of violence against others. So these things are possible.

Proof Of Positive Influence!

In a fair society our bank accounts would be a reflection of how much positive influence we had in the world. Today, people's banks account are more often than not, a reflection of how good they were at taking advantage of the system and those who partake in it.

Self-Preservation Vs Self-Sacrifice

Self-preservation should never be our life's sole guiding force but it should always be balanced out by the ultimate joy self-sacrifice can generate.

Life Is A Celebration

We can't change everything all at once, nor should we want to and sometimes we even fail to act upon our deepest convictions.

But let's not forget, everything and every thoughts, every pain and every joys, every challenges and succeses, every predators and pray, every matter and anti-matter makes up the great mystery we're all enjoying right now.

Let's choose cooperation and compassion!

And let's celebrate!

- Jake Kotze

Must See Video!

Published November 2017, hopefully it can inspire us to create a better world.

Minnow Support Project

This post is my witness application post for the Minnow Support Project. Learn more about it here. To answer the 3 main questions there, I'll continue to do what I did and work to improve on it.

Approving My Witness!

Everyone has 30 witness votes. These vote can be changed at any moment.
I read all comments and appreciate them all, except the spam obviously!
Thank you to @michaelcj, @Jacobite and his team for the witness gif!
Thank you for reading and for commenting!

Steem's Growth Is Rocketing!

Yesterday

Today

Good To Know

• _{I use Markdown Pad (free version) to create my posts.}
• _{How to align pictures.}

The Chats!

• _{Official Steemit.chat}
• _{Peace, Abundance, Liberty (Minnow Support Project)}
• _{SteemSpeak.com @fyrstikken @fyrst-witness (24h/7 Voice chat)}

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